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Beef Wellington, Prawn Cocktail, Floating Island... we can either call them old-fashioned or classic dishes. Fact is, they are all still being served both in restaurants and on our dinner tables.
Recently I watched a few episodes of a program called “Dine with me” where 5 strangers have to cook for each other and at the end a winner is be identified through a scoring system. Anyway, details aside, a good third of the hosts feed their guests on dishes they must have dug out in cookbooks printed in the 70ies.
Take my family and friends: the raclette and fondue equipment is taken out of the cupboards at least once or twice a year. Considering that most electric kitchen gadgets never see the daylight, fondue and raclette sets live a quite busy life.
At home at my parents we have fondue every Christmas. It’s the easiest way to satisfy my sister’s chicken-only and my no-chicken needs. I do grow sick and tired of the yearly fondue though… So I wasn’t half as excited as my neighbour when we decided to have a Chinese hotpot to celebrate the arrival of our new - Chinese – neighbour. Meat cooked in soup sounds suspiciously like fondue to me.
But it wasn’t. Well, the concept it sort of the same as my mum’s fondue: veggies, protein and seasoned/spiced stock. Just that the protein in this case was fish (prawns, squid, various kinds of fishballs) and the veggies were choy sum and fungus (they should try and find a new name for that kind of mushrooms, yak). In addition to that we had tofu and a variety of sauces, e.g. the Chinese version of Hummus (Tahini and fermented bean cured), crispy fried chilli sauce and my favourite which I believe to be more Japanese than Chinese: Soy sauce with a dash of mirin, ginger, garlic and a raw egg yolk.
No mayo based sauces in sight. Dipping the fish and veggies into a light sauce makes this kind of “fondue” so much more enjoyable than my mother’s version. No nasty surprises when you step on the scales the day after.
To make the hotbot base, we bought a ready made stock in See-Woo, a massive Chinese supermarket in North Greenwich. If I was to recreate the dish, I would probably make the base myself by adding lemon grass, ginger, Chinese chive leaves, Sichuan pepper, kaffir lime leaves, soy sauce etc to a home made veggie stock. Might not be authentic, but more yummy for my taste. The rest is perfect just as outlined above. And just like fondue and raclette: it is a very social way of eating and entertaining your friends.
Starbucks, Cafe Nero, ice cream parlours, restaurants, bars... Matcha is everywhere. The green tea powder has taken London by storm ever since the first few magazines featured this Japanese treasure a few years ago.
I am always curious to try something new, so guess what: I got myself some Matcha as well... a bit too much of it as it turned out. My first online order was delayed but since I wanted to feed my friends with green tea tiramisu, I embarked on a two hour long journey to a Japanese shop in Putney to get soma matcha. A few days later the online delivery came in... actually in time for my dinner party. Nevermind.So I have got plenty of that stuff at home. Most recently I used it for making financiers.
I had my first financier in Bacchus, a sort of Gastropub in London which is famous for it's sous vide cooking. It came as part of the dessert. Before that, I had never heard of the term financier. I am very glad though that Bacchus brought this dense, moist, nutty little cake to my attention. The nutty flavour comes btw from powdered, toasted almonds and beurre noisette. So yes, there is a little bit extra work involved in making it, but it is well worth it. 
Matcha financiers a la framboise, for 12 small cupcakesFor the financier
: 115g unsalted butter
: 35g flour
: 90g icing sugar
: 1 tsp matcha powder
: 3 lightly beaten egg whites
: 50g powdered almonds
: 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
: pinch of salt
For the topping
: 2 tbsp single cream
: 30g white chocolate
: 4 tbsp raspberry jam
: 12 raspberries
Start by making the beurre noisette: melt the butter in a pan. Using a spoon, skim off the white foam (scum) that floats to the surface once the butter has melted. Let the butter bubble for a minute or two until the milk solids at the bottom of the pan turn brown: this is how you add both a nutty colour and flavour to the butter. When the butter has turned golden brown, sieve it through some muslin (or a sieve lined with a sheet of kitchen roll). You should be left with approx. 85g of beurre noisette.Now toast your almonds. Spread out the powdered almonds on a baking sheet and allow to slightly brown in a hot oven. Alternatively, toast them in an oil-free pan on your hob.
