Category: all year

Panna Cotta

29 January 2018

Such a lovely and simple dessert! Provided of course it’s made the right way. So no milk, no yoghurt, no cream cheese, no whipped cream and most certainly no whipped egg white! Just cream. Cooked Cream. And preferably cream with lots of fat because then you will need less gelatine.
You can serve the panna cotta after a few hours (or the next day) with a rich strawberry or raspberry sauce, but we prefer to enjoy the panna cotta with a bit of candied orange zest, simply because we want to balance the sweetness and richness of the panna cotta with the acidity and bitterness of the orange. Home made is preferred, see the recipe for an Orange Flan.

What You Need (For 4)

  • 500 ml fresh Cream
  • 3,5 leaves of Gelatine (5,25 grams)
  • 1 Vanilla Bean
  • 25 gram Sugar
  • Candied Orange

What You Do

The recipe is for 4 panna cotta (actually should we say 4 panne cotte).
Slowly bring the cream to the boil. Add the seeds of the vanilla but also add the remainder of the bean. Now keep close to boiling for 15 minutes. Stir when necessary. Remove from the heat and while stirring add the sugar until totally resolved. Now pass through a sieve to make sure you remove all the bits you don’t want. Follow the instruction of the gelatine and add the leaves. Stir well until homogeneous. Cool the liquid somewhat before filling the forms. We used a silicone mold. Nice and easy! The only thing you need to do is to make the mold a bit moist with water. Let the panna cotta cool and then store in the refrigerator until set. Don’t forget to seal with cling foil, otherwise your panna cotta will absorb aromas from other food in the refrigerator.

Panna Cotta © cadwu
Panna Cotta © cadwu

Omelet with Oyster Mushrooms and Nasturtium

26 January 2018

Try This at Home

Oyster mushrooms were among the first mushrooms to be cultivated. They grow very well on straw so great to grow at home. See pictures!
The vast majority of oyster mushrooms are grey, but we have seen and tasted the yellow and sensational pink oyster mushroom. Since you can eat oyster mushrooms raw, the pink and yellow variety is great in a salad. Oyster mushrooms can be a bit watery, which impacts the taste. A pity because the taste is delicate and soft anyway. Not a mushroom to combine with more powerful mushrooms like shiitake. Oyster mushrooms cook quickly, so great to use in a stir-fry or a soup. You can try using them in a stew, but make sure your chunks are not too small.

Wine pairing

A crisp, floral white wine goes very well with this omelet. Best would be a Pinot Grigio or a combination of Chardonnay and Viognier.

What You Need

  • 250 grams Oyster mushroom
  • 3 Eggs
  • 1 Spring Onion
  • Butter
  • Olive Oil
  • Black Pepper
  • Chives
  • Nasturtium

What You Do

Harvest your oyster mushrooms or buy really fresh and tasty ones. Tear the mushroom into smaller but not too small chunks. Slice the spring onion in small rings. Fry the oyster mushrooms in olive oil and butter for 3 minutes or so until slightly cooked. Add the white of the spring onion. Perhaps you want to add some butter to the pan. Now make sure the pan is nice and hot. Whisk the eggs well, add the green of the spring onion and add to the pan. After a few seconds reduce the heat to very low and wait 5 to 10 minutes until the egg is nearly set. Take your time but keep an eye on the surface and the consistency. Check with your fingers if the omelet is beginning to set. A good omelet must be baveuse so Timing is All. There is no alternative to baveuse!
Serve the omelet on warm dishes with black pepper, chives and nasturtium (not just for fun, also for the peppery taste of the nasturtium leaves).

Omelet with Oyster Mushrooms © cadwu
Oyster mushrooms on the bag with mycelium © cadwu
Harvesting oyster mushrooms © cadwu
Cutting oyster mushrooms © cadwu
Preparing omelet with Oyster Mushrooms © cadwu

Guineafowl with Morels and Gnocchi

22 January 2018

Guineafowl

Preparing guineafowl can be a bit of a challenge. Easily overcooked and easily prepared the wrong way. Given its size you could think it should be prepared like chicken but that’s not the case. Compare chicken with guineafowl and notice the difference: the meat of a guineafowl has much more structure, it’s fatter and firmer.
Cooking quineafowl requires some liquid (oil, butter, wine, stock) but not too much. Cooked like coq au vin it’s a disaster. Spit-roasted guineafowl? Not a good idea.

