European Mix Grill Menu for Week 23´s Barbecue

Whenever I get bored, I would inevitably come up with themes and concept to any imaginable chores and small, insignificant event, just to get my brain charged with excitement.  Winter had been long this year as I´ve earlier talked about but things took a turn since two weekends ago.  Since then, we have been taking the opportunity to dine al fresco as much as we can - you know, just to brown our skin a little and be a bit more closer to nature.  Although I must say that nature sometimes ain´t my thing when it comes to scrubbing all the shit and poo leftover from the birds hanging around our garden.

So anyway, the theme thing ... yes, this fanatic planner here decided to go with a theme everytime we do our weekend barbecue.  Just to make be more adventurous with our tastebuds, that kinda thing.  Week 23 which I´ve shared here was the reason why I thought its better to get one more focus lol.  I wanted this salad, but was also tempted by another salad and ended up making something entirely different altogether.  lol.  Same goes to the main course.  And the dessert course.  lol.

So, the Roma Salad was a good choice.  I lurveee tomatoes when its in season.  The colours are vividly red, it smell soooo good and taste simply juicy, and ripe and sweet that one need nothing to accompany it actually.  But I wanted to try our newly bought Balsamic Vinegar from London´s Borough Market.  Although bought in London, it is from Modena where Balsamic Vinegar holds godlike status.  The bottle we picked up was sublime.  All I need to do is drizzle a little on it with some olive oil and that´s it.  The tomato taste came right thru.

Pork Neck for grill is something the locals love having apart from the famous Bratwurst or German sausage in english :-)  Nothing fancy from the butcher but from a discounter nearby Aldi which in my opinion, carries higher quality stuff than some wellknown supermarket! Take for example this marinated pork neck.  We both agreed that the marinade was good and not overly salted.  The other thing I lurveee from Aldi is their Mucci ice cream!  Much, much, MUCH better than most of the expensive stuff we tried!

To end the meal, nothing less than eye catching fresh rasberries on bed of vanilla cream.

Here´s to more GRILL entry :-)

Mexican Nachos with Cheese

I have been cooking.  I have also been travelling.  Came back one piece and had a really good time in London.  And I have also been eating and taking the occassional photo when mood strikes but I´ve totally lost it when it came to blogging.  Sorry!  But thats the thing about me.  I do envy some bloggers whom blogs consistently because I simply am not one of those.  Fact.

As of late, I have been struck down by Mexican food craze.  It started with getting myself hooked on Mexican Food at Home showned on BBC, hosted by the lovely, affectionate Thomasina Miers.  She´s not mexican, as one can tell from her name but her style of cooking, to me, reflected that.  Nothing high end but superbly tantalising street style mexican food which one can replicate at home.  This platter of Nachos here were taken from a month back!  And that was before we made our way to Wahaca in Southbank, London to go check out Thomasina´s container canteen itself! It was simple amazing.  The vibe of the place.  The staff.  The concept.  The view towards River Thame and need to other mention, the food of course.  Freshly prepared with top notch ingredient - I saw reviews they were close to real thing in Mexico, not sure how true is that because I have not personally been there but if this is it, I am superbly impressed.

I´m planning for a mexican theme barbecue this weekend, so HOLA!

Tarragon, Basil & Rosemary Quiche

Continuing our eating seasonally challenge, (thanks DH Hamburg for organising!), I decided to use herbs which is being used as seasoning usually as a highlight instead.  Herbs in this part of Europe comes in very handy from dried to fresh form from the pot or from ones garden so with spring hitting this part of the world, it is available abundantly. Yeahhhhh ....

This quiche recipe is something I´d learned while staying with my cousin in France.  The dough can be store bought puff pastry, or you can knead 200 grams flour, an egg and roughly a cup of water with your mixer until it forms a ball dough.  Add some olive oil to give it a nice fragrant too.  If the water is not enough, just dribble some in until you see the crumbles in your mixing bowl finally coming together.  For the quiche filling, all I did was crack 3 eggs into 200 ml cream.  Mix them together.  Add a cup of cheese, in here I´ve used Gruyere because its my absolute favourite for baking and last but most importantly, lets not forget the herbs!  I´ve got in there half cup of chopped up tarragon, another half cup of basil and some sprinks of rosemary.  I was rather careful with rosemary because it can get overpowering, not to mention its texture being coarse too ... so go gentle on it.  Und voila!  Please excuse my german french hehe ... mix them all up - throw them into the oven to bake for a good 40 minutes at 180C! Then its done!

Seasonal Eats : White Asparagus (Prepared Italian Way)

Eating seasonally is a way of live here.  When I first arrived, it was a big culture shocked and having to get used too because back home in Malaysia, we get lots and lots of varieties of produces all year round not to mention the availability of imported produce from both the northern and southern tip from us.  Having said that, fresh white asparagus is not available in Malaysia so it is a treat to having them handy when the season is here.  This year, spring arrived rather late due to prolonged winter.  The spring bulbs are all still not in bloom yet so as the asparagus producer too.  Strangely, I spotted a local supermarket selling some German white asparagus.  I just had to had it.  And I got them prepared the italian way with layers of anchovies on top, some capers and a good drizzle of good olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some light seasoning.  Being a mild tasting vegetable, I find this an interesting combination.  The anchovie taste lend its smoky flavour to the whole dish thus elevating it different notch.  And not to mention it look impressive too when served, especially so when I added some chopped tomatoes and some fresh herbs to liven up the colour.  This is a keeper I must say.

White Asparagus (Spargel) in Blackforest Ham Blanket, Serve with Parsley Sauce

A friend of mine commented these green sauce looked soupy! This is what happens when one is indecisive in the kitchen.  To soup it or not!  It can pass of actually, hehe .... the flavour is all there for one to dig into especially so when paired with one of my favourite vegetable - the white asparagus or weiss spargel as it is known here.  I had purposely wrapped them with blackforest ham too, just to go with the flow of eating local.  This is a wonderful finger food.

Ginger Chilli Salmon Served on Wilted Spinach

I ate so much when I was back in Malaysia I swear my jeans button is gonna pop out anytime soon! Before hurting anyone in the process, I thought I´d better get a grip over this matter and to restart my careful eating plan again.  Salad is an easy option really, but with the ongoing-neverending-miserable weather here in Germany, I´m cracking my head everyday to get myself something warm and yet calorie friendly.  Here´s one of the lunch I had few days ago.  It is actually a chinese inspired dish with lots of ginger and chilli thrown in while making the sauce/grilling the salmon. The salmon is with pepper encrusted on its skin (hooray, because I love salmon skin and I love pepper!) so all I need to do is let it grill for 2-3 minutes skin side down.  The spinach leafs were also present alongside and was cooked till wilted. A splash of kikomman sauce was all I needed to season this fish because the ginger and chilli slices were already wrapping the fish alongside when its being grilled.  What I did next once the fish was done is, pour in some water to absorb all the residue from the pan.  Thats the brown sauce you see here.  So here goes ... the rest are platting work which I love :-)