Then mix together the almonds, flour, sugar, matcha and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and vanilla extract and fold in the lightly beaten egg ("lightly beaten" can mean anything from "still very liquid" to "almost stiff": the more you beat the egg, the more your financiers will rise).Preheat your oven to 200 degree Celsius. Butter 12 mini-muffin or cupcake moulds. Fill them almost to the rim and bake the financers for about 11-14 mins until slightly golden on top. Leave to cool.
To make the white chocolate ganache, heat the cream in a small pan. Break up the white chocolate into small pieces and place in a bowl. Pour over the hot cream and stir until the chocolate has melted.
In a small pan, heat the rasperry jam until liquid. This will make it easier to spread the jam over the top of the financiers.
Now assemble your matcha-cupcakes: first, glaze your little cakes with raspberry jam. Leave to cool a little, then drizzle over some chocolate ganache and decorate with one raspberry each. 
Any party that exceeds a dinner party in size is a good excuse to search the web and especially food blogs for funky finger food and sweets. In fact, that's how I first discovered the art of food blogging. Some of the stuff you come across there is much more inspiring and handsome than any celebrity chef's offerings.
I admit to being a rather superficial person. Looks, looks, looks. That's how I usually choose my party food. The more impressive it looks, the more likely it is to make it on to my buffet. So when my friend Laurent decided to make a spinach and sweet potato pound cake look-alike from La Tartine Gourmande's food blog (don't get me wrong, the cake on the blog does look nice, it's just missing the wow factor), I suggested a million and one more attractive things to eat, but he stubbornly insisted on his choice.
Right so. The spinach and sweet potato cake not only looked delicious, it was delicious.
If someone had asked me two weeks ago what the best pepper based spice mix is, I would - without hesitation - have said: Shichimi togarashi. A Japanese mix of sanshou, chinpi, hemp, poppy, shiso and sesame seeds. It adds flavour and zing to the blandest of udon dishes, lifts every salad and is a great addition to dips.
If you asked me know, my answer would have to be: Suya Pepper. I got introduced to it only recently in an African restaurant in Reading. It was sprinkled over a very simple dish: roast and flaked chicken leg topped with thick slices of fresh onion. The spice mix brought together the flavours of a dish that would otherwise have been totally overpowered by all that fresh onion. 
Living close to Lewisham comes handy when you are a fan of the African cuisine like I am as they have all the ingredients there: Yam, Cassava, Plantains, Okra... Suya!
It's been a week now since I bought my wee bag of Suya Pepper. And it has spiced up my life tremendously: it's fabulous on Verhackert (a kind of Austrian pork rillette) and a match made in heaven when sprinkled over corn-on-the-cob.
Raw kohlrabi has a lovely crunch to it and therefore makes a lovely and light summer salad to go with freshly grilled fish. But even on its own, e.g. brushed with some pumpkinseed oil pesto or green kernel and goat’s cheese pesto it is a delightful little starter. Or try serving it with some baked goat’s cheese or thinly sliced smoked beef ham/osso collo (available in Italian Delis) for a more substantial appetiser. 
I am not a big fan of cooked kohlrabi though. In fact, I can’t even eat it, that’s how much I dislike it. But if you do like coiled kohlrabi, try this one: Peel 2 small or one large kohlrabi and a few potatoes, cut both vegetables into chunky sticks and boil them salted water until tender. Heat a few tablespoons of butter in a pan and add 3 or 4 heaped tablespoons of dried breadcrumbs. Drain the vegetable sticks and add them to the pan. Cover with the butter-breadcrumb mix and serve as a light meal with green salad on the side.
Carpaccio of kohlrabi with caper dressing, for 2
: 1 kohlrabi, peeled and (thinly) slices
: 3-4 radishes, sliced
: 1tsp salted capers
: juice of ½ lemon
: olive oil
: few leaves of lemon balm
Arrange the sliced kohlrabi together with the radishes on a plate.
To make the dressing, slightly mash the capers and mix them with some lemon juice and olive oil. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the kohlrabi. Garnish with a few leaves of lemon balm.
Serve very thinly slices carpaccio of kohlrabi with freshly baked focaccia as starter or – if cut into slightly thicker slices - serve it as a side dish/salad to meat and fish.
