Thailand

Jan, Marie, Claartje en Bob in Thailand
. Te gek!

Duf en Basta

Duf en Basta

A very refreshing oil tanker crash

Dinner:
- Avocado with a lime dressing
- Deep fried Red Snapper with Three-flavored sauce (aka Plaa Thawt Sahm Rot)

We haven't had fish for a while, so we decided to have Red Snapper for dinner. If you don't mind to eat a fish that looks like if it had been at the wrong place at the wrong time during a crash between to oil tankers, I highly recommend this recipe. It is amazing. The combination -Jen made up- with avocados in a lime dressing, is fantastic. Everything so refreshing! Especially with a nice cold Singha beer.
The next time we have to use hotter chilies for the sauce.


Recipe Avocado
Peel 2 avocados and cut them in moon-like shapes. Pour the juice of one lime and some extra virgin olive oil over it and add salt & pepper to taste.


Recipe Red Snapper
Clean the fish and dry it thoroughly. Cut of the side fins with scissors. With a very sharp knife score the fish three or four times on both sides. Rub the fish inside out with fine seasalt. Put about two tablespoons of all-purpose flour on a plate and add black pepper.



Coat the fish with the flour and shake of any excess.
Heat enough vegetable oil in a pan that the fish is half covered. Cook the fish 10 minutes in both sides till light brown. Remove the fried fish from the pan and put it on paper towels before transferring to a plate. Keep warm.

Sauce:
Put in a small food processor 5 garlic cloves, 3 cilantro roots, 5 long chilies, 5 challots. Blend until a rough paste.
Heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil and stir fry the chili paste for about 3 minutes.



Add 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, 3 tablespoons of tamarind purée and 3 tablespoons of palm sugar and cook until the sugar is dissolved.

Pour the chili sauce over the fish.

Too saucy papas

Dinner: Sausages and Patatas Bravas

We had a simple dinner; sausages we bought in Philly and Patatas Bravas. We have made that Spanish potatoes now a couple of times, but the first time was the best. It's really a pity that we didn't write recipes down by that time. I've no idea what we did different then. It's not so much how we cook the potatoes (the trick is to cook them slow and heat it up by the end), but the sauce is too suacy or something. It's nice, but not as perfect as it was.

Recipe hot potatoes: Patatas Bravas
Cut 1 kilo (2 lb) of potatoes into chunks of about 5 cm (2 inches). Wash them and pet them dry.
Pour enough olive oil in a frying pan to cover the potatoes completely, heat it, add the potatoes and reduce the heat to low for about 25 minutes till they are tender. Raise the heat to high and wait till they are brown. Transfer the fried potatoes to a bowl and keep warm.

The sauce: Spicy sauce (too saucy)
Use 1 tablespoon of the olive oil used for frying the potatoes. Add 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon of paprika, Stir over low heat for a few minutes. very carefully add 1 cup of beef stock, stirring constantly. Then add 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and about 2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes. Simmer for about 10 minutes over low heat. Stir in 1/4 cup tomato sauce and add salt to taste.

Pour the sauce over the fried potatoes and toss to coat.

Another word for tenderness might by baby lamb

Dinner:- Artichokes with Cilantro Dressing
- Roast Rack of Baby Lamb Persillade

Jen likes to say "it's sooooo good, it's not even funny". Well, this time I was the one saying it during dinner. And that was about it. I didn't speak much. I just enjoyed our delicious dinner.


Recipe Artichokes: Artichokes with Cilantro Dressing

Cilantro Dressing:
Put in a bowl about 4 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, two teaspoons of sugar, juice of one lime, one chopped shallot and salt & black pepper to taste. Stir and add about one cup roughly cut fresh cilantro.

Artichokes in High Pressure Cooker:
prepare the artichokes by cutting of the stem and cut about 1 cm (1/2 inch) off the top to remove the main cluster of thorns. Cut with scissors the rest of the thorny tips of the outer leaves.
Put 1/2 cup of water, 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar in the pressure cooker. Add artichokes and pour about 1 tablespoon of olive oil on top of them.
Follow the directions of the pressure cooker.




