Re-fried beans

I picked up some really nice avocados last week, so we had to make some guacamole and everything else that goes with it. In our house that includes re-fried beans. The beans are super easy to make if you have access to canned kidney beans. If you don't have the canned variety you can use the dried ones, but then the process takes way longer. Just soak your beans for a good 8 hours and then boil them until they are tender. I can't tell you how long it takes or how many beans to use, because I have never done it myself. If you do try it share it in the comments below so we can all profit from it.

Preparation time: 30 minutes ; serves 4 

Ingredients:

2 tbsp.	Oil
250 g	Diced onions
1/2 tsp.	Garlic puree
2 cans	Kidney beans (1 can = 425 g)
1 tsp.	Cumin powder
1 tsp.	Coriander powder
1/2 tsp.	Salt
150 ml	Water + possibly more

Method:

This recipe is pretty simple. The key to perfection is to cook it in a heavy bottomed pan. I use a cast iron frying pan. There are two reasons for this choice. The first being that the beans are less likely to burn and the other you will find out later!

You can add more or less onion and garlic depending on your taste so go ahead and experiment. I usually use yellow onions, but I assume you can use any available type.

While the onions are doing their thing crack open the cans of beans, empty them into a colander, drain the liquid and rinse them under running water. Of course not forgetting to stir the onions every now and then!

Place the pan on medium-high heat and heat the oil. Once the oil is hot enough add the onions and fry them for a couple of minutes. If you are not sure when your oil is not enough don't fret. It doesn't really matter! Sometimes I just put my onions in before the oil is really hot and it does not seem to do any harm. If you like the taste of caramelized onions you can fry them until they are slightly brown, otherwise once they start looking transparent should do. The main thing is that they are evenly cooked, so stir them every now and then.

Once the onions are cooked to your satisfaction add the garlic and fry for another 1 - 2 minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients into the frying pan, stir well and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat so that the beans remain simmering. Now comes the fun part (and the second reason for using a cast iron pan). To make your beans come together they need to be mashed. If you like your beans to be a smooth paste you could always put your beans into a food processor before adding them to the frying pan. However, we like a bit of texture in this household so I use first the back of a wooden spoon and then I move to a potato masher. Of course it would be much more efficient to just use the masher but I really like attacking the beans and crushing them with a wooden spoon. At some point I get bored with it and that is when I move to the potato masher!

When you mash the beans the insides come out and start forming a paste. This absorbs a lot of the water that you added to the pan. The beans should not dry out, so keep a jug of water on the side and add about a 1/4 cup when ever you feel like the beans are sticking to the bottom of the pan. Mix it in well each time and continue mashing until you have the desired consistency. I cannot tell you what this is, it will depend on your taste. All I can say is that if you don't smash any of the beans you won't have real re-fried beans :(

Serve with mexican rice, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, grated cheese or wrap it up and make a burrito.

Czech Jewelry

We just got back from a week in Prague. We had a really nice time and spent a lot of time taking in the sights and relaxing.
While walking in the courtyard of the Prague Castle we stumbled upon a jeweler who made the most adorable things out of old watches! We could not resist and bought ourselves some souvenirs.

My booty!

Something for the girls

The guy selling them was super nice. He comes from Brno, which is the second largest city in the Czech Republic. The items are all handmade by him and his sister (who was at a fair in Brno manning a stall at another fair). Check out his website at http://sperkysteampunk.cz/ .

We went back on our second day at the castle, bought some more earrings and took some photos!

Brownies

I've had the urge now for a couple of weeks to bake some brownies, but never got round to it. In fact I wanted to make them for my co-workers in Duisburg and spread the love. Well now that I've baked them, on a Friday evening, there is no chance in hell that they are ever going to see them. Already half of them are gone, some to the neighbours (spreading love there) and the rest in our tummies AND the kids are not even at home!!

There is a bit of a dilemma in my mind about sharing this recipe. Mainly because it's from my Spago recipe book. I've changed it to suit my tastes and converted it to metric units, but does that make it my own recipe? Neither Spago nor Wolfgang Puck has posted the recipe on-line, other people have, but does that make it okay? Copyright is such a complicated thing, especially with recipes. How much do I have to change to call it my own??

Preparation time: 90 minutes ; makes (15 large) pieces  

Ingredients:

350 g	Bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
225 g	Butter, unsalted
1 tsp.	Instant coffee
200 g	Flour
1 tsp.	Baking powder
1/2 tsp.	Salt (leave it out if you can only get salted butter)
4	Eggs, large
400 g	Sugar

Method:

Although the ingredients call for bittersweet chocolate you can use any other type. If you can't get cooking chocolate and want to use regular stuff just make sure you reduce the amount of sugar you put in. You might also want to increase the amount of chocolate!

