Pork Tenderloin au Gratin

 

Suggested side dishes: Pasta (with the sauce obtained during cooking or a little butter), Farmer-Ratatouille and/or Greek Flatbread

Preparation You'll need: A pan A casserole dish
Ingredients (for 2 persons) 400 g pork tenderloin approx. 100 g Mozzarella (the soft kind, not that dry stuff) 4 pieces of semi-dried Tomatoes in oil. 2-3 Tbsp. Pesto 1 small onion (to fry in the pan after the meat; goes into the sauce. I would only recommend that when there's no onion with the side dish) Olive oil Salt and pepper
Preparation Dice 100 g Mozzarella and cut 4 pieces of semi-dried tomatoes into small pieces. If wanted, cut a small onion into thin stripes. Cut the tenderloin lenghtwise in half and flatten the meat a bit with your hand. Heat up normal olive oil in pan and quick fry on high heat the meat (on just one side). Fry until underside is dark brown. Remove from pan and set aside. Now fry, if you want, the onion stripes on medium to high heat. If you fry onion stripes, do so until they are dark brown. Set the pan aside, don't clean, we need that stuff later on :-) In the meantime heat up the oven to 170℃ and continue with the meat: Place the two pieces of meat, with the fried side down, into the casserole dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, spread 2 or 3 Tbsp Pesto on top and add the mozzarella and tomato pieces. Bake in oven for 35 to 45 minutes. As soon as the topping on the meat has browned to the desired colour, remove the oven dish from the oven, carefully place the two pieces of meat on a plate and return them to the oven when it has been turned off. Also pre-heat a small bowl for the sauce in the oven. Tip the sauce that has collected in the oven dish into the pan and bring to the boil briefly. Stir well and season lightly with salt and pepper. Then pour the sauce into the preheated bowl and place on the dining table for self-service. This sauce goes particularly well with pasta or pita bread. Add the garnish to the meat and serve.

Farmer Ratatouille

 

A simple and tasty side dish to many of my recipes.
A much more elaborate version (it's worth the effort, but should remain something special), would be Confit Byaldi. Known from the wonderful animation "Ratatouille".

Preparation You'll need: Large pan with lid or a medium pot with lid
Ingredients (for two persons) 150-180 g Courgette 150-180 g Aubergine 1 small onion 1 small red bell-pepper (around 150 g) 200-250 g tomatoes Herbs: 2-3 stems of basil 1 small twig (or ½ tsp.) Thymian 1 small twig (or ½ tsp.) Rosmarin 1 small twig (or ½ tsp.) Oregano 1-2 cloves of garlic 2 EL tomato puree 75 ml broth (chicken or vegetables) Good olive oil Salt and pepper
Step 1 Rougly dice the onion, clean bell-pepper and remove the seeds and white wands, cut into smaller pieces. Put aside together.
Step 2 Clean and cut into smaller pieces 150 to 180 g of Aubergine and Courgette, 250 g of Tomatoes. Chop 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, put all this together into a larger plate or bowl. Furthermore clean the herbs (Thyme, rosemary and oregano; ½ tsp. each and 2 or 3 stems of basil), pluck the leaves and chop them a bit. Add together with 2 Tbsp. tomato purée to the veggies.
Preparation Heat up some good olive oil in pan. Add plate #1 and sauté for 5 minutes on medium heat. Add plate #2, mix and sauté for another minute or two. Add 75 mL broth, season with salt and pepper and let it simmer for 15 minutes, covered with lid. Then check, how much liquid is there and let it simmer uncovered for another 10 to 15 minutes until almost all liquid is gone. Finally stir again and season to taste.

Pesto

 

Pesto is so simple and quick to do, and tastes a lot better than that ready-made stuff :-)
Makes about 3 Tbsp. Pesto to spread on meat or bread. For pesto to put on pasta, you'll have to at least quadruple the ingredients!

Preparation: You'll only need: A small pan A hand blender A dish for the hand blender
Ingredients (for 2 persons) Around half a bunch of Basil (in plucked leaves around 20 to 25 g) 8 g pine nuts 2 cloves of garlic 25 mL good olive oil 20 g finely grated parmesan cheese A pinch of good salt
Preparation Toast 8 g pine nuts in pan until dark brown. Set aside. Pluck 20 to 25 g basil leaves, rinse them. Roughly chop 2 cloves of garlic. Finely grate 20 g parmesan cheese. Measure 25 ml good olive oil, set aside in small dish. Put all ingredients into the dish for the hand blender (at first only around 2/3 of the oil) and purée. Take care that nothing gets stuck on the blender (like the cheese), check consistency (maybe add in small steps some of the remaining olive oil). The end result should be a fine, not too liquid mass, where you can't see oil on its own (otherwise you used too much oil).