In The River Cafe Classic Italian Cookbook (written by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers) you will find a great recipe of guineafowl with grappa, junipers, white wine and pancetta. The combination of grappa and junipers is amazing and the idea to have these two support the guinea fowl is simply stunning. The combination emphasises the wild and nutty taste of the guinegowl. Buy the book and start cooking!

Dried mushrooms: expensive and actually not very tasty. Not even close to the real thing. With the exception of dried morels: these are as tasty as fresh ones.
Also important: unlike most mushrooms, morels are to be found (and bought) in Spring. So the best season to cook this dish is in Spring, but given dried morels are equally tasty, it doesn’t really matter.

Wine Pairing

We enjoyed our guineafowl with a glass of Bergerac, La Vaure, 2015. This is a full-bodied wine with a hint of oak, red fruits and great flavours overall. Made from Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. A mature Bergerac with a lasting taste.

What You Need

  • 2 legs of Guineafowl
  • 10 gram of dried Morels
  • Butter
  • Olive Oil
  • Chicken Stock
  • Mustard
  • Cream
  • Black Pepper
  • Gnocchi

What You Do

Pre-heat the oven to 180 ˚Celsius. Add the two legs of guinea fowl to a shallow dish with butter and olive oil. Cook for 10 minutes. In the mean time add the morels to hot water. Soak for 15 minutes. Turn the legs upside down after 10 minutes. Cook for another 10 minutes. Turn them a second time, skin up. Add the morels to the dish, leaving the skin free. In parallel start preparing the sauce using chicken stock and some morel-water, but not too much. Taste the water before adding. The legs should be ready after 30 minutes. Add the cooking juices to the sauce, grill the legs quickly if the skin is not yet nicely coloured and keep the morels warm. Add mustard and pepper to the sauce, stir well, add some cream and allow to heat through and through for 5 minutes. Taste the sauce and if necessary add more mustard or morel-water.
Serve with gnocchi.

 

Dried Morels © cadwu
Guineafowl © cadwu
Soaked Morels © cadwu
Guineafowl with Morels and Gnocchi © cadwu

Salad of Oyster Mushrooms, Pancetta and Chives

20 January 2018

The Challenges of Oyster Mushrooms

Finally! After weeks of patience you’ve just harvested your home grown Oyster Mushrooms. Or for those among us with less patience: you’ve just bought some A+ Oyster Mushrooms.
Let’s discuss some misunderstandings about oyster mushrooms.
First of all, yes, they can be eaten raw (especially the pink and yellow variety), but as always with mushrooms, some people simply don’t agree with them. Cooking is a way of removing the toxic element.
Second aspect, oyster mushrooms do have a taste of their own. It’s delicate and it combines really well with eggs, chives and pancetta, but mind the balance.
And finally, they are (indeed) a bit soggy. So don’t try to fry them and don’t use them in a sauce where you want a certain consistency. Use this aspect of the oyster mushroom, don’t fight it.

This recipe is clearly inspired by the wonderful salade paysanne, which is a combination of ingredients such as mesclun, egg, bacon, potatoes, oil and vinegar. (and never pine nuts, balsamic vinegar, tomatoes and mayonnaise).

Wine Pairing

You can serve the salad as a lunch with a glass of Pinot Grigio or a nice rosé from the Provence region, but why not be a bit bold and serve it with a red wine? Our suggestion would be a Pinot Noir or a Beaujolais Cru (so not nouveau or village).

What You Need

  • Oyster Mushrooms
  • Mesclun
  • Pancetta
  • Quail Eggs
  • Olive Oil
  • Butter
  • Chives
  • Black Pepper

What You Do

Tear the oyster mushrooms into smaller bits, following the lamellae. Don’t use a knife. Make sure the mesclun is ready to eat. Cut the pancetta into smaller bits. Don’t use bacon because the saltiness of the bacon will overpower the mushrooms.
In parallel gently fry the oyster mushrooms in olive oil and butter, just to give them warmth and allow for the taste to develop. Remove from the pan and set aside, preferable on a warm plate. In a second skillet fry the pancetta in olive oil. Add olive oil and white wine vinegar to the remaining juices of the oyster mushroom and create a warm vinaigrette. This way you capture the juices and taste of the mushrooms. In a third pan cook the quail eggs until just set. When using fresh chicken eggs cook them until runny or even better, poach the eggs. We prefer using quail eggs given the size of the salad and the more present taste of the quail eggs.
Create the salad by tossing the mesclun, pancetta, chives, black pepper and half of the mushrooms with the vinaigrette. Serve with the other half of the mushrooms on top of the salad, sprinkle some chives on top. Serve with crusted bread.