When I wake up with a headache in the morning it is very likely that I had a glass too many the night before. And most likely also a few calories too many. I only ever drink when there is food involved. So while the normal hung-over person would indulge on a proper fry-up, I have to make sure that the three course meal from the night before will not stay on my hips forever. Diet food for me then. I had four egg yolks from the cake I made the day before in my fridge and some beetroot. Not easy to play Ready Steady Cook here if that's more or less all your fridge has to offer. However, I remembered the horseradish in my freezer (I love horseradish) and had came up with the idea of a horseradish zabaglione. Maybe not the lightest of all dishes, but if not combined with anything else then beetroot it makes in an acceptable dish for those emergency diet days. 
Beetroot with horseradish zabaglione, for 2
: 6-7 fresh beetroots
: 4 egg yolks
: 100ml milk
: freshly grated horseradish
: olive oil
: white wine vinegar
: Maldon sea salt
Wash the beetroot (leave the skin on!), brush them with a little olive oil and cook in a hot oven for about an hour. Let them cool.
To make the zabaglione, whisk together the egg yolks and milk in a bowl over simmering water until the mixture thickens (approx 10 mins). Add the horseradish and season with salt.
Peel and slice the lukewarm beetroot and arrange on a plate. Drizzle over some olive oil and vinegar and pour over some of the zabaglione.
Picking your own fruit and veg is a big thing in Austria. Take mushrooms for example: People would get up as early as 4 am on a Saturday morning to embark on an hour long trip to their secret mushroom spots in one of the many forests in Austria. Of course, no one actually would know a proper secret spot, so if you are not there early enough, someone else will have picked the best and biggest ones. The same goes for wild blueberries. And wild garlic. But as with mushrooms, not everything that looks like the real thing turns out to be the real thing. Wild garlic and the leaves of Lilies of the Valley are practically identical, just that the Lilies are not quite as healthy as wild garlic. In fact, every year a couple of people die in Austria after accidentally eating Lily of the Valley leaves.It's not too long ago that I first tried wild garlic and although it has a very acquired taste I warmed to it quite quickly. It's very garlicy, but also very herby, which makes it so much more interesting than just normal fresh garlic.
I assume you can use the leaves in stir fries or add them to wilted spinach. A very common dish in Austria is also creamed wild garlic soup and wild garlic paste. Wild garlic paste is used in the same way pesto is. You can make a great dip by simply adding it to Greek yoghurt or sour cream. Or try to add it to your tomato sauce next time you have pasta. Delicious but smelly. Best eaten on your own or with friends who don't mind the odd garlic breath. 
Wild garlic pasteBlend equal amounts of wild garlic and sunflower oil plus a pinch of salt in a food processor. That's it really...
Ever since I mentioned the redcurrant-meringue cake of my grandmother in one of my recent blog entries, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Not a surpise then that I bought a few wee boxes of redcurrants when coming across them during my lunch hour today. Immediately after handing the £1.50 to the stall keeper, I walked into the next shop to get some eggs and butter; nothing should stop me now from baking my beloved redcurrant-meringue. 
The moment I walked through the door at home I got started. It's amazing, I had no idea that this cake is practically fast food. Well, I am not a keen pastry cook, so the art of baking is really still an art to me. But althoug it was my first attempt my cake proved to be a big success... Enjoy the taste of summer.
RibiselschaumschnitteFor the cake
: 5 eggs
: 90g corn flour
: 90g flour
: 100g icing sugar
: 50g melted unsalted butter
: zest of 1 lemon
: 70g redcurrants
: pinch of saltFor the redcurrant-meringue
: 4 egg whites
: 125 gcaster sugar
: 100g redcurrantsCream together the eggs, lemon zest, icing sugar and salt for about 8-10mins. Slowly add the melted butter. Now fold in the siftes corn flour and flour.Grease an approx 40x30cm baking tin/tray and pour in the mixture. Bake for about 15mins at 180 degrees. Leave to cool.
In the meantime beat the egg whites and slowly add the caster sugar. Once the egg whites turn creamy and shiny, fold in the redcurrants.Top the cake with the meringue mixture and put under a hot grill for about 5 mins. Eat!
No Schnitzel without good old-fashioned Viennese potato salad. Having said that, we never had the real thing on our dinner table at home. Even when it was Schnitzel-time.
