Michiel and Jeen

Orecchiette alla Barese

26 October 2023

A traditional dish from the city of Bari in Puglia, Italy. The main ingredients are orecchiette and rapini.
Orecchiette is an ear shaped pasta, typical for this region. Its surface is a bit rough, and the centre (the dent) is thinner than the edge. Its shape makes it ideal for a sauce with structure.
Rapini (Cime di rapa) will no doubt make you think of broccoli, which is not our favourite vegetable. Rapini has more bitterness and character. It is completely edible, including the stem and the leaves. If broccoli is about the florets, rapini is about the stem. If your greengrocer doesn’t sell rapini, then feel free to go for bimi or broccoli and make sure to add bitterness (we added one anchovy to the sauce).
As more often with traditional dishes, it’s not completely clear what the other ingredients are. Anchovies? Italian Sausage? Breadcrumbs? Peccorini? Tomatoes? Garlic?

Wine Pairing

A wine from Puglia will of course combine very well with this dish. Red wines in this region are made from the primitivo grape (also known as zinfandel). In general the wines are fuller bodied, with some acidity, good structure and lots of sunny flavours (blackberries, perhaps chocolate).

What You Need

200 grams of Rapini
150 grams of Italian Sausage
¼ teaspoon Chilli Flakes
Orecchiette
One Anchovy
Parmesan Cheese
Olive Oil

What You Do

Steam or blanch the rapini
Drain and chop (1 centimeter or inch pieces is fine)
Heat a pan, add some olive oil and the sausage meat
Fry until nicely brown
Remove the meat from the pan
Add some oil and the anchovy
Cook on low heat until the anchovy dissolves (a fork may be useful)
Add the orecchiette to a pan with boiling water and cook until al dente
In parallel prepare the sauce by adding the meat, the chilli flakes, and the vegetables to the pan with the anchovy. Mix
Happy with the sauce?
Remove the pasta from the water and transfer to the sauce. Combine. You may need to add some cooking liquid to the pan.
We served our orecchiette with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese (optional) on warm plates.

Mushroom Season

19 October 2023

So far this year’s mushroom season has been great with lots of delicious Cèpes, Bay Boletes, Birch Boletes and Chanterelles. This Saturday we bought a very tasty autumn Truffle and a day earlier we treated ourselves to Matsu Take. Such a special mushroom. We’re waiting for the Saffron Milk Cap, Spain’s favourite mushroom, and the Caesar’s mushroom, a mushroom much appreciated in Italy.

Since it’s a great year for the Bay Bolete, we thought it would be nice to share some recipes with this mushroom. Its taste is similar to that of the Cèpes or Penny Bun. Perhaps more intense?

Pâté en Croûte

A few years ago we celebrated the mushroom season by preparing a Pâté with bay boletes. The combination of a crispy crust, a structured, colourful filling and various flavours is always a pleasure. It’s good fun to think about the ingredients, work on the construction and enjoy the wonderful aromas from your oven while baking the pâté. And the joy when slicing it: is the pâté as beautiful as you expected it to be?

A red, medium bodied wine will be a great accompaniment of this Pâté en Croûte. In general you’re looking for a red wine with aromas of black fruit, floral notes and delicate wood. The tannins should be soft or well-integrated. We enjoyed a glass of Pinot Noir from La Cour Des Dames.

Sauce

Earlier this year we prepared a rich sauce with bay boletes, sage, mustard en crème fraîche. We served the sauce with excelltn veal rib eye and turnip cabbage. The turnip brings frsshness and lightness to the dish, creating a lovely balance.
A fruity, slightly chilled red wine will be great with the dish. We opened a bottle of German Spätburgunder from the Pfalz area. Some dark fruit, strawberries, touch of earthiness, not too complex. One that supported the flavours and aromas of the dish very well.

Guineafowl

Bay boletes combine very well with guineafowl. The meat is leaner, somewhat darker and more flavourful compared to chicken. It is not difficult to prepare, but due to the low-fat content you must be careful not to overcook. In this recipe we use guineafowl supreme (the breast fillet with the skin on plus the wing bone), rosemary, thyme, pancetta and garlic.
Enjoy with a glass of Chiroubles, a cru from the Beaujolais, produced by Domaine Montangeron. The wine has floral notes, aromas of cherries and strawberries. Its colour is pale ruby. Rich, elegant and long. It brings freshness and fruitiness to the dish and is sufficiently complex to remain present when enjoying the guineafowl and the bay bolete.
In general you’re looking for a red wine with freshness, fruity aromas and complexity. Perhaps a Pinot Noir?

More recipes on our website dedicated to mushrooms.

Summer Truffle - Rippitippi / Public domain

Pear and Chocolate Pie

12 October 2023

A few weeks ago, we were very pleased to win the Great Bloggers Bake Off award in the pie-category with a Pear and Almond Pie. A delicious, uplifting combination that works very well thanks to the crème fraîche and the calvados. The Bake Off is organised by A Jeanne in the Kitchen.

Pear and chocolate is a match made in heaven, that’s why we decided to make a Pear and Chocolate Pie. The result is a rich, intense flavoured pie. A small slice with an espresso will make for a very nice dessert.

