Revolutionary bread

Today's recipe is one of my favorite recipes ever, for three reasons.  It is (i) sooo simple, (ii) sooo delicious and (iii) sooo healthy!  

Simple

It's really like magic -- you throw a few ingredients together, wave your magic wand around (aka stir a bit with a spoon) and there is your bread.  No machines or complicated equipment needed, no waiting for the yeast or sourdough levain to kick in, no tricky procedures.  The preparation takes no more than 7 minutes (basically spent on weighing ingredients) and sure is no rocket science: it's pretty much foolproof.

For me the discovery of the recipe was really revolutionary!  The super busy person I am - I never thought I would have the time to bake my own bread.  I thought only retired or unemployed people (or those with a non-demanding job) would have the time to do it.  Luckily, thanks to this recipe, busy lawyers no longer have to feel excluded from the elite Group of Non-Professional Bread Bakers :)

Delicious

This bread is insanely delicious!!!  You can basically eat it on its own, like cake.  But it also goes well with savory and sweet toppings -- cheese, meats, pesto, hummus, honey, jam...  It is crunchy on the outside, and insanely moist within.  It practically doesn't get stale and tastes just as good on the next days (though if someone else is "helping" you eat it, it never lasts more than a day).  The loaf is very small, but every bite is filling.  You can also freeze the bread, which is very practical if you want a loaf on storage (good tip: slice it before freezing and defrost a slice in a toaster: phenomenal!).

I stopped eating bread almost entirely before I discovered this recipe.  I was used to dense and moist sourdough bread in my native Poland (klick for example 1 and example 2 - Poland truly has the most amazing bread!), and was very disappointed by the fluffy bread in Western Europe.  Unless I would go to a pricy specialized bakery every day, I could not get anything decent.  Baking my own, Polish-style bread would take too much time, so I simply stopped eating bread.  But with this recipe, I can again enjoy excellent bread on a regular basis.

The only problem is a mysterious phenomenon occurring whenever you make the bread - the loaf disappears extremely fast.  So fast that you need to bake yet another loaf before you know it...

Healthy

Delicious things are rarely really good for you -- life just isn't that good.  But this bread is one of the few exceptions.  All ingredients are very healthy and nutritious; it's also gluten-free (if you use buckwheat flakes instead of oatmeal).  The bread is packed with fiber and nutrients, and has a lot of seeds and nuts that contain those really good fats.  On top, the psyllium seeds on their own have medicinal properties for the colon, so eating the bread is almost like taking food supplements ;-)  I am sort of a healthy food freak (although you probably can't tell by the amount of dessert recipes on the blog).  For me there is an added pleasure to eating food when I know it is actually good for me.  I love eating healthy food, knowing I'm taking care of my body and not just dumping junk in it. 

Some ingredients may sound a bit exotic, but trust me: you can easily get them in health food stores off- or online.  I was hesitant at first, but had a look around and it turns out you can buy this stuff.  Sometimes we just don't pay attention to what is available, because we never use these ingredients.   

So there you go: 3 reasons for baking this bread.  Now there is nothing left for you to do, but to try this recipe out!

1 small loaf

INGREDIENTS:

• 135g sunflower seeds
• 90g flax seeds
• 65g hazelnuts or almonds
• 145g buckwheat flakes or rolled oats 
• 4 tbsp psyllium seeds or psyllium seed husks or ground flax seeds (or 3 tbsp psyllium husk powder)
• 2 tbsp chia seeds (optional)
• 1 tsp fine grain sea salt
• 1 tbsp honey
• 3 tbsp melted coconut oil or ghee (or melted butter)
• 350ml water

DIRECTIONS:

• Combine all dry ingredients, stirring well. In another container, whisk together the wet ingredients (honey, water, coconut oil/ghee).  Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix very well (you can add one or two teaspoons of water if the dough seems to dry). Line the smallest bread pan you have with parchment paper and put the mixture in it (it will not grow).  Smooth out the top with the back of a spoon.  Cover this with some cling film, and let sit out on the counter for at least 2h, maximum 24h.
• Preheat the oven 175°C.
• Place the bread pan in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the bread from the pan, flip it upside down directly on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, and bake for another 30-40 minutes (watch out - it is hot!). The bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped.  
• Let it cool completely before slicing!

