Lamb cutlets

Yesterday was spent recuperating from a great night out two days ago (! that's how good it was) and cooking for various sick family members in the house. This produced a couple of soups and a lot of grated apple. The Orange and White Asparagus Soup will definitely be made again.

But not having foreseen the blight of sickness, I had already done the shopping in anticipation of being able to cook something a little different. I went ahead with this plan for dinner and was not disappointed. The results of this recipe will have me raving like a lunatic for some time yet.

It is, to me, the perfect finger food. The cutlets can be enjoyed without cutlery and I will definitely make this for the next party, that deserves a bit of effort.
These crunchy, juicy morsels of meat had the perfect texture for the creamy yogurt sauce. The cumin and the fresh coriander gave it the perfect hint of Asia.
Can you sense that I LOVED this? And I was not alone.

Please excuse the lack of appropriate photo-documentation. This is one instance in which a thousand raving words will have to do instead of the perfect picture. (Hope to change that soon.)

This recipe is adapted from Bill Grangers Everyday book.

12 french trimmed lamb cutlets
1 egg
1,5 tablespoons milk
flour
80 grams of fresh bread crumbs
one small handful of finely chopped flat leaved parsley
1 generous tablespoon of finely chopped fresh coriander leaves
1 teaspoon lemon zest
half a teaspoon of ground cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil for frying

Fill your flour into a flat, deep plate or bowl. In a second dish beat together the egg and milk. In the third mix together the breadcrumbs, herbs, zest and cumin. Then season to taste.
Take your lamb cutlets and beat them gently with the broad side of a chopping knife or a rolling pin. A classic meat hammer would probably tear them to shreds in seconds...
Dip the pieces of meat first in the flour (shake off excess), then in the egg and lastly into the crumb mixture. The general goal is to get as much breadcrumbs to stick and turn these beauties into crunchy delicacies when fried up.

Heat a frying pan to medium-high heat, add olive oil and fry the cutlets in batches for about two minutes per side. Keep them warm in the oven until you want to serve them.

Herb Yogurt Sauce
125 ml greek yogurt
2 tablespoons flat leaved parsley chopped
2 tablespoons coriander chopped
1 teaspoon lemon zest
salt to taste
a pinch of crumbled dry or finely chopped fresh chili, if desired

Very simply mix all of the above together and serve with your warm lamb cutlets.

*Advice on buying the meat in Switzerland: I found the cutlets sold at the local Coop to be slightly on the thick side. I chose to buy lamb racks instead and cut them up at home.

Hooray for Spring and hooray for Soda Bread

The trees may be bare and the grass not yet green, but spring is definitely approaching! It's nearing is proclaimed by the first snowdrops and daffodil shoots, the birdsong which is noticed more than at any other time of the year and my personal spring fever which lead to purchase and potting of these beauties:


And not to be forgotten: The fact, that I am blogging from our veranda enjoying the sights of all of the above. Yes, I might still be in a light fleece while doing so. But I no longer need to don mittens, a scarf and a hat in the attempt. :-)

Today is St. Patrick's Day. This is not of any consequence in Switzerland. You can go everywhere without being confronted with the color green. We go from Carnival decorations strait to the Easter stuff.

Through reading blogs I adore from all over the world I am aware that this day has a lot of food connotations in other countries. And since I didn't want to dive in with corned beef or green beer, I thought I would try my hand at making a Soda Bread


The recipe can be found at smitten kitchen: http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/03/irish-soda-bread-scones/

I made some slight changes:
Since I had some cranberries in the pantry I added a mixture of currants and those. I like the tartness they added.
With no baking soda or cream of tartar (don't think you can even get that here) in the house, both were substituted with baking powder.

I love the result, especially with lots of cold butter. I am not sure however, if I might not have kneaded the dough enough....
I will definitely make this again but will probably try out a savoury version next.
Any suggestions?

That kind of day...

Have you ever had to take three tries to cook an egg?

And I am not talking about some fancy poached number. (I know they're supposed to be easy. The skill of their preparation just eludes me.) I am talking about a plain and simple soft boiled egg.

First try; (And I HATE when this happens.) The egg shell cracks a couple of seconds after you let it slide into the boiling water with the utmost delicacy.
Second try: To save you breakfast (and face) you decide to make a simple oeuf en cocotte. So you save the cracked egg from the boiling water and put it into one of those ramekins with a splash of cream, salt and pepper. The ramekin goes back into the pan with the slightly murky water and you give it an extra minute.
At the end of the allotted time you take it out carefully and unscrew the top to see if the egg is done. Of course not! So you put the bugger back into the water, but because you didn't screw on the top correctly, the whole thing falls out of your hand and empties its contents into the already murky water. Aaaargh!
Third try: You clean out the pan, put new water to boil, get a new egg out of the fridge and put the warm egg yolk (the only part of your prior experiments you were able to save) onto a piece of toast, which you devour as you wait for your egg to boil.
Congratulations! Third time lucky!

Some days have hardly begun and you already can't wait until they're over.
I'm glad this one is.