What You Need

Dough
- 50 grams White Caster Sugar
- 100 grams soft Butter
- ½ teaspoon grated Lemon Peel
- Pinch of Salt
- ½ Egg
- 3 grams Baking Powder
- 150 grams All Purpose Flour
Almond Paste
- 225 grams of White Caster Sugar
- 250 grams of Almond Flour
- One Egg
- Lemon zest
Filling
- 200 grams Chocolate
- 50 grams Double Cream
- 50 grams Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1 Egg Yolk
- Pears, preferably Doyenné du Comice (or Conference)
Decoration
- Whipped Cream
- Cinnamon Powder

What You Do

Start by making the Dough. Beat the egg. Combine sugar and butter until smooth. Add Lemon zest and salt. Mix. Add the egg. Mix. Combine baking powder and flour. Pass through a sieve and add to the mixture. Best is to use a kitchen mixer with kneading hooks. Wrap in foil and transfer to the refrigerator for at least two hours. The dough freezes well so not a problem if you’ve made too much.

Now make the Almond Paste. Combine almond flour and sugar. Add one beaten egg and (optional) lemon zest. Mix until you have a paste. Keeps well in the refrigerator for a week and in the freezer for months. You could also use 250 grams of white almonds. Grind these and continue as if almond flour. In this case you need half the quantity (or less).

Preheat the oven to 180 °C or 355 °F. Coat your pie tin with butter (we used a 15 cm, 6 inch tin). Roll out the dough, it should be 5 mm (0.20 inch). Line the tin with the dough. Don’t worry if the dough breaks; it’s easy to repair. Remove the excess dough. Line with aluminium foil or parchment paper, add baking beans and bake the pie blind for 15 minutes.

When the pie is in the oven, it’s time to make the Filling. We used cooking chocolate, that makes life a lot easier. Add the broken chocolate to the cream and melt gently in the microwave (set to low power) or au bain-marie. Add sugar. Allow to cool. Lukewarm is fine. Beat the egg.

Use almond paste to make a thin layer on the bottom of the pie. Take half of the chocolate mixture and (using a spatula) add a layer of chocolate on top of the almond paste. Add the egg to the remaining chocolate, mix well and make a third layer. Peel the pears, quarter and push the pears into the mixture. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes (depending on the pears and the mixture).
Allow to cool and then remove from the tin.

Bistro Cooking

5 October 2023

Recently we reviewed Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells as part of the ongoing cookbook review project by Bernadette. The book made us think about a lunch we enjoyed years ago in Paris. It was a nice small bistro in a small street, off centre, 15^th arrondissement, nothing fancy and not a Michelin star in sight. We entered the restaurant and ordered today’s dish, the plat du jour. It turned out to be a generous helping of lentils with two fried sausages, mashed potatoes and mustard. A beer worked beautifully with it. After having enjoyed our lunch, we talked about the joy of good food, French mustard and the beauty of lentils. Time for coffee.

It’s the kind of dish you would expect in a book called Bistro Cooking by. In the book we found two recipes with lentils, one salad and one soup with smoked sausages, the delicious Montbéliard.

Salad

When going through the index we spotted a recipe for a salad with squid, tomatoes, thyme and red wine vinegar. Unfortunately, our fish monger is on holiday, so we had to use pre-cooked octopus as an alternative. The salad is colourful, tasty and uplifting. A great starter, especially when enjoyed with a glass of rosé.

Flo

For many years Brasserie Flo was not only the name of an excellent brasserie in Paris, it was also a chain of restaurants in Nice, Metz, Barcelona and of course Paris (Julien, Terminus Nord, La Coupole and many more). In 2018 the original Brasserie Flo was renamed Floderer, after one of its founders.

One of the recipes in Bistro Cooking is called Brasserie Flo’s Roast Duck. The name caught our attention and we decided to prepare it. The main ingredient is a whole duck, roasted in the oven. A bit too much for the two of us so we decided to combine the vegetable sauce with pan fried breast of duck. We expected the sauce to be fairly simple (tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, Herbes de Provence) but the result was delicious and a great accompaniment of the duck.

Patricia Wells serves her duck with a glass of Julienas, a cru from the Beaujolais. Very good choice. We opened a bottle of Gamay made by Domaine La Tour Beaumont from the Loire region.

The Book

Bistro Cooking includes pictures of typical Bistro scenes showing waiters serving food, people reading their paper and enjoying a small coffee or guests sitting on a small terrace drinking an aperitif while chatting with friends. The pictures illustrate the typical bistro atmosphere and show France like it was and sometimes, if you’re lucky, still is.
All recipes benefit from a nice introduction, discussing the origin of the recipe or one of the ingredients.

Both recipes can be found on Bernadette’s New Classic Recipe.

Bistro cooking is available via your local bookstore or the usual channels for 25 Euro or US dollar.

Bay Boletes with Veal and Sage

28 September 2023

We continue celebrating the season: we create a rich sauce with Bay Bolete, Mustard, Sage and Crème Fraîche and combine it with excellent veal. The sweetness of both the sauce and the veal makes for an delicious combination. The aromatic sage brings length and depth to the dish.

It’s not always clear what umami is, but trust us, when you taste this dish, you will taste it. Meaty, deep and savoury. A very powerful and intense dish.

The taste of the Bay Bolete (Imleria badia, Bolet Bai, Kastanjeboleet, Maronen-Röhrling, Boleto Bayo) is similar to that of the Cèpes or Penny Bun. Perhaps the taste is more intense? In most cases you must discard the stem of the bay bolete because it’s not soft (and it will remain chewy when cooked), different from the stem of the cèpes. The colour of the cap is dark brown, like a chestnut.

Wine Pairing

A fruity, slightly chilled red wine will be great with the dish. We opened a bottle of German Spätburgunder from the Pfalz area. Some dark fruit, strawberries, touch of earthiness, not too complex. One that supported the flavours and aromas of the dish very well.