Hummus

Spring has arrived, the warmer wheather is trying to stay in here, with some showers just during the holidays, to prevent us from having a beach holidays. But as wheater is getting warmer and nicer, I love meeting friends over dinner or lunch, and have informal, finger food just to spend a few hours, share the latest news, and have some fun. For doing so, there are little dipping foods which can beat hummus.

Hummus is not only tasty and delicious, but also an absolutely easy and delicious way of having good for you food without even noticing it. Chickpeas are fantastic, yet, not always easy to eat all the time. Here you have a fantastic recipe for your next meeting with friends. If you use precooked chickpeas, it is ready in minutes, but if you prefer, you can prepare it the day before. Simply, put a couple of oil spoons on top of it to prevent the upper layer to dry. Serve with tortilla chips, o even better, with some pita bread. Simply delicious!

Hummus

Ingredients

500 grams cooked chickpeas (you can make it yourself, or, if using them from a can, well rinsed until the water runs without a single bubble)
3 tablespoons sesame (or olive if you prefer) oil
3 cloves of garlic
Lemon juice (1 or 2, to taste)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
salt

Directions

Put the chickpeas in a pan with the garlic, a pinch of salt and half a liter of water. Cook for 5 minutes. Drain and keep the cooking water.
Put in the blender cup chickpeas and garlic, and add the lemon juice and the oil,  and mix. Add spices and mix well again. Adjust if necessary by adding water (tablespoon to tablespoon), adjust salt, and serve with pita bread or tortilla chips.

Spinach, cottage cheese, raisins and salmon biscuit

One knows that spring comes because the change in season is more than obvious by now. The time change confirms to the clueless, and in my home because my daughter L. about a week before Easter, injures her  right ankle and needs crutches for a while.

I really do not know how many possibilities there are, statistically speaking, for this to happen 3 years in a row. The truth is that I feel sorry for her-at least this year it seems we have finally identified the problem and we will work to prevent future damage- , but when they phoned from school to ask me to pick her up early this I week, I really thought it was a joke. 3 years in a row, same date, same injury. Nothing the rest of the year.

Spring at  home lately sounds like children's crutches.

Fortunately, the problem this year is very light and she was able to remove the bandage, and she will not need the crutches and probably will be able to spend the holidays without them. But these things are what happen when you have kids. 

On the side of the kitchen, spring smells like snacks, and Easter cooking is made of fish.  Between one thing and the other, this apetizer fits perfectly. I really wanted to make a savory filling biscuit. It is really not difficult to prepare. Just a few minutes of oven are enough to have the cake layer list, fill it  in a moment, reshaped and left in the fridge until ready to eat. It is an attractive dish and best of all: you can leave it prepared beforehand and cut just before serving. Perfect to start a meal and be great. Or so told me my friends J. and M. who were the guinea pig for this dish.

Spinach, cottage cheese, raisins and salmon biscuit

Ingredients

For the cake:

4 eggs
80 grams sugar
120 grams of flour
25 grams of melted butter (not hot)
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the filling:
150 grams of smoked salmon
200 grams of curd
2 natural yogurt (250 grams of yogurt)
3 tablespoons raisins
200 grams of fresh spinach
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt
black pepper

Preparation

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone sheet. Separate the yolks and whites of eggs. In a large bowl, assemble the egg whites with a pinch of salt (1/4 teaspoon) to rise. In another bowl, mix the yolks with the sugar. Add flour and mix. Add to this mix the egg whites until stiff, with encircling movements, without stirring, to try to get off to a minimum. Finally, add the melted butter and integrate. Pour this batter into the baking sheet, forming a rectangle of uniform thickness and bake 8 minutes.

Remove from oven, putting up a clean kitchen towel, and turn around. The cloth will remain on the work surface, over at cake, and facing us baking paper upside down. Carefully remove the greaseproof paper, and using the cloth, forming a cilinder with the cake. Allow to cool and, to take shape.

On another bowl, combine cottage cheese and yogurt in a bowl. Place a tablespoon of oil in a skillet, saute spinach with raisins. Once done, mix with cottage cheese and yogurt, stir to integrate everything.