*The recipe comes from the blog My New Roots.

Bon appetit!

Above: bread + home-made baked lentil, soy & mushroom pâté.

Reactivation: almond & basil-crusted salmon

Hello world!  It's been a while since I posted here.  Obviously the circumstances are to blame - not me.  You are asking: how come?  Well, my inspiration for writing was brutally beheaded time after time by the changing aura.

First, I wanted to complain about the bad weather (not an infrequent inclination of mine :P)  And the weather got much better...  So then I wanted to write about the sun, hot weather, ice cream, running through fountains, pleasant evenings on the terrace, and lying on the grass waiting for that first sunburn -- pretty much your average summery stuff.  Before I got to that, however, the weather changed again.  It got chilly and rainy, and the possibility of catching sunburn was exchanged for the possibility of catching a cold.  Nonetheless, at that point it seemed pointless and so-oh passé to complain about the bad weather, and I was left without topic, yet again.

 

This whole (questionably interesting) inner debate brought me to the conclusion that maybe I shouldn't base my blog posts on weather descriptions -- as fascinating as they may be (...for grannies waiting for weather reports whilst finishing knitting new scarfs). After all, this blog is about so much more than weather (theoretically, at least).

I guess what I'm trying to say by this whole litany of excuses and boring weather talk: I missed this blog, and will make sure to start posting on a regular basis again! The good thing is that I managed to take an insane number of pictures in the meantime -- all of insanely delicious food -- so I have plenty of great resources to draw from.

 

Thanks for bearing with me. And hold on to your hats: the reaaaaally good stuff is just about to start!   

 

Speaking of really good stuff: this almond & basil-crusted salmon is packed with flavors and utterly delicious.  The freshness of the basil paired with zingy lemon zest and buttery roasted almonds makes a perfect combination.  When you are making the dish, the most amazing harmony of scents fills your kitchen and hungry housemates intrigued by the smell flock to you.  I also like the combination of textures - meaty salmon, crunchy almonds and delicate herbs -- it really melts in your mouth.

 

The dish is very easy to make, so you can prepare it for a simple weekday dinner.  At the same time, the perfect flavor blend and appealing presentation make it a sure winner for dinner parties with friends -- your guests will love it!

Ingredients:

• 4 skinless salmon fillets (approx. 600 g)
• 100 g of whole unsalted & unroasted almonds
• small bunch of fresh basil
• 1 lemon (juice + zest)
• 2 tbsp butter
• salt
• pepper

 

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180-200 °C.
• Chop the almonds coarsly and roast for a few minutes in a hot dry frying pan, until golden-brown.  Transfer to a bowl, add the lemon juice and lemon zest.  Let cool.
• Chop the basil and add to the almond mixture.  Add the butter and a bit of salt and pepper.
• Spread the crust on top of the salmon fillets.  Bake for about 15-20 minutes (check if your almonds are not burning -- if so decrease the heat).
• Serve with steamed veggies and/or garlic baked potatoes.

 

*I found the recipe (by doktorek) on a Polish discussion forum.

Bon appetit!

Easter memories & chocolate almond mazurek

Traditions.  Customs.  Family rituals.  I was brought up with tons of those, especially customs that apply during holiday season.  When it comes to such traditions I feel very lucky to be Polish, as we have plenty of really cool customs that have been cherished and nurtured for centuries.  I cannot imagine how plain and boring Easter holidays would be without them.  They are what glues families together, what accounts for hundreds of memories, and what makes home feel like home.  And as all great things -- they come at a price: lots of hard work and planning (a big chapeau bas for my Mum).  But they are totally worth it!

The profane traditions obviously evolve around food.  There are plenty of traditional dishes, such as the "white borscht" (barszcz biały or its variety żurek) -- a sour rye soup with white sausage, potatoes and eggs), white sausage served hot, baked pâté and slow-roasted meats, the famous Polish vegetable salad and various egg dishes.  There are also plenty of traditional desserts such as the babka (sweet yeast bundt cake, sort of like the Italian panettone, but less buttery), traditional cheesecakes, mazurek (see below) and a curd cheese dessert called pascha [pass-hah].