Hollandaise sauce and all its merits

I remember having a lively discussion with my aunt about all the different ways to enjoy Hollandaise Sauce; on steamed asparagus, with roast beef (granted, this would more likely be its cousin the Sauce Bearnaise), over poached eggs for breakfast or cold with hard boiled eggs at Easter Brunch. (It's a family tradition, don't ask.)

She added as an afterthought, that a friend of hers had confessed to have the habit of eating leftovers of it as pasta sauce.... We both tried picturing this and were not at all enamored of the idea. I should have made a picture of the disgusted faces.

Well, I am here to repent and recant. I had made a lemon foam sauce to go with pork chops the night before. It was simply a mixture of vegetable stock, two eggs and the juice and zest of half a lime whisked and heated over a double boiler. When this was quite firm a small amount of cold butter (50 gr.) was cut into pieces and stirred into the mixture.
This is a light version of a Hollandaise Sauce.

At lunch the next day I cooked my favorite pasta (linguine, for the record) and added a good handful of grated parmesan and some more lemon juice to the cup of leftover lime sauce.


I drained the pasta, but not too dry. The residual heat of the pasta ensures the sauce, the cheese and the pasta water come together beautifully. This is a silky, rich indulgence. I will surely make this again one day.

Pretty, cheap things

I am well aware that this post has nothing to do with either cooking nor reading. Can I just declare it to be part of the general "living" side of things?

I have another obsession which did not make it into the title of this blog. (If I packed everything of interest to me in there, it would be constantly changing and much too long.)
Growing this has fascinated me since childhood. It did happen upon an occasional damper during the teen years when I let an African violet or two die miserably. But those days have passed.

I give you the easiest and most impressive indoor plant known:
The Orchid
The only thing it needs is light and a weekly bath. Even the tiniest apartment will be able to provide those.
Don't water orchids. They don't like to stand in the wet and therefore the quantities and timing can be tricky. A friend gave me this trick years ago and I have been using it ever since: Once a week fill up the pot completely with lukewarm water. Leave it to stand for at least 20 minutes but no longer than two hours. Then let the plant drain off completely. I have forgotten them in their bath for a few hours a couple of times (no biggie).


I might feed them about three times a year. That's it.
They bloom for months on end. Imagine buying cut flowers during all of this time. If you keep them, practice a little patience and give them a little TLC they'll come again and again.

They always remind me of flying to Thailand... Thai Airways always distributed orchid corsages on the flight.
A single blooming plant can make a big impression. Give them a try and tell me what you think!

Awful Offal?

Spring is just around the corner. It must be!
At least that's what I tell myself to keep from going crazy. I might be a little bit over-optimistic, but I already cut back all of the woody herbs and my indoor chili plant...
And then I found this little beauty underneath everything else. This will have to tide me over until warmer days arrive.


Later the same day I cooked something with the same herb. And let this be a fair warning to anyone who isn't similarly inclined. I cooked myself some lovely Fegato alla Veneziana, or in plain English Chicken Livers with Sage, Marsala and Onions...
Thank you, please come back and visit soon. (This will not be a recurring topic. I promise)




I will presume that the only people still reading are those who can also handle corresponding pictures.
First of all: I am unsure if this is the original composition of the Venetian Chicken Livers. My father dubbed this dish and the name has stuck.

Ingredients:
Fat for frying
Chicken livers
Marsala
Fresh Sage leaves
One small onion, red or white
Salt and Pepper

First of all you want to marinate the cleaned livers in a generous lashing of Marsala and add a couple of (can be roughly chopped) fresh sage leaves. Leave this standing at room temperature for 20 minutes or half an hour. In the last couple of minutes take a small onion and slice it not too finely.


Heat a frying pan to high heat and fry the livers only in a little clarified butter or oil of choice. Turn them over after a couple of minutes and cook them until they are just done. Put them aside.
In a bit more clarified butter or oil fry off the sage leaves until crispy. (These could be put aside and sprinkled over the finished dish.) In the sage infused fat, fry the sliced onions to taste. I like them to still retain a bit of crunchy texture. Add all of the Marsala used to marinate and let it reduce and cook of the alcohol. Add back the livers and cook them in the sauce for one or two minutes. Adjust the seasoning.
Serve with a couple of slices of crusty bread to soak up the sauce with.


E Guete!

Perfect endings...

Last Saturday was supposed to be THE night. All my girls got together for dinner and the idea was to go out afterwards. But as those plans go....
We had something to nibble before some homemade cannelloni were dished up. The recipe was one of Jamie Oliver's that I have also used myself. They were so delicious. Over wine we got to talking and time seemed to fly.
For desert I had made the Pioneer Woman's Lemon Olive Oil& Thyme cakes and they were so nice.

The simple lemon, butter and powder sugar frosting gave the otherwise fluffy cakes the perfect amount of texture. Although I did make about a third less than in the recipe, it was the perfect amount. I probably under baked these beauties a little. But I have no regrets as there is nothing I like less than a too dry cake... These were perfect.

I will certainly make them again, but am thinking of something to substitute the thyme. I personally liked them but some (like my mother) would prefer something less "edgy"...

PS: Of course not one of us set foot into a club that night... In the end we were all just yearning to go home. Are we getting old? :-)