Mussels are here!

Yup, it's that time of the year. Since last Friday, Zeeuwse mosselen are here. So today four generations of Domestic Demi-Goddesses took themselves to Sint-Anneke (across the river) for a pot of Dutch mussels and French Fries. A very typical Belgian meal, right?

Delicious! Just what the doctor ordered after last night's capers (on which more in the next post).

It's really easy to make (and usually we do make this at home, but the first pot of mussels is always eaten in a restaurant in our family, go figure). Clean the mussels, remove the beards, toss out the closed ones. Heat some wine and onion and other assorted herbs depending on the tastes of your guests in a huge pot, let simmer and then add an equivalent amount of water. Bung in the mussels. Cook on high until all the mussels are open. Try to lay your hands on some French fries (in our house, this involves a timed bike ride over to the chips shop to coincide with the open mussels on the table). Mix some mustard and mayonaise for the dip. Serve, eat, and make sure you puzzle around as much as you can with the mussel shells to ensure they all fit in the cover of your pot. Seconds are a scandal; you will fail the 'anal retentive family member' test.


And behold, a pot of mussels. Comes highly recommended. Enjoy!

quick fix recipe: courgette, blue cheese and pea frittata

Courtesy of my significant other half:

Cook 350 g potatoes in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and slice thinly.

Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a nonstick ovenproof frying pan. Add 1 chopped onion and 1 chopped garlic clove and fry.

Then add 2 courgettes, thinly sliced of course. Cook until the whole caboodle is nice and golden.

Preheat your grill for the frittata effect to high.

Beat 6 large (organic, free-range) eggs to a pulp and stir in the potatoes, 100 g of steamed peas (fresh of course, podded by yours truly), some blue cheese (crumbled, if you can lay your hands on some Dolcelatte go for it) and a handful of fresh mint (from our terrace garden).

Wipe the frying pan clean, put on medium heat and toss in the egg soup.

Cook until you have something that resembles the beginnings of an omelette (i.e. until it is set).

Then get out those oven gloves and place under the bleeding hot grill for say 5 minutes, or until it is nice and golden. The aromas will make you ravenous.

Make sure to toss in a foccaccia or anything else of the breaded variety into your oven beforehand, as a side.
You can serve this with a green salad, but we didn't feel like it.

Serve on some tacky pink plates like the ones below (which I do own and no, I'm not ashamed to admit it, they match the pink pillows on our patio) and enjoy some al fresco dining.
Will feed four hungry souls.
Throw in a nice mild Rueda if you really feel like getting plastered.
And don't forget to order some evening sun.
Dinner is served.

Quick fix: deeply chocolate brownies by Nigel Slater

Nigel, Nigella... what's the difference when chocolate is involved?

Following Suburban Mum's post on Nigel Slater's brownies, the domestic demi-goddess, in true form, rose to the challenge.

Deeply dark chocolate bliss on a dish.

I know what I will be eating for dessert tonight. Maybe with some double cream or some vanilla ice?


Some remarks:
- photo taken by webcam
- I used cane sugar instead of caster sugar
- our cocoa and dark chocolate might be somewhat higher in cocoa content, which explains the dark colour.
- they are very moist, because I fiddled with the recipe a bit at the beginning

The Domestic Demi-Goddess strikes again: chocolate orange cake

The mothership (since that's what I call myself these days) volunteered for cake duty on grandparents day next week at school, conveniently forgetting that this would also require some baking.

Did a test drive today on a chocolate orange cake by Nigella Lawson. My undying loyalty continues.

What a bunch of eggs, ground almonds, sugar, oranges, cocoa, baking powder, butter and bicarbonate won't create. It tastes good too. Gluten-free. At least I won't be poisoning anybody.

Right out of the oven:


The finished product:

I'm still considering something ganache-like to steep it in, but I think I'll leave it at this for the moment.