Traditional Easter activities include painting whole egg shells (you make holes on both sides of a raw egg, and blow the egg white and yolk out), preparing a basket with symbolic Easter foods and having it blessed in church on Holy Saturday, or abundantly spraying each other with water on Easter Monday, a day we call śmigus-dyngus or lany poniedziałek (both names basically signal you will get soaking wet that day).

And let's not forget the tradition cultivated at every holiday season -- eating as much as you can, and then some.  No wonder the most frequent commercials on Polish TV during this time promote anti-acids and indigestion pills.

One of the most traditional items on the Easter table in Poland is a cake called "mazurek" [mah-zoo-reck].  There is no one type of mazurek -- it varies greatly depending on the regional customs, family recipes, and simply your own taste and imagination.  Nonetheless you will definitely know one when you see it.  

You can recognize a mazurek by the following: (i) it is very very sweet, and thus is served in small pieces (exceptions apply -- for example my brother has no problems at all with eating huge chunks of it), (ii) it has thin layers: usually a pastry bottom topped off with a luscious sweet layer, (iii) it is flat and short in height (iv) it is hard and crumbly, yet sticky, and (v) it is both simple and fancy - simple in structure, and fancy in decorations.  The latter include the word "Alleluja" written in icing or chocolate, and candied / marzipan eggs, bunnies or flowers.

Mazurek is often made with shortcrust or ground almond pastry, sprinkled with lots of dried fruit and nuts, and abundantly covered with colored icing, chocolate, fudgy caramel or smooth marzipan.  And last, but not least -- it is insanely delicious! 

Left: two marmalade / icing mazurki, middle: chocolate almond mazurek, top right: caramel fudge mazurek, bottom right: babka.

This chocolate-almond-raisin mazurek has been on the Easter table in my family since I remember.  It has the best, signature shortcrust pastry -- very similar to the one I use in the poppy seed almond cake and Christmas cookies.  The pastry is so fragile and crumbly that you have to be careful when transferring the cake from tray to platter, as it brakes easily.  I remember this once happened to my Mum when I was a kid, and she had to make a new one totally last minute.  She was bummed of course, but the rest of was could not have been more happy -- somebody had to eat the broken chunks of the shortbread.  And it was incredibly delicious on its own!

The shortbread is covered by a layer of melted chocolate, with a bit of butter added for increased smoothness and glossiness.  You can add raisins or chopped nuts to the chocolate or leave it plain.  The top layer is a traditional decoration with peeled almonds -- the perfect finishing touch.  Feel free to let your imagination run wild and be creative!

BASE

Ingredients:

• 300 g of flour
• 200 g of good quality butter
• 100 g of sugar
• 3 egg yolks, boiled (boil whole eggs and get them out) and crumbled (it's best to pass them through a sieve)
• 1 package of vanilla sugar (or vanilla essence or scraped out vanilla seeds from 1 bean)
• Natural rum aroma
• Pinch of salt

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
• Roughly chop the butter (makes it easier to kneed the dough) and put in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients.  Kneed the dough until it forms a uniform ball (I did it by hand, but you can of course use a food processor).
• Line a big square baking tin with parchment paper (also on the sides and sticking out of the tin - it will help lift the cake out of the tin once baked).
• Distribute the dough evenly in the tin, forming 1-2 cm high edges (the base will better hold the chocolate layer).  Punch holes with a fork on the bottom of the cake.
• Put the tin in the fridge for an hour or two, or in the freezer for around 30 minutes.
• Take out of the fridge/freezer and bake around 35-40 minutes until golden.
• Let cool entirely.

CHOCOLATE ALMOND RAISIN LAYER

Ingredients:

• 300 g of good quality dark chocolate
• 200-250 g of good quality milk chocolate
• 50 g of butter
• 200 g of big golden raisins, rinsed and dried
• 200 g of whole peeled almonds

Directions:

• Roast the almonds for a few minutes in a hot dry frying pan, until golden.  Let cool.
• Melt the chocolate and butter au bain marie (in bowl over a pan with boiling water).  Add the raisins and stir thoroughly.
• Spread the chocolate mixture evenly over the baked shortcrust bottom.  Decorate with the roasted almonds.

Bon appetit!