Recipe Roast Rack of Baby Lamb Persillade (about 1.5 pounds)

Combine in a bowl 1 cup of coarse fresh bread crums, 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of chicken stock, a shallot, 5 grams of fresh Italian parsley and salt & pepper to taste.

Place the racks of the Lamb bone side down in a roasting pan in a preheated oven on 230 degrees Celsius (450 degrees Fahrenheit) for about 25 minutes.

Pat the bread crumb mixture on the meat side of the lamb and broil it until the topping is lightly browed (about 3 minutes).

Cut the racks into chops by cutting between the bones.

Spice the Thai up!

Dinner: Mussels with Lemon Grass and Beef with Green Curry

Saturday we had 5 people over for dinner, including us 7. I don't know why, but for some reason I found cooking in larger proportions far more difficult than just for two. I guess it doesn't make sense at all. Anyway, we had Mussels and Beef with Green Curry, served with white rice. It was good, but not super good. Next time we need to add more hot peppers in both dishes and/or double the spices.

Mussels recipe: Mussels with Lemon Grass
Clean two bags of mussels. Heat 1,5 tablespoons vegetable oil in a wok and stir-fry 3 chopped garlic cloves, 1 finely chopped small onions, 3 lemon grass stalks (white part only and finely sliced) a 2.5 cm piece of galangal, cut in 8 slices, 2 finely chopped red hot chillies for about 2 minutes.
Add the mussels and stir fry them for a couple of minutes. Add 1 tablespoon of fishsaus, 1 tablespoon of lime juice and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.
Cover loosely and cook over a medium heat for about 6 minutes, shaking the wok frequently.
Transfer everything to a boil and ad 25 grams of roughly chopped holy basil leaves.

Beef recipe: Beef with Green Curry
For 7 people we had about 5 lbs of beef. (I don't remember which part of the beef, but I believe it was the shoulder.) Slice the beef in very thin parts of about 4 by 2 cm and set aside.
Put 120 ml coconut cream in a saucepan and simmer over medium heat until the cream separates and a layer of oil forms in the surface (about 5t minutes). Stir the cream if it starts to brown around the edges. Add 4 tablespoons of green curry paste, stir well to combine and cook until fragrant.
Add the beef and stir until all brown. Add about 800 milliliters of coconut milk, 5 tablespoons of fish sauce and 2 tablespoons of palm sugar. Simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes.
Add 100 grams of julienned galangal and some kaffir (lime) leaves torn into half.
Garnish with basil leaves.

Quick and Easy

Dinner: Trofie al Pesto

Jen was tired and went to bed as soon she got home from work. I wanted to surprise her by having dinner ready as soon as she woke up. Because of rushing (Jen couldn't sleep long, she had to pick up her friend Danna at BWI), I screwed up the vegetables. I forgot to take them out of the pan before adding the pasta. Still it tasted okay.



Pesto Recipe
Put together 60 grams (2 oz) basil, some arugula leaves, 3 tablespoons of pine nuts, one glove garlic, a pinch of sea salt, 1/3 cup of extra-virgin olive oil, 125 grams ( 4 oz) grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Make sure that the butter is at room temperature.
Place it in a food processor and process until as smooth as you like it.

Pasta Recipe: Trofie with potatoes and green beans
Clean 250 grams (1/2 lb) green beans and, if very long, cut in half. Peal 250 grams (1/2 lb) new potatoes and cut them into slices of about 2 cm.
Take a big pan and fill it for about 2/3 with water. Add salt, some tablets of vegetable stock and bring to boil. Add potatoes and green beans. Boil for about 8 minutes till just tender. Using a skimmer, transfer the vegetables to a bowl and cover to keep warm.
Add pasta to the boiling water and cook al dente.

Drain the water and add the pasta to the vegetables. Stir in the pesto.