Open the roll cake, put salmon and spread on the inside with the mixture of cottage cheese, yogurt and spinach, and re-roll. Put in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Warm goat cheese, grilled peach and raspberries salad

There is never enough time for all I want to do. I am sure this is not just my problem. Too much things to do, and still days only have 24 hours, can you believe it? I have been wanting to publish this recipe for weeks, but for one thing or the other it has been going down in my to do list. It might sound a bit strange to use now nectarines. Well, I can tell you guys, they were absolutely perfect when I prepared this, very late summer, at the end of the season. 

I can say, however, that I have a great excuse for my delay in publishing over the last couple of weeks. I am planning to write a full story for that with all the details, but it will not be before next Saturday. Well, I promise this is not the teaser for my next new movie… but it will be on Saturday, 15^th November when the Easy Cook Home Cook Hero awards gala will be aired on TV3 Ireland (1.40 pm). The point is that a couple of weeks ago I was told that one of my recipes had been selected to take part in the contest.

As you can imagine, for the last two weeks, I have  been testing the recipe in a more systematic way to be certain that the results would be consistent, and I have had even less time than usual. I won’t complain, though, as I can only thank the organizers for what has been one amazing experience for me as an amateur cook and food blogger.

So, as promised, I will give you all the details as soon as I can, but in the meanwhile, let me go back to this salad.

I love berries. I love their tanginess, and the sharpness that they add to savoury dishes. I had seen something like this salad in an Australian food magazine, and with that as the initial idea, I decided to mix a couple of things and give it a try. I ended up using this salad as the starter for a dinner party at home. I really enjoyed the results, and I guess my friends also liked it. 

At the end of the day, it is a salad (quite an obvious starter), but it is quite a salad. The combination of grilled nectarine with its caramelized juices, the warm, about-to-melt goat cheese and the tangy raspberry vinaigrette makes this a total winner. This mix of flavours, textures and the temperature contrast make this a truly special salad.

So, apologies for my huge delay in publishing this. Now you will be ready to try this when nectarines are on season again. 

A small trick if you want/have to avoid the oven: use a pan with wax paper instead.



Warm goat cheese, grilled nectarine and raspberries salad 

4 nectarines
Some mix crunchy salad leaves 
A handful of raspberries
Goat cheese (3-4 slices per person)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Raspberry vinegar (or light white wine vinegar) 
Salt
Black Pepper

Preparation
I could not find raspberry vinegar myself, so I squeezed some raspberries with 4 tablespoons of a light white wine vinegar and let the mix rest for a while. You can skip this step if you find the raspberry vinegar, or just skip it all together.
Put the grill in high heat and add just a little olive oil. You might want to spray or use a cooking brush for this. Once the grill is hot, put the nectarines, cut into eights, and grill them until they get golden brown. 
Put the letuce, nectarine and some raspberries in a serving plate and season. 
Prepare a vinaigrette with 3 parts olive oil and 1 part of the vinegar and add to the salad. 
Put the pan in high heat and add a bit of wax paper. Put the cheese on top, until it starts to get warm and lightly melted. Put on top of the salad and serve inmediately. 

Vietnamese chicken salad

A long, long time ago, I saw a Vietnamese salad at citrus & candy blog, and I loved all of it. Above all, the part that advises adjusting the proportions of meat and vegetables to taste, and changing the ingredients, because that is the funniest part in the kitchen. I have not made too many changes, but a few. I do not use fish sauce, so I adjusted the marinade and seasoning to my taste. And I used mint instead of coriander, and fresh hazelnuts instead of roasted peanuts. So maybe it is not a Vietnamese salad, after all, but I liked the name so much that I wanted to keep it, anyway. 

What is certain is that I am a skeptic with marinades. Better said: I was a skeptic. Probably I had not found one to my taste. In this case, with strong flavors such as soy sauce, garlic and ginger in it and leaving chicken inside it overnight, I can assure that the naturally bland chicken breast was tasty, absolutely tasty.

Anyway, like any good salad, it admits lots of variations. Even just the way I prepared it, it is a very tasty and unique dish with an exotic note that you cannot miss.