Merry Easter & chewy cranberry chocolate cookies

Aah, the holiday spirit!  Streets covered by a white fluffy blanket, snowflakes dancing playfully in the air, frosty wind biting you in the nose and cheeks, and colorful store window decorations announcing the holiday season.  ♫ It's beginning to look a lot like Christm... ♫ NO, WAIT A MINUTE!  It's not December, but nearly April!  

Spring has officially -- or at least theoretically -- started, and we shouldn't be listening to the jingle bells ring, but rather make sure we have enough chocolate eggs in store.  Nonetheless, somehow I am more inclined to go Christmas tree shopping than to pick up some fresh daffodils to decorate my house for the upcoming celebrations.

I don't remember it ever being so cold during Easter time.  Certainly not in the US, not in Belgium or the Netherlands -- not even in Poland.  Clearly I am not the only one who is surprised by this cold spell, as lately weather is literally the only thing people can talk -- or in fact complain -- about.  

You hear it on the news, read it online, talk about it with your colleagues while getting coffee, or use it as a solid conversation starter during conference calls.  Hell -- even the people you meet in the elevator (that usually seem particularly intrigued by their shoes and keep staring at them -- barely noticing you) become disturbingly chatty and complain about yet another snowfall last night.

I decided to make the most of it by posting this great cranberry chocolate cookies recipe.  Theoretically, these cookies fit better in the Christmas season than Easter, but when you look outside the window it is really hard to tell one from the other.  Besides -- who is to say you can only bake Christmas cookies during Christmas?

Call me eccentric (the more diplomatic word for "nuts"), but I often like to do things that normally would be considered unfitting for the circumstances at hand.  Singing Christmas carols while sunbathing near a pool in mid-August, eating ice-cream during a walk in a snow storm or starting a meal with dessert.  It's not that I don't like singing carols at Christmas time. It's just that I like singing them so-oo much, that I can't wait a whole year before I can do it again.  And why would I?

Similarly -- why would you wait with baking these cookies until next December?

And they are totally worth it!  The cookies are as good as oatmeal cookies can be.  Tangy from the cranberries, sweet and luscious from the milk chocolate, incredibly chewy and finished off with crispy almond flakes.  Let's not forget the cinnamon flavor that will fill your entire house when you're baking these. Mmm - holidays in your kitchen!

So go ahead and have yourself a merry little cookie!

The recipe comes from Dorotus' blog, slightly modified (mainly through the addition of almonds, and increasing the amount of cranberries).

Ingredients:

• 170 g of flour
• 1 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 140 g of oats
• 150 g of butter (soft, at room temperature)
• 150 g of light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 180 g of fresh cranberries, roughly chopped
• 200 g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
• 70 g of almond flakes

For the decoration:

• 70 g of milk chocolate, roughly chopped
• 50 g of almond flakes

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).  Line 2 cookie trays with parchment paper.  
• Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.  Add the oats and combine.  Set aside.
• Mix the butter with the brown sugar and vanilla extract.  Add the egg and mix again.
• Add the butter mixture to the flower mixture, combine.  Add the chopped cranberries, chocolate and almonds, combine.
• Scoop small amounts of the dough on the baking tray, leaving enough space between the cookies as they will melt and expand.  
• Bake for around 15 minutes, checking often towards the end to see if the cookies don't burn.  Let cool on the tray.
• Melt the chocolate au bain marie (over a pan with boiling water).  Toss the almond in a dry hot frying pan for 30 second or until golden.
• Decorate cookies with the chocolate and sprinkle with almonds.

Bon appetit!

Poppy seed and almond cake

There are cakes, and there are cakes.  What is this hardly enlightening statement trying to convey?  Well, there are cakes that are pleasantly decent: tasty, good or even delicious (after all - who doesn't like a solid cake, right?).  But there are also cakes, though very few, that are simply irresistible: so heavenly, exquisite and unforgettable that they are a class of their own, and often remain a family treasure for generations.  Indeed, they can even revolutionize lives! 

This poppy seed almond cake has been in my family for three generations: my grandma made it, then my mum, and now I'm making it every Christmas period.  Rumor has it, that when my parents started dating my dad gave a piece of this cake to my mum, and by doing so won her heart.  If that's not revolutionary, I don't know what is!

So why is this cake so extraordinary?  Well, imagine the most delicate, buttery shortcrust pastry bottom, topped off with a 6 cm thick layer of smooth, rich and fluffy poppy seed mixture, flavored with the best honey and almonds, packed with raisins and walnuts -- and finished off with a layer of golden baked almonds.  Need I say more?