White Wine Cream Sauce

Preparation You'll need: A small pot A hand blender
Ingredients (for 2 persons) 1 shallot (chopped, 20 g) 1-2 cloves of garlic 30 g butter 150 mL dry white wine If you want, you could also use 100 mL white wine and 50 mL Noilly Prat 50 mL veal stock 100 mL whipping cream Alternatively: 100 g Crème Fraîche Salt and pepper
Peel the shallot and garlic and finely dice them. Melt 20 g butter in pot (put the remaining 10 g back into the fridge). Sauté 20 g shallot and garlic. Deglaze with white wine (Noilly Prat), add 50 mL veal stock and 100 mL whipping cream (or Crème Fraîche). Season to taste with salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Reduce the sauce to one third (can take up to 10 minutes), remove from heat. Froth with hand blender, add 10 g cooled butter, mix again.

Goes well with Ravioli or with veal...

Lángos

 

 

Attention! The garlic cream should rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour, better 3 to 4 hours.
The dough also takes about 1 to 1.5 hours.

Preparation You'll need: A large pan A bowl for the garlic cream
Ingredients (for 2 persons) 250 g flour In Hungary, where Lángos comes from, are two ways to do Lángos, either with plain wheat flour or a mix of wheat flour and potatoes. Just leave the potatoes out, if you don't like that. 100 g potatoes (2 small ones) 25 g yeast 1 TL salt 30 ml milk 70 ml water ca. ½ TL icing sugar Lots of sunflower oil (roughly half a litre or ca. 1½ cm high in the pan) 100-125 g sour cream 100-125 g heavy sour cream 4 cloves of garlic some ground pepper 100 g Emmentaler cheese Some additional topping, e. g.: Cooked ham and chili flakes, bacon or similar (ca. 75 g) Onions, chives or parsley or sweet (certainly then without garlic cream) with sugar, Nutella, marmalade or apple sauce My recipe is here with cooked ham, since that's the way I like it most.
Preparation of the garlic cream Put 100 g sour cream and 100 g heavy sour cream into a bowl, stir well. Chop or press 4 cloves of garic, add to the cream Season with salt and pepper. Put in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
The dough Cook the potatoes (unpeeled) until they are soft. In the meantime continue with the rest. Shortly heat up 70 mL water and 30 mL milk in microwave until lukewarm (not too hot, yeast doesn't like high temps). Boil the small potatoes in salted water, in the meantime continue with the rest. Put 250 g flour in a large bowl, make a dent in the middle, and sprinkle 25 g yeast into it, plus ½ tsp. of icing sugar. Add some of the milk water and mix well. Set the sponge on the side at a warm place (best would be the oven at 35 to 40℃) for 10 to 15 minutes. In the meantime, check the potatoes. As soon as they are soft, let them cool a little in cold water, then peel them and mash them well with a fork. When the pre-dough has had its 15 minutes, add 1 teaspoon of salt, a large portion of the remaining milk water and the mashed potatoes and knead into a smooth dough. Attention: No matter how dry the dough seems, first let the machine knead it for 5 minutes. Then(!) check whether milk water is still needed (not before, because the potatoes need some time before they release their water into the dough). Add the rest of the milk water in small steps if necessary. The dough should be soft and smooth. Cover with a damp cloth and put back in the oven for 30-60 minutes.
Fry the Lángos and add the toppings Cover your hands with a small amount of oil and separate the dough into two pieces. Flatten them out into an oval/rectangular shape. They should be around half a centimetre thick, with the rim being thicker than the centre part. Fry in not too hot sunflower oil (to turn I use kitchen tongs), check the under side from time to time, so it doesn't get too dark. In the meantime you could cut the ham into small pieces or grate the cheese. As soon as both sides have the desired colour, take the Lángos out and place them for a short time on kitchen paper. Spread generously with garlic cream, sprinkle with chilli flakes if required, add ham or whatever else you want, finally the grated cheese. Serve quickly so that they are still a bit crispy.

