peppers with zucchini stuffing

red peppers stuffed with zucchini
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

One of the books I have cooked out of most extensively is Marcella Hazan's Marcella's Kitchen. I bought it somewhere in the 90s and read it cover to cover. I came to understand so many techniques and basics of Italian cooking, while cooking a huge amount of recipes from the book.

Marcella is an old lady now, well in her 80s, living in Florida with her husband Victor, after a lifetime of cooking classes for an American audience. I have 4 of her books and can highly recommend them all, especially her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. But any book will do. She very often sounds very strict, but she explains all steps beautifully and her recipes are always spot on.

This red pepper stuffed with zucchini is one of the recipes I made many times, but it kind of slipped away over the years. I rediscovered it recently and am happy I did, because I really, really like it. For this recipe (peperoni al forno ripieni di zucchine), you will need: 3 large red bell peppers; 2 to 3 small light green zucchini; 1 clove of garlic; 100 grams of Emmenthal cheese; thyme, salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs.

Peel the red peppers with a vegetable peeler and cut each one into 3, along their natural shapes. Put in an oven dish which will hold all red pepper 'boats'. Slice the zucchini into the thinnest possible rounds, put in a bowl. Add 8 tablespoons of olive oil, breadcrumbs, grated Emmenthal cheese and chopped garlic. Mix to combine, add pepper and salt. When soaked thoroughly, stuff the pepper boats with the mixture. Sprinkle on some extra bread crumbs and drizzle with olive oil. Bake in a 175C preheated oven for around 30 minutes.

You can eat it hot or lukewarm (if you can be so patient to wait!). Peeling the pepper makes it really sweet, and the garlic and thyme give the zucchini a real nice flavour. Makes a lovely side dish for pasta dishes, nice with salads. Love it.

fresh lily bulb

fresh lily bulb by kattebelletje.

Roaming through Chinese supermarkets is certainly my idea of a good time. Holding a basket, I can go through all isles as if I have to study it all. I read the packaging for different brands, I hover above their frozen food section, I stare at their collection of vinegars (for example), and I check out their vegetable and fresh fruit collection. It can be fun to try out things you haven't seen or eaten before. So, last time I was in the Chinese supermarket I stumbled upon this strange foodstuff: fresh lily bulbs. They were on a rather large display, selling 2 bulbs for 1 euro.

I couldn't resist trying, but in the back of my mind was the famous Dutch horror story of a whole classroom of primary school students, who were given flower bulbs to eat by their teacher as a school project. The idea of this was to have the students taste the bitter times of the 'winter of hunger' of 1944-45, when there was a famine in the west of the Netherlands, so the local population started eating tulip bulbs for nutrition. Unfortunately, this particular teacher didn't know which flower bulb was edible and which not. He boiled the bulbs of the narcissus instead of tulips and got the whole school sick. Would these fresh lily bulbs be edible? Or only after simmering for hours with certain herbs or flavours?

These white lily bulbs have the size of a garlic bulb or small onion, and I was quite at loss at what to do. So I read the package. It said they were from the highlands of Lanzhou in Western China, and highly valued for their sweet, crisp and refreshing flavour (plus their nutritional value of course). They were traditionally a tribute gift for the imperial court. If you want to eat them raw (package says), use them in cold platters or have them with Western style (!) salads. For stir-frying, fry no longer than 1 minute or they will lose their sweet flavour; if you decide to cook them, do not cook more than two minutes. The funny thing is the package says you could also use them in Western style cakes and sweets - has anyone ever heard of lilies used that way?

Anyway, I wiped them clean of their Chinese yellow earth, peeled off their petals, which looked beautiful, and had a bite. They were indeed very crispy, with a sweet tinge, they had a crunch like raw Belgian endives (witloof), but a much sweeter and crunchy taste. I used them in a (western-style) salad (picture here) and quite liked them. Now I still have to think of a nice way to use them in a sweet dessert, or have them as a receptacle for blue cheese, cream cheese, or some other spread as an amuse.

cannelloni

cannelloni by kattebelletje.