Nonetheless, some of you may be a bit surprised and thinking "who in the right mind puts this much poppy seeds in a cake?!  Aren't poppy seeds supposed to be sprinkled scarcely on bread and eaten in small amounts?"  Mind you, when I was growing up in the Netherlands and told my friends of the various Polish poppy seed cakes, they all thought I was some kind of opium addict (I'm not kidding).  But please be assured -- you will not become a drug addict by eating this cake (though you will most definitely get addicted to it).  When properly prepared and ground, poppy seeds are soft and fluffy - not at all like those whole seeds sprinkled on bread.

But no pain, no gain: such an exquisite treat comes with a price.  Not only do you have to prepare the shortcrust pastry bottom, whisk eight egg whites, and prepare the poppy seed layer.  Before you do all this, you also need to cook and grind the poppy seeds.  Twice!  This has to to be done in order for the poppy seeds to become soft and flavorful -- as opposed to hard and grainy, like sand.  

Since making the cake requires so much work, it's good to make a family event out of preparing it: the men can grind the poppy seeds and/or mix the butter, sugar and eggs for the top layer (traditionally with a wooden spoon, which requires a great deal of strength -- though nowadays this can of course be done in a food processor).  The women can prepare the shortcrust pastry, decorate the cake, and do what women do best: supervise and give orders ;-)

Below is a brief picture summary of the process (specific directions below). 

BASE

Ingredients:

• 300 g of flour
• 200 g of good quality butter
• 100 g of sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 package of vanilla sugar (or vanilla essence or scraped out vanilla seeds from 1 bean)
• Natural almond aroma (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
• Roughly chop the butter (makes it easier to kneed the dough) and put in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients.  Kneed the dough until it forms a uniform ball (I did it by hand, but you can of course use a food processor).
• Line a big square baking tin with parchment paper (also on the sides and sticking out of the tin - it will help lift the cake out of the tin once baked).
• Distribute the dough evenly in the tin, forming 2-3 cm high edges (the base will better hold the poppy seed layer).  Punch holes with a fork on the bottom of the cake.
• Put the tin in the fridge for an hour or two, or in the freezer for around 30 minutes.
• Take out of the fridge/freezer and bake around 20 minutes until golden.

POPPY SEED LAYER

Ingredients:

• 500 g of good quality poppy seeds
• 300 g of good quality butter
• 150 g of (brown) sugar
• 4 large tbsp of honey
• 5 eggs
• 3 egg whites
• 2 tbsp of breadcrumbs
• 200 g of whole peeled almonds
• 70 g of raisins
• 70 g of walnuts, roughly chopped
• Natural almond aroma
• A splash of milk (optional)
• 1 tsp of sugar (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC (or just leave it on after baking the base).
• Rinse the poppy seeds (not easy!), put in a big pan with filled with cold water, bring to a boil and let simmer for 5 minutes.  Turn the heat off and let the seeds cool down a bit.  Strain the poppy seeds thoroughly (again - not easy!).  Try to get all the water out of there - you might need to strain twice or three times.  Once you got rid of the water, grind the poppy seeds twice with a grinder.  
• Wash the raisins and put them in a small pan, adding a splash of milk and some sugar to taste (1 tsp).  Bring to a boil, let simmer for a couple of minutes.  Strain.
• Mix the butter, sugar and honey in a big bowl until the mixture starts getting white and fluffy.  One by one, add 5 egg yolks (keep the whites in a separate bowl for later), mixing after each yolk. 
• In a separate bowl whisk 8 egg whites (5 from the yolks + 3 additional ones) until completely stiff.
• Add the ground poppy seeds to the butter/sugar mixture and stir thoroughly.  Add the bread crumbs, strained raisins, chopped walnuts and almond aroma.  Mix thoroughly.  
• Fold in the egg whites to the poppy seed mixture - one spoon at a time, mixing very gently to retain the lightness of the egg whites.
• Spread evenly over pre-baked shortcrust bottom.  Decorate with almonds.
• Bake for around 30 minutes.  Let cool down completely before taking out of the tin.
• Sit down and have a drink, because you've really deserved it!!!

Bon appetit!