For this recipe you need to use something called a "bane-marie". Most of us don't have one of these sitting around at home and I would not advise you to go out and buy one! You can use regular kitchen stuff. Basically what it is is a a bowl within a bowl. The inner bowl has water in it and thus distributes the heat evenly to the upper bowl. This is crucial when you have to heat something evenly.

The first thing you need to do is find something in your kitchen that works for you. I use either a Pyrex (with a lip for chocolate) or a metal bowl and a saucepan that the bottom of the bowl fits into but that the whole bowl cannot fall into. In this recipe you need two medium sized bowls.

Put your chocolate, butter and instant coffee into a bowl with a lip. The reason I recommend a lip is because then the evaporating water which condenses on the top of the bowl cannot drip down into the chocolate. Don't forget, if you get even a drop of water in your chocolate it will seize and you'll have to start again. It is a real shame if you have to set aside 350 g of chocolate (I say "set aside" because you can use it in other baking projects, for example, it still works well in cake recipes).  Fill your saucepan with around 4 inches of water (the bottom of your bowl should not touch the water) and bring it to simmer. Place a wooden spoon in the water and then the bowl with the chocolate on top. I put the spoon in there to stop excess steam from building up in the pan. I am rather scared that I might burn myself on the steam. This way the steam always comes out from one side, and I know which side it is. Don't use a metal spoon for this, the water will condense and run into your chocolate (been there, done that)!

Allow the chocolate to melt. Do not stir to often. While your chocolate and butter are doing their thing you can measure out the rest of the ingredients and get another bowl ready with the eggs and sugar. The same method will be used as with the chocolate. Give your chocolate a stir once the bottom has melted. I use a chopstick for this, wooden! And allow it to continue melting. If your water is boiling reduce the heat. You only want it to simmer.

Around about now is the time to put on the oven 160 C in a fan over/180 C regular/350 F.

If you want really thick brownies prepare a 8" by 8" pan. They will take forever to bake so you can add on another half an hour to the preparation time above. I use a quarter tray (13" by 9") for my brownies, which considerably reduces the baking time, saving on energy and allowing for smaller portions. Line the tray with parchment paper so that the cooked brownies are easy to remove from the tray.

Easily removable if you use parchment paper

By now your chocolate is probably melted. Stir it well to incorporate the butter. If there are still a few bumps don't worry take it out of the saucepan and set it somewhere. Go back to it later and give it another stir, that will probably get rid of all the bumps. But if it doesn't don't worry too much, no one ever complained of a lump of chocolate in their brownie, right?

If you need to fill more water into the saucepan do so and bring the water back to simmering. Place the bowl with your eggs and sugar into/onto it. With an electric hand mixer beat the eggs and sugar. Beat it until the sugar dissolves.

To tell that it dissolved stick your finger into the mousse and rub it onto another finger. If there are still sugar crystals you will feel them (lick your finger clean!). By the time your sugar is dissolved you will have a pale yellow looking mousse. Take this off the fire (some things are best described the Sri Lankan way!) and add the chocolate. Whisk until well incorporated.

It's not well incorporated here, just looks pretty!

You will notice that your mousse deflates, this is okay. Then add the flour, salt and baking powder and mix in with a spatula until well incorporated.

Fill this into your prepared tray, pop it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. You can tell that it is done by sticking in a knife. If it does not have soggy stuff on it when you take it out, it is done. Note that it may have crumbs sticking to it. Some people like their brownies soggy, if you are one of these people don't bake it for so long. Brownies are much like chocolate chip cookies and will get hard once they cool down. A typical beginner mistake is to keep baking them until they are hard. If you do this then your brownies will be super hard by the time you get round to eating them. Resist the urge to over bake. My guess is that the sugar and chocolate get hard as the brownie cools down.

Allow your brownies to cool, cut them to the desired size, and then enjoy them (although we enjoyed our straight out of the oven with a cup of Dilmah).

Fried rice - fusion variation

I came home from work today to find the curries from lunch still out on the counter and the pot of rice on the cooker with the lid off. Sitting at the table were both of my kids and my husband with their laptops open busy at work! Now I was a little bit ticked that they were sitting there and hadn't noticed that the food was still out from lunch, but to their credit they were all working hard on their blogs. Can't fault them for that now, can I?

On my commute home I had decided to make some fried rice. Mainly because my daughter had called me at work and asked if she could eat bread with her curries for lunch instead of rice, and thus I assumed that there would be a heap of left over rice. However, it seems like she gave up on the idea and ate the rice anyways. Once I'm set on cooking something there is no changing my mind. I have what we like to call "large momentum". Once I get going on an idea there is little that can change my mind however the circumstances change. So I had to cook some new rice and enough for two meals because Wednesdays the kids have to take lunch to school.