I love lasagna and all other oven pasta dishes, and cannelloni is one of my favorites. They are so comforting to eat, especially when the weather outside it horrible. But, pressed for time in today's hectic lifestyle, these are the dishes we don't seem to get around cooking. I have found a way of adding a few shortcuts, and now it cooks like a breeze. Just assemble the ingredients, pop it in the oven and make a nice salad to go with it. Serves 6, or less - make more and freeze the rest, it keeps well.

You will need: two tins of plum tomatoes in their juice; eggs; [shortcut no.1] one package of fresh lasagna sheets from the supermarket (I used Albert Heijn lasagna, one pack has 8 or 10 sheets. I forgot to count them). Two tins of ricotta cheese (250 grams each); two balls of mozzarella cheese; more grated cheese of your choice - I had a mixture of ordinary Gouda and Parmesan-; and [shortcut 2] a bag of ready-to-use fresh spinach leaves (300 grams). You will also need slices of ham or prosciutto, I used Belgian Ardenner ham. This amount will serve 12 cannelloni rolls.

Start with making a simple tomato sauce: put the two tins of tomatoes and their juice in a saucepan, mash them up (I use a potato masher for this), add a large knob of butter, some sugar and salt, and half an onion, unpeeled. Leave to simmer for at least half an hour. This is the unbeatable basic but brilliant Marcella Hazan tomato sauce. If you are so inclined, you could buy a ready made tomato sauce and create shortcut no.3.

Put the kettle on a boil to get enough boiling water, so you can precook the sheets of lasagna. You don't need to [shortcut no.4], but I find this makes the end result much nicer.

Wilt the spinach in a pan with some olive oil. Add water if needed. Turn off the heat when it has wilted and put in a sieve to get all water out. Squeeze to get the water out and chop up coarsely.

Put the ricotta in a bowl, add 1 grated mozzarella ball, add nutmeg, lemon zest of 1 lemon and salt and pepper to your liking. Add two egg yolks and the chopped spinach. Mix and taste for salt.

Cut the lasagna sheets in half. One basic portion for one person is two rolls of cannelloni, so one sheet is one portion. I found it easier to make more, so I can freeze it. Pour the boiling water in a large saucepan so you have lots of room. Boil the pasta sheets in simmering water for 1 to 2 minutes until they are supple. Have a bowl of cold water ready, as soon as the sheets are finished, toss them in the cold water and rub them a little bit (get rid of the starch). Marcella Hazan says to wring them like a cloth. Then put on a towel to dry.

As you can see on the picture, I put them in rows on a towel to dry and assembled them on the spot. Put a slice of prosciutto on top of the pasta, and scoop a portion of the ricotta and spinach filling in the middle. Roll up and put in an oven dish, with the pretty side up. Cover the cannelloni rolls with tomato sauce and sprinkle more cheese on top. Grate your second ball of mozzarella for this. Put in a preheated oven at 175C for 20 minutes and you are ready to go. Serve with a green salad and a glass of red wine.

Here is a picture of the end result

beetroot and walnut spread

beetroot and walnut spread by kattebelletje.

This spread (or dip) is from a book on Georgian cooking, for which I wrote a review (at foodblog Zestz, in Dutch). With Georgia, I mean the country of Georgia, situated near the Black Sea, bordering with Russia, Turkey and Armenia, not the USA state of Georgia!
There were quite a lot of interesting recipes in the book, with strange and unfamiliar flavour combinations, often with fresh herbs like dill, cilantro and parsley. Sometimes they felt like the Turkish kitchen, and sometimes they reminded me of Iranian cooking, chicken with pomegranate seeds and dishes like that. Can you picture a beetroot dip with chopped fresh cilantro, walnuts, garlic, flavoured with fenugreek and coriander seeds? I couldn't.

