Pea salad with creamy dressing

Most evenings when I come home from work I want a quick supper. Pasta, rice with veggies, Thai noodles or salad. Salad is for sure the quickest of them all. When you count the several times though Scott requested a 2nd dinner 2 hrs after having had his salad, salad it not quite as time saving as it first seems.

So I would usually serve salad on the side of a "proper" dinner. Mostly lettuce with - you guessed right - pumpkin seed oil dressing. Recently however I re-discovered peas. I think I haven't used them for years. But now we have them in soup, rice and salad. Actually, there is no better salad out there than lettuce with peas in a creamy dressing served with some freshly baked bread.

Pea salad with creamy dressing

: green leave salad

: 200g frozen peas

: 1 egg yolk
: olive oil
: lemon juice
: Maldon sea salt

Wash the leave salad and put it in a large bowl. Bring some water to the boil. Add some salt to the boiling water, then add the peas. Leave the peas in the boiling water just for one or two minutes. Once drained, place them in the same bowl as the lettuce. Now drizzle some olive oil and lemon juice over your salad, then add the egg yolk (this helps to add creaminess to the dressing), toss the salad until well mixed and finish off by seasoning your salad with a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt.

Chanterelles marinated in lime scented pumpkin seed oil

Kim is the Gordon of Vienna. Not that she would be as rude as her British counterpart, but her cooking is considered to be the best in the capital, just as Gordon Ramsey's cooking is in London. Her cuisine however is a bit more daring. She's presenting her guests with a kind of Asian-Austrian fusion cuisine; take her tuna and nash pear filled with Grammeln (dry roasted Austrian speck)
Kim kocht is the name of probably the only restaurant in the whole of Austria that has a three or more months waiting list. I haven't been there yet, but it is definately on my list of places to visit (or better food to try). In the meantime I try to do a Romana kocht based on the recipes in her cookbook.
As mentioned in previous blog entries, I cannot live without a daily dose of pumpkin seed oil. Ever since I bought her cookbook I have therefore been thinking about making the chanterelles marinated in Asian spices pumpkin seed oil. I just wasn't sure what to serve it with. It was when I read the Nobu Now cookbook that it hit me: with beef sahimi (or carpaccio). I went all way to Kensington High Street to get reddest beef fillet ever seen perfectly marbelled with the thinnest lines of fat throughout the whole piece of meat. It was well worth the 5 Pounds or so I paid for a mere 100g.
If you don't like raw meat, simply serve the mushrooms with potato or simple green leave salad.
Chanterelles marinated in lime scented pumpkin seed oil
: 1tsp vegetable oil
: 1 large onion, finely chopped
: 200g chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and cut into small pieces
: 1 stalk of lemon grass, finely shredded
: 4 Kaffir lime leaves
: 90ml pumpkin seed oil
: a dash of balsamic vinegar
: freshly ground pepper
: salt

Saute the chopped onion in a little vegetable oil. Add the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper, then mix with the Kaffir lime leaves and chopped lemon grass. Finally add the pumpkin seed oil and balsamic vinegar.

Suya Pepper

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.

Wild garlic pesto / Baerlauch Paste

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 paste
Blend equal amounts of wild garlic and sunflower oil plus a pinch of salt in a food processor. That's it really...

Viennese potato salad

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.

Tomato mozzarella pots with pesto genovese

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.

Mediterranean salad, the Styrian way

People from the South-East of Austria (province of Styria) are hooked on pumpkinseed oil. I am one of them. I always make sure that there is at least one spare bottle in my cupboard - for emergencies.
It is a very versatile little helper in the kitchen. Most people use it for salad dressings only, but you can make fab scrambled egg with it and even bake cakes with it! Newest culinary invention using pumpkinseed oil is pumpkinseed pesto. It isn't that different in the making from Pesto Genovese. Use pumpkinseeds instead of pine nuts and pumpkinseed oil instead of olive oil. Or take some ready made pumpkinseed oil pesto with you on your next trip to Austria just like I do! Aubergine and zucchini salad with beans and pumpkinseed oil pesto, for 6
: 1 large aubergine, sliced lengthways
: 2 large or 5 small zucchini
: 2 cans of beans (e.g. borlotti, cannellini)
: 1 bunch of parsley
: 2 tbsp pumkinseed oil pesto
: pumpkinseed oil
: Maldon sea salt
: freshly ground black pepper

Slice the aubergine lengthways into thin slices and cut the zucchini into chunks/wedges. Fry both vegetables on a hot, well oiled griddle. When ready, arrange the aubergine on a large plate and top with the drained beans. Finally, add the zucchini and a few dollops of pumpkinseed pesto. Season with salt and pepper. Roughly chop the parsley and sprinkle over the salad. Finish off with a drizzle of pumpkinseed oil. Serve with grilled meat or freshly baked brown bread.

Peach, walnut and mozzarella salad with maple syrup

It's a very cold summer here in the UK. Shops seem to have given up on this year's summer. When I went to Asda's the other day to get some charcoal for my BBQ, I found myself in front of empty Sale shelves. The supermarket chain has decided to sell off all their BBQ stuff that has been sitting on the shelves for ages and to not re-order any more this year.
Luckily I did finally manage to get some charcoal from another place and we spent a very nice afternoon with friends and neighbours in our backgarden munching on tuna burgers, chopped steak burgers, sausages and salads.
My favourite salad was the peach, mozarella and walnut salad. Jamie Oliver did something similar once if I remember well. I guess that's where I got the idea from.
I cannot remember what exactly went into Jamie's salad, but mine goes like this:Peach, walnut and mozzarella salad with maple syrup, for 6
: 5-6 ripe peaches, cut into chunks or wedges
: 2 mozzarella
: 150g walnuts
: 250g baby spinach
: 100g rocket
: maple syrup
: extra virgin olive oil
: lemon juice
: Maldon sea salt

Cover a large serving plate with the spinach leaves. With your hands, tear the mozzarella balls into bit size chunks and arrange on top of the spinach together with the peaches. Add the rocket and sprinkle over the walnuts. Drizzle over some maple syrup, the juice of half a lemon and a few tablespoons of olive oil. Season with Maldon sea salt.