Everyone enjoyed the rice and it was requested to be made a regular. Hence I need this blog so I can make it again.

Preparation time: 60 minutes ; serves 6 - 8 

Ingredients:

3 rice cooker cups	Basmati or other long grain, non-sticky rice
4 rice cooker cups	Cold water
1 l + 4 tbsp.	Oil
325 g	Eggplant
225 g	Carrots
1 tbsp.	Garlic, minced
300 g	Sausages, vegetarian of course!
75 g	Spring onions
300 g	Corn
50 g	Sun dried tomatoes
3 tbsp.	Vegetarian stirfry sauce
1 tbsp.	Soya sauce
1 tbsp.	Ketchup

Method:
Wash your rice well in cold water until the water is not so white. Usually recipes say until clear, but I have never managed clear. I don't know what that looks like when washing rice!! Then cook your rice either in a rice cooker with 4 cups of water or on the stove top. And here is a short description of how to do this because it seems like a lot of people have forgotten how to do this (like my mother-in-law who is 100% Chinese!).

Put the rice and the water in a heavy bottom pan with a fitting lid. Make sure that the rice is completely covered by the water. Place it on the stove top, on high heat, with the lid on. When the water boils (you will know this because the pot will start splattering and over flowing, can't miss it), take off the lid, reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting, stir the rice, put the lid back on and cook for 20 minutes. If it boils over again, which it might, just take the lid off, release the heat and put it back on again. Do not peep at your rice (unless you are not using a heavy bottom pan and you smell the bottom burning). Once the 20 minutes are up check your rice by eating a little bit. Then stir it again. For this recipe it is best to leave the lid off and allow the moisture to evaporate and the rice to cool.

So having that out of the way... while your rice is cooking prepare the vegetables. I finely sliced my eggplant and started deep frying it while chopping the other vegetables. Just heat the oil, add a 1/4 of the eggplant and fry it until golden brown. You should stir it once in the middle of the frying so that it gets cooked equally on all sides.

Next peel and dice your carrots, mince your garlic, wash and slice your spring onions, cut your sausages into slices, chop your sun dried tomatoes, and crack open the can of corn (yes, use a can and save yourself some time) and drain the water from it. By now you should be done frying the eggplant and it there is a good chance that your rice has cooked. If it hasn't, take a break and clean up the mess!

Once the rice is cooked heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a large wok (high heat). First add the carrots and stir fry them until they change colour (they become more yellowy). This takes a couple of minutes. Next add the garlic and mix everything well. Sausages should be added next. You can substitute the sausages with any other type of high protein food, like scrambled eggs, fried tofu sticks, or any of the other types of high protein foods that do not appear in this blog! Fry for another couple of minutes and then add all the other vegetables mixing well.

In a small bowl mix together the 3 sauces and pour them over the vegetables. Again mixing well. Next add the rice and stir until everything is well mixed. Voila you have fried rice!

Enjoy!!

Waffles (German style)

At breakfast this morning, I realized that I don't have my waffles recipe here. We use this one all the time and got it from the elementary school that my kids attended. Once a month they had "Waffeltag" (waffle day). Us parents donated the batter and our time to make the waffles and then they were sold to the children for 50 cents. Your typical PTA fund raiser (although here the teachers are not involved in a PTA). My kids are long out of elementary school but we still use the same recipe. I have not yet found a better one. If you want to eat the waffles with curry leave out the sugar.

Preparation time: 35 minutes ; makes 8/12/16

Ingredients:

125/187.5/250 g	Butter - melted (works with margarine too, just does not taste as good)
50/75/100 g	Sugar
250/375/500 g	Flour
1/1/2 pkt.	Vanilla sugar (substitute with any type of vanilla flavouring)
3M/4L/6M	Eggs (M-medium; L-large), lightly beaten
1 pinch	Salt
1.5/2.25/3 tsp.	Baking powder
0.25/0.375/0.5 l	Milk (can substitute with soya milk)

Method:
This is super easy if you have a blender. You just put all the ingredients in the blender and pulse it until it everything is just combined.

Prepare some fruit to have with your waffles

My blender broke a couple of years back (so don't ask me why I still have it in my kitchen cupboard!) so I make my batter by hand.

The butter I melt in the microwave. This way the butter does not get over heated. If it gets overheated it has a tendency to cook the eggs, which is bad. So chop up the butter and microwave it for around 30 seconds. Then take it out and stir it. If it's not all liquid put it back in for another 15-20 seconds. Keep repeating until the butter is liquid.