As mentioned previously, every salad in my province was dressed by default with pumpkin seed oil. A habit, people from Vienna have not yet adopted. Second reason why the potato salad of my mother not only looked different (everything that has pumpkin seed oil added is greener than grass) but also tasted different to the proper Viennese salad is my sisters dislike for onions (in fact, my sister dislikes everything but chicken, rice and potato mash).
No dish prepared and cooked in my mother’s kitchen ever dared to have onions in it. My mother and I compensated the lack of onion-vitamins by eating German rye bread with paté, topped with loads of freshly chopped onion. Apart from that, my mother went through tons of onion powder. But it’s just not the same - that’s why my sister would eat it.
How delightful that my chicken-only-with-mash-or-rice-but-never-onion days are long gone. Ever since I moved out of my parent’s flat, I practically haven’t touched chicken, I couldn’t stand the sight of potato mash for years and I put onion into almost every single of my dishes.
Which brings me back to the initial idea behind this post: Viennese potato salad. With loads of onion! 
Viennese potato salad, for 4
: 400g salad potatoes
: 1 super large onion
: 1 chicken stock cube
: apple or cider vinegar
: sunflower oil
: white pepper
Cook the potatoes on their skins. In the meantime, sauté the finely chopped onion in a little oil until soft. Prepare the chicken stock as per directions on the pack. When ready, pour the stock over the onions and let it simmer for about 10-15mins.
While still piping hot, peel and slice the potatoes. Pour over the onion-stock-mixture and some vinegar. Let the salad rest for a while, but give the salad a quick mix/turn every 15 mins or so. After 1-2 hours, finish the salad off with a little drizzle of sunflower oil and a sprinkle of white pepper.
The salad keeps in the fridge for about two days. Best eaten at room temperature one day after preparation.
Skewers make a great party dish: you can be as creative as you want with the ingredients and presentation. And best of all: you won't have to wash millions of plates once your guest have left.
Inspired by The Passionate Cook, my friend Laurent took the skewer idea on board and although we couldn't find all ingredients given in the recipe we came up with our own pretty good little mouthfuls of succulent chicken and croutons.
Basically, we were missing the fresh sage. Fresh herbs are not always easy to get. Unless you live in shopping distance to Borough Market. But luckily, in this recipe you can cheat using dried sage. 
Chicken skewers a la saltimbocca with croutons and basil, for 15 skewers
: 2 boneless chicken breasts, diced
: 100g Serrano ham, cut into thin stripes
: 2 tbsp dried sage
: 15 leaves of purple basil
: French country loaf, diced
: sea salt
: olive oilSalt the diced chicken, cover each piece with dried sage, then wrap in Serrano ham. Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the chicken parcels until golden. Remove from pan.
Add a little more oil to the pan and fry the bread cubes until crisp.
Stick one piece of chicken and one crouton on each skewer. Finish each skewer off with a leave of fresh basil.
Tomatoes with mozzarella is probably - together with melon and prosciutto - the most served starter at a dinner party. Both 20th century classics, both reminders of the time when Italian dishes other than Spaghetti Bolognese, Pizza and Lasagne finally started to make it big across Europe. I remember my mother preparing it for lunch, dinner and parties. Tomatoes and mozzarella everywhere.
The dish hasn't lost any of its appeal ever since and still proves to be a dinner party hit. Rather than having them sliced on a plate with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, I like to present them in little pots. Mini-mozzarella balls, cherry tomatoes, a drizzle of olive oil and a few dollops of green pesto.
Gooseberries are my favourite fruits, closely followed by currants: red and white. I will always remember the redcurrant cake my grandmother made whenever they were in season. Spongecake with redcurrant-meringue. I adored it, I loved it, I would have given away my Barbie for it. My mother didn't share my appreciation for this cake though. The pungent acidic flavour of the redcurrants and the slighlty uber-sweet meringue didn't tickle her tastebuds enough to ever bake it.
Redcurrants are not only tasty, but also very pretty little berries and great for decorating dessert. Especially when frosted with caster sugar. Simply dip the washed fruits in a little egg white, then cover with sugar. Leave them to dry for an hour or so. They add some texture and crunchiness to mousses and cream desserts, or even cakes (try it with my favourite chocolate cake)