Vietnamese chicken salad

Ingredients (for 4 servings)


For the chicken marinade
4 chicken breasts, clean and cut in fillets of similar size
2 tablespoons of water

1 tablespoon soy sauce (I prefer low salt)
1 tablespoon of grated fresh ginger 

3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons oil (optional: can be replaced with more water if necessary to clarify the soy sauce)
2 teaspoons sugar

For the dressing

2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger
1-2 chilies, clean seed, and chopped


For the salad
1/2 Chinese cabbage, cleaned and chopped leaves into strips
1 carrot, chopped
3 shallots, julienned
12-15 raw hazelnuts
2 shallots, julienned, sauteed
2 cloves garlic, chopped and sauteed
1 large red chilli, finely chopped
Mint leaves (or Vietnamese coriander, which I obviously was not able to find)

Directions
Place the chicken in a zipping bag. Then mix the marinade ingredients and pour over chicken breasts. Keep in refrigerator until ready to use (at least half an hour, preferably overnight). The chicken can be grilled, fried or steamed, and then crumble into strips or pieces. Add a couple teaspoons of the marinade to prevent drying. I grilled it without oil, just before using it.
Mix the dresing ingredients in a bowl and emulsify well with hand mixer until making a smooth sauce. Reserve.
In a large bowl, put the vegetables and the mint leaves. Add the chicken and season to taste. Complete with shallots, garlic, hazelnuts, chilli and mint, and serve immediately accompanied by more seasoning.

Scallops with crispy bacon and white wine sauce and "Giro Grande Partenza" from Belfast!

Friday starts the Giro d' Italia. Although I am not passionate about cycling, -certainly I am not a huge fan at all, I used to follow cycling competitions in Spain. But the news this year is that the Giro starts here in Belfast. As strange as it sounded the first time I heard about it (several months ago I thought they were joking when I was told it for the first time) now I got used to the idea. I think of it now as the most natural thing in the world, after weeks in which the city has been getting covered in pink, I am even getting used to a new form of excitement from kids and adults alike over this event, absolutely new for the place. 

I'm still amazed at how surreal the whole thing is, but I am finding lovely all the excitement that surrounds me, and the pride of local people wanting to take the opportunity to show the world how beautiful their home is. It is mixed, however, with  my concern over the tremendously chilly weather that awaits  the poor runners, who in the end are the real stars of the show, (although sometimes all the showbiz style of this things makes it really difficult to remember that, in the end, this was supposed to be an sport event). 

So if any of you follows the Giro “Grande Partenza”, you will almost certainly have a look at the same streets I walk through every morning on my way to work. You might take a glimpse at the impressive University building right close to my office, or see the equally impressive Titanic building (which, by the way, is another of those things that make me smile. You will agree with me that there is some dark sense of humor in making such a tribute to the most famous shipwreck in history. Although, as they say here: “she was perfect when it left here").

If the weather is generous enough and you are lucky, you might also have a spectacular view of astonishing green landscapes, wild seaside and rock cliffs, as wild as they can only be thanks to the wind and constant rain that waters tirelessly this part of the world. And with a bit of luck, just for once, all those good feelings and all those desires of looking forward to the future will be the only news that would come out from here. 

So with all this just around the corner what I want is to prepare a colorful , fast , tasty seafood dish as this one that I prepared today.

 This is the simplest thing you can do, but it is one of those showstopper starters you will use once and again.

Scallops with crispy bacon and white wine sauce

Ingredients (for 2 people)

8 -10 beautiful scallops without coral (frozen if you cannot get them fresh)

80 grams of bacon or pancetta into small dices

1 tablespoon plain flour

1 glass of white wine ( the better the wine, the better the sauce, so go for the best you can afford)

20 grams of butter

Freshly ground nutmeg

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Some sprouts for garnish ( optional)

Olive oil

Preparation

Prepare a light béchamel. Start by melting butter. Add flour and cook it slightly before adding the wine. If necessary, add some more wine, until having a creamy light texture. Add a hit of nutmeg, salt and pepper (not too much as bacon will be already salty).

In a large skillet, sautee the bacon in a little olive oil, until crispy, but not dry. Remove and let drain on kitchen paper. In the same pan, at medium heat, fry the scallops lightly. Add a bit of salt and pepper, and serve immediately putting some sauce, scallops and bacon in the dish, and garnishing with sprouts.

Gazpacho with basil cream cheese ice cream bites

Well, after moving from Majorca to Belfast a few weeks ago,  I am just trying to settle in here. Specially in the cooking and food front. 