Monday evening quick-fix: coq au riesling

The Domestic Goddess strikes again, conquering my heart and innards with an express coq au Riesling. This white wine is historically from Germany, but is also grown in the Alsace region in France (where this dish takes its inspiration from: coq au vin). I'll be honest with you: Riesling ranks somewhere up there with Zinfandel in the list of wines to beeline with a vengeance.

As I remember it, because the wine has since clouded my mind.

Take some garlic infused oil (make ahead, bung chopped garlic in some good olive oil) and heat in a flat but large pan.
Toss in some 70 g of lardons (bacon strips in plain English).
Fry until crispy.
In the meantime chop a leek finely.
Toss in with the bacon once fried to a crisp, until soft.
Find yourself a kind butcher who will debone and skin 6/7 chicken thighs for you.
Cut these thighs in 3 and toss in.
Add 1 large bay leaf.
Rip up 150 g of oyster mushrooms.
Pour in half a bottle of Riesling. Drink the rest while waiting for your meal to be ready.
Season to taste with freshly ground pepper and a pinch of good Maldon salt.
Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat.
Cover and let simmer for approx. 30/40 mins until the chicken is succulent and tender.
Eat the next day. Reheat and add some double cream, if you've got this artery clogging delicacy (from Jersey cows of course) hanging around your fridge.

If you're like me, and you didn't think of an alternative for dinner, have it the same evening. Top off with some nidi (yellow tagliatelle tossed in butter just before serving).

Pass out on sofa and leave SO to take care of the dishes.

Thank you, Nigella!

Sunday night quick fix: a little bit of this and a little bit of that

Tonight's dinner was a bit of Express and a bit of Ramsay... and the two blended seamlessly.

Cauliflower-broccoli gratin
Blanch 1 mini cauliflower and 1 mini broccoli
Slosh some oil around an oven dish (you can also use butter)
Mix two egg yolks and 200 ml of crême fraîche or double cream.
Add salt and pepper.
Pour over veggies, mix, ensure all is coated.
Sprinkle layer of finely grated parmigiano, gruyère, etc. until you no longer see the veggies.
Bung in oven for 10 minutes or until fully golden on top (you can also use the grill, but keep your eagle eye trained on the crust)

Mustard pork chops
Heat some garlic oil in a heavy skillet
Fry the pork chops for 5 mins on each side
Set aside on a warm plate
Deglaze your pan with 250 cc of good apple cider (for those of you who live in Belgium or the Netherlands, Appelaere will do the trick and has great taste).
Add 1 tablespoon of moutarde à l'ancienne
Add 125 cc of crême fraîche
Keep stirring until you have a nice not too thick sauce

Serve with some rosemary and butter jacket new potatoes.

Dessert: I used the left-over egg-whites to make a mini clementine pavlova. Oh, those dieting days are so nigh.
As you can guess, I'm still the A-list endorser of a heart-attack on a plate. Ah heck, you only live once.

sunday night quick fix - macrobiotic prison gruel

Risotto with zucchini and cashews

Peel and slice/dice
1 large onion
2 celery stalks
1 zucchini (you can leave the peel on this one if you wish)

Chop a handful of flat-leaf parsley

Ground some coriander in a mortar and pestle

Heat up 500-1 l of vegetable stock

Heat some oil and butter in a large saucepan
Add the celery and onion
Make sure it doesn't catch, while cooking for 5 mins.

Add some carnaroli rice
Add the zucchini

Start ladling in the stock, and stir... and keep stirring while you add ladle after ladle of stock.

Towards the end, when the rice is 'al dente', drop 150 g of cashews in a pan, and heat them (make sure they aren't burnt), until the oil in the nuts is released. Remove from hob.

Add the coriander and the cashews to the risotto when the rice is to your liking. Stir and add salt and pepper if needed.

Spoon into bowls, adding some parsley.

Et voilà, you have tonight's healthy dinner following the Temple Food approach. Be nice to your body, feed it all the good nutrients, and treat it with love.