 

Oyster mushrooms on the bag with mycelium © cadwu
Salad with Oyster Mushrooms and Pancetta © cadwu

Londonderry Soup

19 January 2018

Sunday afternoon, my mother in the kitchen, asking us what we would like to eat as a starter. Would we like vegetable soup with broken vermicelli or Londonderry soup? My favourite! Londonderry soup! Monday meant school but Sunday was all about Londonderry Soup!
My mother seemed less keen to prepare Londonderry soup because, depending on the chili and the curry, it could be too spicy to her taste. The vegetable soup was more predictable.
As always in life, things change. I moved to another city, she became less interested in cooking and so here we are today: I haven’t tasted the soup for years. Time to start cooking.
The Londonderry soup I tasted as a child seems to be a Dutch and Belgium phenomenon. And a rather undefined one. Some use veal stock, others chicken. Some add mushrooms, others rice. Also used are chili, sambal, cayenne pepper, parsley, egg, meat balls et cetera. And to make things even more confusing, in the UK it’s known as a pea soup. Which is not at all what my mother used to prepare. Plus no-one seems to know what the origin is of the name.
So we decided to follow the recipe my mother included in her ‘kookschrift’, which is a notebook with recipes she learned as a young woman.

What You Need

  • Light Stock (Veal or Chicken)
  • A Shallot
  • Curry Powder
  • Chili
  • Equal amount of Flower and Butter
  • Button Mushrooms
  • Single Cream

What You Do

  1. Start by glazing the chopped shallot in butter
  2. Add the chili (my mother used 4 small slices, but feel free to use more!) and the curry powder
  3. The curry powder should be spicy and powerful
  4. Make sure the curry is fried, allowing for the flavors to develop
  5. Add the flour and start making a roux
  6. Add the warm stock, step by step, take your time, and create the soup
  7. Leave it for 15 minutes to integrate
  8. In parallel gently fry the very small mushrooms (so called button mushrooms)
  9. Pass the soup through a sieve
  10. Use a spoon to capture all the flavors of the shallot and the chili
  11. The soup should be completely smooth
  12. Now things become unclear in my mother’s recipe. She suggests adding white wine just before serving (which will add acidity plus the taste of alcohol which is not great) or single milk or cream. Milk will only weaken the taste of the curry. Cream however will give a velvety mouthfeel when tasting the soup, which is great in combination with the spicy curry. So we added a touch of single cream
  13. Leave the soup for 5 minutes on low heat, allowing for the cream to cook
  14. Just before serving add the gently colored button mushrooms

Thanks Mum!

Londonderry Soup © cadwu
My mother's recipe for Londonderry soup © cadwu
Ingredients of Londonderry Soup © cadwu

Garlic

5 January 2018

A recipe for garlic? Yes, indeed. The taste of fresh, crunched garlic is nice, but you can do so much better! If cooked on relativly low heat, the garlic will become soft and sweet. Great to add to a sauce and also very nice on toasted bread.

What You Need 
  • Garlic
  • Plenty of Olive oil
What You Do
  1. Remove the top of the garlic, allowing you to see the individual cloves, but not more than that.
  2. Put the garlic as one bowl in a ramekin, sprinkle with plenty of oil and cover with aluminum foil.
  3. Or wrap the garlic in aluminium foil
  4. Put in an oven for 50 – 60 minutes on 150° C or 300 °F.
  5. Remove from the oven and let cool
  6. Gently open the package and peel the garlic.
  7. If all is well you will now have cooked garlic cloves.
  8. Put in a small jar and cover with oil.
  9. Store in the fridge.

garlic ready for storage
Garlic ready for storage © cadwu