House is up and running, job seems ok, the children are finding a really welcoming environment -as well as the adults: I can only say I have felt so warmly welcomed so far- .... BUT when you are a food blogger (yes, I had been blogging for a while in Spanish at Tengo un horno y sé cómo usarlo) you  need to go on blogging, cooking, testing, writing about food, taking photos and so on.  However, I am finding it a bit tricky right now.

When you move from one country to another, you realize that there are a lot of little tiny things from your everyday life that you take for granted. It is not that you now live in a different language, use a different currency, or that your new car will have the wheel on the other side (by the way: I warn you. I am about to drive in here, babies!). Actually, I was prepared for all that stuff and, probably because I expected it, it has not been bad or difficult at all. 

However, I had not realized how used I was to have my cooking stuff readily avalaible. It is weird to realize you need any ingredient and not knowing automatically where to find it, what the best brand for a particular dish is, or the like. 

It has only been a couple of weeks, so I am more than sure that in another couple or so, I will have discovered a lot of those and I will have "my suppliers" identified again. It is only that it is an awkard feeling. 

By the way, if you can give me some advice on any sites (online or brick & mortar) for baking/cooking ingredients that you know and feel like recomending, I will be really grateful. 

It has been a really hot summer this year. So, for my first weeks here it is a good idea to recover one this I prepared last summer in Spain, in the middle of a torrid Majorcan summer. This is the recipe I am now sharing with you.

This is one of my discoveries from last summer. It is perfect in a hot day, but also in a not so hot one if you like soup and want to give it a Spanish twist.

 It is simple, but so worth sharing! Simply adding some small bites of basil cheese ice cream and a traditional and popular cold soup becomes a really special treat. Really simple, but with a refreshing and unexpected touch on the traditional Spanish gazpacho.

Being one of the most traditional dishes in the South of Spain, gazpacho is a tricky one. For some people, it should be done only in the most traditional way. Personally, I prefer to play and adapt any dish to my preferences, tastes, mood, or even to what's available in my fridge. If the result is ok, I do not worry whether it is "the real thing".

Besides, I only learned to prepare and get used to have gazpacho recently. It has never been a dish I had while growing up, as my parents'  live up north and they never prepared it at home. So I will not go into disputes about the best recipe, the tricks for having a "real" gazpacho or any of the like. I simply share a recipe that works for me, and hopefully, also for you, as it is so easy and delicious that once you prepare it for the first time, you will also introduce your own preferencies until making it yours. 

If you feel a bit intimidated by the cheese basil ice cream bites, you can go only for the gazpacho. However, they will take you only a couple of minutes to prepare and you will get that "Wow" effect for sure. 

   

Use herbs of your choice and change it to your liking. In any case, it is simple, fast, and you'll have a great result.

Sure!

Gazpacho
Ingredients (4 servings approximately)

1 kilo of ripe tomatoes
1 green pepper
1 clove of garlic
1/2 cucumber, peeled
1 small white onion
3 tablespoons olive oil
3-4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Wash vegetables, clean and diced them. Place in the bowl of the mixer tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onion and cucumber and mix everything well until smooth. Add the oil, vinegar and salt to taste. Whisk, taste and adjust, if necessary, salt, pepper or vinegar. You can add cold water if you prefer it more liquid, or left as is, to taste. I prefer to have mine sieved for a silky texture.  Put into the fridge in a closed container until ready to serve, chilled.


Basil cream cheese  ice cream bites

Ingredients (for about 10-12 bites)

2 tablespoons cream cheese (mascarpone or other cream cheese you like)
Two portions of spreadable cheese (like smailing cow)
Some chopped fresh basil leaves or a little dried basil

Preparation
Put both cheeses in a bowl with the finely chopped basil leaves and mix them with a fork until you integrate all the ingredients. Take portions of dough and shape into balls with a couple of teaspoons, or with your wet hands if you find it easier. Place the balls on a small kitchen table. Once you have formed all the bites put the table with the balls on it in a freezer bag, to prevent them from sticking while freezing. After three to four hours, when they get frozen,  you can remove the table and leave them in the closed bag until use.

To serve,  stir well the gazpacho with a spoon, and put it as cold as you can in a bowl, topped with two or three balls of ice cream, and some fresh basil leaves.