Salmon in aluminium foil

 

Something quick... If you get deep-frozen salmon and take it out of the freezer one day in advance, put it into the fridge to thaw slowly for better taste. The rest should be done in half an hour.
If you want, you can also cook 2 to 3 small potatoes per person.

Ingredients (for 2 persons) 2 salmon fillets, each around 200 g 2 to 3 spring onions (only onion and stem, not the green leaves) 2-3 cloves of garlic 10 to 12 good black olives with kernel (Ligurian or Greek Kalamata) 1 lemon (if someone likes to squeeze lemon juice on the salmon) 1 organic orange (for zest) Basil (at least half a bunch) 250 g cherry tomatoes

Preparation Pierce the olives with a fork. Chop the garlic, zest an orange for 1 tsp. Remove the green leaves from the spring onions and cut the onion and stem small. Rinse the salmon fillets and dab them dry with kitchen paper. Pick 2 handful of basil leaves and rinse them. Preheat oven at 200℃. Spread aluminium foil (around 50 cm long), pour around 2 Tbsp. good olive oil in the middle and spread out a bit. Place the fillets in the middle, then put zest, spring onions, garlic, olives, cherry tomatoes and half of the basil on top. Season with fleur de sel and pepper. Turn foil from all sides and close very tight. Bake for 20 minutes on ove (middle rack, convection). In the meantime, if you want, cook the potatoes. After 20 minutes place the fillets with the veggies on plates, add the rest of the basil leaves. Put lemon (in halves) and fleur de sel on the table.

Crêpe Suzette

 

 

 

A tasty dessert that can be done with Crêpes made the day before.

For 2 people you'll need 4 Crêpes.

Preparation You'll only need: A standard large pan A zester or similar tool Matches or culinary torch 4 crepes (freshly made or old ones from the day before)
Ingredients (for 2 persons - 4 crêpes) For 2 crêpes I would halve all ingredients except the orange juice: 150 mL 2-3 large juice oranges for zest and 200 mL juice 50 g brown cane sugar 30 g butter 6 Tbsp. Grand Marnier 1 Tbsp. Austrian Strohrum (80%)
Preparation Wash oranges and peel off a zest. Then fillet these (the easiest way is to halve the oranges at the "equator" and then cut first on the inside once around to remove half the orange from the peel. Then cut the individual half pieces out of the skin). Press the other orange(s), 200 ml of juice is needed. Caramelise 50 g of brown cane sugar in a pan until the sugar has a dark brown color and is viscous. Immediately deglaze with the orange juice. This will steam heavily and the liquid caramel solidifies again. Now add the zest and bring to boil to dissolve the solid caramel. Then fold in 30 g of butter, add 4 crepes and simmer for about 2 minutes. Then turn over the crepes and let it simmer for another 1 to 2 minutes. Flambé: Put 1 Tbsp. of Strohrum and 6 Tbsp. of Grand Marnier in a glass and then pour over the crepes, immediately light the alcohol and flambé (you should have done this, with this amount of alcohol this could be dangerous - I would, for example, switch off any kitchen hood). Place the 4 crepes on preheated plates. Now simmer the halved orange fillets in the pan for 1 to 2 minutes, pour the sauce over the crepes and serve.

French Mini Blinis

Mini blinis go really well with caviar (it's almost a must to have them with caviar) and with Taramasalata.

Preparation You'll need: A large pan A medium-sized bowl
Ingredients for the blinis (for 2 persons) Should result in around 20 mini blinis. 65 g standard flour 35 g buckwheat flour A large pinch of baking powder 2-3 pinches of salt 150 mL kefir 30 mL water 1 egg ½ tsp. honey
Preparation of the dough Mix 65 g standard flour, 35 g buckwheat flour, a large pinch of baking powder and 2 to 3 pinches of salt in a bowl. Measure 150 mL kefir and 30 mL water together in a beaker. Mix well with a fork. Separate the egg. Add the yolk, togehter with a small amount of honey (< ½ tsp.) to the kefir mix. Also mix well with fork. Add everything to the flour and stir to a smooth dough. Beat the egg whites until stiff - good if you have a food processor ツ. Add to the dough and stir well.
Frying the mini blinis Heat up large pan (medium-high). Coat the pan very thinly with butter. Using a tablespoon, place several round blobs of dough as far apart as possible in the pan and bake until the top no longer looks 'wet'. With a spatula carefully turn them around and check the colour. The blinis shouldn't get too dark. Then fry the second side until desired colour is reached. Put aside and repeat the steps until all dough is gone.