So I decided to make it! Take one cooked beetroot, 150 grams of walnuts, 1 onion, half a bunch of fresh cilantro, and put all in a food processor. Blend until smooth. Add one clove of mashed garlic, salt and pepper, and add ground fenugreek and ground coriander powder. Add two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and a dash of red pepper. Mash with fork to combine, put in a nice bowl and make some pretty patterns with a fork. (I tried, but the result isn't very spectacular). Serve with a Turkish kind of flatbread or crusty other bread to your liking. I liked the flavour! The beetroot taste had somewhat disappeared; the walnut gave a nice background touch, the cilantro put the flavours together and the garlic, onion and fenugreek-coriander seeds gave a nice kick. Really nice, and simple to make. I think I will try more Georgian dishes in the future!

mapo tofu

mapo tofu by kattebelletje.

This is one of my favorite tofu recipes from China. It is easily the best known one: soft white cubes of tofu floating in an intense red chili oil sauce, with minced meat, spring onions and garlic and ginger. It has quite a funny name: mapo means pockmarked woman, and this woman with her bad-face-day is said to be the inventor of this Sichuan favorite, more than 200 years ago.

Pockmarked or not, she sure was a kitchen princess! While the Official Dutch Bureau of Food has fried tofu in white wine sauce for their Christmas vegetarian meal (I shudder when I type this), I think you will bring out the best of tofu when its softness and bland flavour clashes with some true spicy stuff.
Without trying to sound fussy, much depends on the kind of tofu you use. The spectacular result I had last time was really tofu-related. I will list the kinds of tofu for this dish in my preferred order. Try to get the top of the list, but don't despair if it can't find tofu number 1.

For this dish I recommend: 1. Fresh soft tofu from the Asian store. I bought mine for a mere 0.39 cents (300 grams, rather small) This serves two people. 2. Japanese silken tofu in a carton. They come in red or blue packaging and have quite a long shelf life, but cost like €2.50. 3.Fresh normal tofu. These cakes are bigger than tofu no.1, but have a more coarse structure. 0.80cents. 4. supermarket tofu, packed in thick plastic packaging. Usually too coarse and its taste is not subtle. When your first bite of tofu ever was tofu no.4, you will probably be put off for life, but please try the better ones on the list, you won't be dissapponted!

For this dish you need: 50 to 100 grams of ground meat (pork or beef or mixed is OK), garlic, ginger, spring onions, Sichuan chili broad bean paste - tobanjiang or doubanjiang, soy, sugar, cornstarch, ground Sichuan pepper, sesame oil, and stock or water.

Cut up the tofu in small cubes and soak in hot scalding water for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, pour a pool of oil in a wok and fry meat. Don't skimp too much on the oil, because if it isn't there, the end result won't turn out so great. When the meat starts to brown, add 2 cloves of chopped garlic, 2 cms of chopped ginger and fry until fragrant. Add two tablespoons of tobanjiang (Sichuan chili broad bean paste. The best brand is from Pixian County, and called Pixian doubanjiang. Ask your shop. And keep asking. I know it's for sale in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague). Stir until fragrant, add water or stock to make a sauce. Carefully, add the tofu cubes and stir to coat the cubes with the sauce. It will smell delicious already!

Simmer for a couple of minutes and add half a teaspoon of sugar. Meanwhile, chop up 2 small spring onions into small rings. Prepare the Sichuan pepper powder: fry two tablespoons of Sichuan pepper (huajiao) in a dry pan until fragrant. Let cool and grind into a powder. You can use your stone mortar for this, it's fun!

In the end of the cooking, dissolve one tablespoon of cornstarch into half a cup of water. Use this water to thicken the sauce, first add half of it and see how thick it gets, add more if needed. If everything is to your liking, put all on a pretty plate, sprinkle on some sesame oil drops, scatter over the spring onions and the finely ground Sichuan pepper and ... enjoy.

For all steps in this recipe, you can view my photoset on Flickr called how to make mapo tofu

happy new year!

happy new year!
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

Wishing everyone a very happy 2008 with lots of good food in good health and happiness!