Fun in the Kitchen

It looks like I'm multitasking this week. Christina at had this wonderful real German Cuisine recipe challenge I simply could not resist. She wants us to mess experiment with German cuisine and asked us to ruin prepare Rahmgulash this week, a creamy veal goulash. In Belgium we call it Hungarian Goulash.
I really don't know why, but I have never made Goulash before in my life, so I promised her I would participate. And then I remembered I had signed up for Fun Monday as well!

But given the fact that both challenges happen in my kitchen ... I'm doing them both!



Ari is our host for today, and this is what she wants to know:

It's time for show and tell. What does your kitchen counter look like right now? (And no fair cleaning just for the picture!) Do you have any favourite or unusual items on your counter?

Now, all of you nosy sweet Fun Monday people who want to know what mess I made while doing this awesome recipe what my kitchen counter looks like, you'll better scroll down. Now GO! Shoosh!
But ... it would be such a pity to miss out on such a delicious recipe, don't you think?

So here's the recipe:

By the way, you can click to enlarge any of the collages, okay?


You'll need:
2 1/2 large mild onions.
2 cans of peeled tomatoes
3 tablespoons of clarified butter
About 1/4 liter of beef stock ( I used a stock cube)
1 kg of veal for goulash, cut in bite sized pieces.
150g of heavy cream.
2 tablespoons of Crème fraîche ( sour cream)
salt, freshly ground pepper.
1 tablespoon of sweet paprika powder.
a sprinkling of hot paprika powder.
1 tablespoon of citrus zest. ( I used the zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon)


Gently melt the butter on low heat, to clarify.
Use the oily part of the butter only to brown the meat in.
The oily part of the butter supports much higher temperatures without burning.
Brown the meat ( in small portions ) on a high heat.

Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onions.
Add the chopped onions to the veal, and let it cook for a minute.
Sprinkle everything with the paprika, and let it sweat for a moment.

Heat the beef stock.
Drain the tomatoes and chop them roughly as well.
Add the stock and the chopped tomatoes.
Cover with a lid and let it simmer on a gentle heat for 45 min to an hour, until the veal is tender.


Stir in the cream, salt, pepper and citrus zest.
The original recipe did not specify what kind of zest to use, but referring to an Italian Osso Bucco recipe, - which is also veal in a tomato-ish sauce - I decided to add some orange zest as well.
Cover with the lid again, and let it simmer for another fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the side dishes.
We had steamed baby potatoes, a green salad, cherry tomatoes and grated black radish with lemon and sour cream. Sprinkle some chopped parsley on it as a finishing touch.


There was no denying. It tasted delicious!

Okay. Now STOP DROOLING!!


This is what my kitchen counter looked like afterwards.
Anyone care to do the dishes for me?
Thanks.



What? Show off? Now don't give me that!! You did get dirty pictures as well, didn't you?
Of course it's clean, I can't stand a dirty kitchen.
And what about my favourite stuff? All of it, actually.
Let's see, I really really like my espresso machine, and the steamer right next to it.
And I love how my utensils are all within reach.
And yes, I do have a lot of stuff. There are three pepper mills and three salt mills there, that's correct! And I do use all three of them!

There, that's it from me today, now go off and snoop in somebody else's kitchen now!
Visit the other Fun Monday players here .
And don't forget to drop by at Christina's for the German recipe challenge, okay?

Belgian Cuisine, Vol au Vent

Some of my friends have asked about Belgian cuisine.
Maybe it's time to share another recipe
on Favourite Ingredients Friday.

Let's see?
I'm sharing something special today, it's called Vol au Vent.
Vol au vent ( fly with the wind) was invented by Carême,
a French chef from the nineteenth century.
It has become an old fashioned Belgian classic, something
my grandmother made on festive occasions.
Nowadays, you can buy it at any supermarket or food caterer,
but the home made version is so much better!
It was the first thing I ever cooked for my husband when I met him.
Twenty six years later, he still can't get enough of it!

You need:
One whole chicken, minced porc.
Celery, a carrot, half a leek, an onion.
Some parsley, thyme and a bay leaf.
White mushrooms.
Some fresh lemon.
Flour, butter, cream, salt and pepper.




I always make a good vegetable stock first, and add the chicken later.
Tie the vegetables and the herbs together, and put it in a large pot of cold water.
Add some salt and some peppercorns and the onion.
Gently heat and let it simmer for about twenty minutes.
I usually add some frozen chicken stock to enhance the flavour even more.
You don't have to bother peeling that onion, it gives the stock a beautiful golden colour.


When your vegetable stock is ready, add your chicken.
Let it simmer on a gentle heat until the chicken is cooked.
By now the whole house is perfumed with that lovely chicken stock mmm!
Remove from the stock, and let it cool down.

Slice the mushrooms, and cook them in a knob of butter.
Add a little bit of lemon juice to keep them nice and white,
and to enhance the flavour.


Add one egg, breadcrumbs, pepper salt and some chopped parsly to the minced porc. Roll small balls from it, and cook them in plain salted water until they float. Drain them and get rid of
their cooking liquid, it contains too much fat. Remove the bones and the skin of the chicken and cut it into pieces. Next thing to do is to make a blonde roux.