American Pancakes

Preparation You'll need: A large pan A medium-sized bowl
Ingredients for the pancakes (for 2 persons, makes approx. 10-12 pieces) 135 g flour 12-15 g baking powder 3 pinches salt 240-250 mL buttermilk 1 Egg 40 g butter Trimmings Bacon (slowly fried in pan until cross and brown) Apple sauce Marmelade Classic and important: Maple syrup Whipped cream 150 ml cream (at least 30% fat) and 9 g icing sugar Before preparing the whipping cream put cream and whisk into freezer for 10 minutes. Put cream and sugar into bowl. First mix cream and sugar on low speed, after 1 minute go to maximum speed to whip the cream until stiff (takes several minutes). Don't whip for too long, only until the whipped cream reaches the right consistence. Maybe some butter to spread on the pancakes
Preparation Melt 40 g butter in microwave. Give 135 g flour, 12-15 g baking powder and 3 pinches of salt into a bowl, mix well. Add 1 egg, 40 g melted butter, whisk carefully while adding 240-250 mL buttermilk in several steps. To bake the pancakes, heat up pan (medium-high). Spread a small amount of butter with kitchen paper then give just under half a ladle of dough into the pan and let it bake until the top is not looking 'wet' anymore. With a spatula check carefully on one side if the pancake is ready to be turned, it should not be a problem. Now bake the other side until it's brown, then repeat all steps until all the pancakes are made. In a large pan one can do 2 or even 3 at the same time.

Morel Sauce

 

 

Sauce for poultry (with white wine) or beef (with red wine)

Preparation time around 20 Minutes

Preparation You'll only need: Small pot with lid Small pan
Ingredients (for 2 persons) 20 g dried morels 150 mL milk 25 g chopped shallots 1 Tbsp. butter 2 Tbsp. Cognac 200 mL white wine (for poultry) or red wine (for beef) 150 g Crème Fraîche 2 Tbsp gravy thickener for dark sauce (in Germany I'd buy Mondamin Fix Soßenbinder)
Preparation Cover and simmer the morels in 150 mL milk in a small saucepan for 15 minutes, while... Finely chop a shallot; 25 g are needed. Sweat this in 1 Tbsp butter in a pan, add 2 Tbsp Mondamin and stir. Deglaze with 200 mL wine, stir vigorously and simmer for 3 minutes. Add 2 Tbsp cognac and simmer for another 3 minutes. Add 150 g crème fraîche, stir well, season with salt and pepper. Tip the morels with the milk through a fine sieve, collect the milk in a small bowl. Add the morels to the sauce together with the strained milk, stir the sauce and keep warm.

White fish with coconut cream

Something quick... If you get deep-frozen fish and take it out of the freezer one day in advance, put it into the fridge to thaw, the rest should be done within half an hour.

Preparation You'll need: A pan with lid
Ingredients (for 2 persons) A white fish, e. g. Pangasius (Swai), ca. 400 to 450 g. 1 to 2 onions, depending on size 1 can of coconut cream (400 mL) 2 cloves of garlic 1 to 2 thai chilis 1 small courgette 1 bag of parboiled rice (125 g) 90 mL lemon juice (1½ - 2 lemons) 1 tsp. curcuma 1 bay leaf Some salt Some clarified butter (such as Indian ghee)
Preparation Cut 1-2 onions into rings. Heat the clarified butter in a frying pan and sauté the onions over a medium heat. Meanwhile, first quarter 1 small courgette lengthways, then cut into small, not too thin, pieces, press or finely chop 2 cloves of garlic. Chop 1-2 Thai chillies into small pieces. Add everything to the onions and sauté for a few more minutes. Add 400 mL coconut milk, 1 bay leaf and 1 tsp turmeric, stir well. While that is heating... Wash the fish and cut into bite-sized pieces. Add together with the loose rice (tip in from bag if necessary). Add a little salt. Cover and simmer over low heat for approx. 15 minutes (also depending on the cooking time of the rice!). Squeeze the lemon, add the juice, stir briefly, season with salt.