Pomegranate icecream from Nigella Express

It's winter and I don't know what I was thinking. Except maybe, that it is also the season of all things red, especially that luscious fruit straight out of the Garden of Eden, known as the pomegranate.

In recent years, this fruit has become somewhat of a fad, with marketing muppets peddling it left and right in various guises... Great antioxidant juice, etc. My mother loves to eat it alongside baklava, which she buys from the Moroccan and Turkish bakers in our outpost of the city.

My beady eye had spied a box of glowing garnet pomegranates outside the Pakistani grocer's off our main drag. The huge globes bore a promise of delicious juice. I obviously continue to worship at the altar of that domestic goddess, Nigella. So when I found the recipe for pomegranate ice-cream with double cream, my palate took over, ignoring the warning sign in my head, which said 48% fat equals coronary and cholesterol.

Easy to make, this pale pink gelato is heaven in a bowl. So if you're looking for an easy dessert, then look no further. This is it.

Buttermilk chicken by Nigella Lawson

The domestic demi-goddess has conquered another hurdle on the path to goddishness. I've spatchcocked my first chicken. It felt like playing 'operation' all over again... I'll admit to being squeamish about anything that involves cutting through bones, delving into innards, etc. As you can see, I would have failed miserably in the butcher's business.

But voilà: two spatchcocked chickens are now comfortably resting in their olive oil-garlic-maple syrup-maldon salt-crushed black peppercorns-buttermilk and rosemary marinade thanks to Nigella Lawson. Hopefully they will provide a bunch of hungry lunch guests with a good lunch in combination with some butternut squash and cinnamon mash (it's the light version of the Thanksgiving turkey fiesta, as Turkey Day is X-mas here and our poor turkey is still being raised somewhere in the green pastures of Ireland).

Will report back on the outcome of this extravaganza. But as for preparation, this is an easy one.

Update 1: have had to wash my hands three times already since I keep on smelling olive oil on my wrists, every time I lift my cup of coffee (did you know by the way that vanilla syrup is an excellent way to agrement a dull coffee?).

Update 2: they loved it. Only one drumstick left. The chooks were devoured in no time at all. The meat was moist and succulent, the skin fried to a perfect crisp; the buttermilk was in fact hardly discernible, while the maple came through, as well as the garlic, pepper and rosemary. Definitely a recommend here!

Quick fix - carrots/oranges/sesame seeds with salmon

Easy and tasty fix, especially now that autumn is upon us.

Ingredients:
salmon fillets, skin left on (marinade according to taste, my so does a marvellous soy marinade, which leaves me asking for more), fry to your liking

carrots (300g or more)
ginger (5cm, shredded)
1/2 oranges
3 tbsps of cooking oil
3 tbsps of water
sesame seeds
1 tbsp of honey

- scrape the carrots and slice thinly at an angle
- heat up oil in a wok, add ginger, let simmer until the ginger aroma fills the kitchen
- add carrots, cook for 2 minutes with the ginger
- add water, let cook for 5/10 minutes
- slice oranges and add to wok
- add honey
- roast sesame seeds and sprinkle over the carrots and oranges

Such a sunny and colourful meal for those dark autumn days.

Sunday evening quick fix - Rice pilaf à la Lula

Ingredients: 300 g rice
1 onion, chopped
1 tin of tomatoes, cubes or other, 400 g
1 tsp of ground cumin
1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder
1 eggplant, diced
8 dried apricots, chopped up
500 cl of vegetable stock

Dice the eggplant. Cover in salt, let sit until all liquid absorbed.
Chop onion, fry in some sunflower oil for 1 minute.
Add rice, stir until glazed.
Add tomatoes.
Add cumin, cinnamon, apricots and vegetable stock.
Let simmer for 15 mins.

Don't forget about the eggplant. Heat some sunflower oil and stir-fry the diced eggplant.

Serve with lamb or chicken.

PS - as I am writing this, I am pondering whether I should add some pistachios next time.