Melt butter, add the flour, and let it dry
for ten minutes on a gentle heat to loose the floury flavour.
If your roux is hot, add cold stock,
and vice versa, otherwise you'll get lumps in your sauce.
Add enough of the stock to obtain a rich velvetty sauce.

Add the mushrooms, the meatballs and the chicken.
Flavour with salt, pepper, and maybe a few more drops of lemon juice.
Finish the sauce with some cream.

You can serve this fricassée with rice,
or in a puff pastry "Vol au Vent" case.


In which case you serve it with fries. We call them "frites".
I refuse to call them French Fries, they are not French.
Fries are a genuine Belgian invention!

A Photo a Day and a Review.

I stumbled across a neat idea for a post when I was catching up on my reading yesterday.
Well, actually there were two but I'll tell you more about the second one after this, okay?
I'll start with what I found on Willow's cottage.
She posted a review of the year using one picture a season.
Like the four seasons? I thought this was very inspiring.

My review will go back to when I first started taking pictures, which was Autumn 2007, through to Summer 2008. All of these pictures were taken with my previous camera, a Canon Powershot S45. I nicked it from my husband and took my first steps into Photography with it.
I discovered my camera AND myself along the way.
The encouragement I got from my readers made me try harder each week...

So here comes my review.



This was taken on one of the very first photowalks I made with my husband.
I had joined Nablopomo, and needed pictures for my very first photo meme, Weekly Winners.
Up until then I had always hated Autumn, this was the first time I discovered the beauty of it.


I hated Autumn, and Winter even more.
I would never have gone out on a cold Winter's day before if it had not been for the love of photography that became more important each week.
I was only just discovering my camera and had found new ways of looking at the world through pictures. I had seen lovely reflections on other people's blogs and started looking for them myself.

Ooooo, I love Spring. Spring has got to have a picture of the breeding Great Tits on my patio.
( Does that sound funny? )
This is one of the first times I could capture one as he/she flies to the nest.

Summer.
My favourite season. I had only recently discovered the macro function on my camera.
While on holiday in Provence, I practised a lot and this was one of my first successes.

Those were my first steps. After that I visited London in August, and that's when my beloved little camera died on me. Well, it turned out it did not really die, it just passed into a coma!
That was terrible, but my husband bought me a new one.
The small one still works after all, and I still use it (in the kitchen) every now and again.
I plan on doing another review, maybe next week or so.
I will then use pictures taken with the new camera.

Next up is a new meme Gail will be hosting called a photo a day 2009.
The idea is to post a picture a day, a great challenge to master your camera AND make some sort of a calender with images of the little and the big moments in your life.
I really like that idea.
So this is my first picture.
Yeah I know. It's FOOD! AGAIN!!
It was a chocolate heart, it tasted delicious and it was worth remembering.
The picture isn't. Nah. Not really, but hey?
I'll try better tomorrow?
Isn't that what this meme is all about?

Ruby Tuesday How to make Mushroom Potatoes

I know.
These are not the most exciting rubies I have ever published.
I posted a really great one last Thursday.
Click here if you haven't seen that one yet, I'm rather proud of it.

But if you're looking for a nice way to serve something as common
as a potato I thought this post might be useful!
It's really not all that hard to do, but it looks great on a festive dinner plate.
Use small potatoes, or cut the bigger ones in half.







The best way to cook them is to steam them, and toss them in some butter afterwards.

Visit other Ruby Tuesday players here.

Macro Monday, Macro Fun in the Kitchen ...

Even when I am cooking, my camera is always within reach.
So while I was busy preparing our Christmas meal,
I had some time left to do some macro experiments in the kitchen!
Macro? Well yeah, ... close ups, right?
Most of the participants are better equipped than I am,
but I just happen to like that kind of photography a lot,
and my Canon S5IS does not really let me down either!
Besides, I love this meme!




That last one is my favourite. Click on it to enlarge it .
And click on the logo or here to see more Macro Monday pictures.

Weekly Winners, It's all about Christmas this Week ...

This week's favourite pictures are all about Christmas of course.
I was very late to put up my tree, I finally got around to it last Sunday!

Murphy was here ...




Fun with the camera, Picasso style.
Julie taught me this little trick.
She calls it camera tossing, but there's really no tossing involved!
Click on the link and let her tell you how to do this!

My Boyds Bears nativity scene.


Everything was there, we were all ready for it.
But first ....

a glass of champagne ...
Lilacspecs asked me about the food, so I'll tell you what we had...

Cannelloni of swordfish and guacamole in the little glass, both with North Sea shrimps.

Smoked eel with leeks and pink pepper and salmon tartare.


Carpaccio of scallops with marinated fennel and Salicornia with a rosemary and fig mustard dressing. ( Salicornia is also known as pickleweed, march samphire or glasswort, I did a little bit of research!)


Salsify soup with croutons with walnut pesto.

I'll probably get executed over this, but this is foie gras.
With gingerbread and baked apples, and the spoon contains black pasta, tiny cubes of foie gras and Parma ham, perfumed with some truffle oil.


Main course was a poussin stuffed like a turkey, with morels.
The pink mushrooms on the right side are baby potatoes.
I'll show you how to do this in next Tuesday's Ruby Tuesday, okay?

Oh and dessert?
We forgot dessert!



To see more Weekly Winners, click on the banners
or the links to visit Lotus, AKA Sarcastic Mom.