Then put the sugar, flour, vanilla, salt and baking powder in a large bowl and mix briefly. Make a well in the middle and add the melted butter. Work the flour into the butter by stirring and slowly incorporating the flour from the edge of the well. Once you have a thick paste add the eggs and keep going. If you notice that it gets lumpy just mix more vigorously. Finally add the milk about 100 ml at a time, working it into the dough. You should end up with a non-lumpy batter.

Heat up your waffle iron and follow the irons instructions.

My waffle iron

When your waffles come out of the iron put them on a wire mesh. They will cool quicker but will not turn soggy. Its the same philosophy as with a toast rack.

Waffles on a sunny Saturday in Bochum!

The typical way to eat waffles in Germany is with icing sugar,

but we also like nutella with fruit and whipped cream.

Potato and Pea Curry - tempered

This is a curry without any gravy. In Sri Lanka we call it a tempered curry. It's not 100% authentic because peas don't grow in  Sri Lanka. Nowadays you can get frozen ones in the major supermarkets in Sri Lanka, but they are terribly expensive. I've seen dried peas as well, although I have never used them I am sure they would work fine if you soaked them and boiled them for hours! Of course if you don't have access to peas then you can just omit them.

Made with "normal" potatoes

Preparation time: 35 minutes ; serves 4 - 8 (depending on how many other curries you have)

Ingredients:

1.2 kg	Potatoes (or a combination of sweet potato and regular)
4 tbsp.	Oil
1 tsp.	Salt
2 tsp.	Coriander powder
1 tsp.	Cumin powder
1/2 tsp.	Tumeric
2	Green chilies, sliced
1/4 cup	French fried onions (Röstzwiebel)
1/2 cup	Peas (frozen or fresh)

Method:
If you live in Germany this is a very simple recipe! The Röstzwiebel are readily available in the store. In the USA they are called "French fried onions" and you can probably find a recipe to make them somewhere. Basically they are deep fried onions. The preparation time for this recipe does not take making the Röstzwiebel from scratch into account.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into bite sized chunks. Then boil them. My general experience is that if you put the potatoes in cold water and then bring them to the boil, that after boiling they take around 8 minutes to cook. However, this is highly dependent on  what type of potatoes you use. If you use a mixture of potatoes then boil each type separately to avoid over boiling. When your potatoes are done you should be able to poke a fork through them.

Drain the water and rinse under cold water.

Put the oil in a large wok and heat it. You can also use a frying pan. Keep in mind that you will not get a nice brown crisp on your potatoes if you use a non-stick. The best pan to use is a cast iron or aluminium one. Make sure it is well seasoned though, else the potatoes will stick.

Once the oil is hot add the potatoes and  toss until they are all covered with oil. Then add all the other ingredients and fry. Stir constantly until golden brown. And that is it!

Made with a mixture of "normal" and sweet potatoes

Sri Lankan Pumpkin Curry (Wattakka)

Today I need to boost up some curries that I made yesterday. There is not quite enough for two more meals but too much for one. Oh I'm just realizing that us adults don't need lunch tomorrow because we have to go for an on site review at the university. With a bit of luck they will provide us with lunch. Actually I'm pretty sure that hubby will get lunch (he's higher up on the ladder). But I've started cooking my pumpkin so there is no going back now.

As you have probably read by now, I am not 100% Sri Lankan. So my mum never cooked traditional Sri Lankan food. Yes, she cooked curry but there were some things she would just not do. Either because they were too time consuming or because she didn't have the correct implements. Because of this we never had traditional pumpkin curry at home. I absolutely adored it and would stuff myself whenever I got it at my aunts homes. Generally pumpkin is not considered a fancy dish, so you don't get it when there is a celebration. It's more the type of food you get when you go home with your cousins and share whatever has been cooked. Even better if you were not expected!

Now I think I have finally found a way to cook the pumpkin somewhat like my aunts. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. The secret ingredient is ground brown mustard seeds!

Preparation time: 45 minutes ; serves 4 - 8 (depending on how many other curries you have)

Ingredients:

750 g	Pumpkin (any type, cooking  time may vary)
1/2 cup	Diced onions
1 tbsp.	Finely diced garlic
1/4 tsp.	Tumeric
1/2 tsp.	Chili powder (or to taste)
2	Green chilies, sliced
10	Black pepper seeds
	Water to cover
1 tsp.	Salt
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/4 tsp.	Dill seeds
2 tsp.	Brown mustard seeds
1 cup	Thick coconut milk

Method:
Before you start note that the mustard seeds are NOT optional. You can leave out many things but not the mustard. You will also need a good grinder and a stone mortar and pestle. 

You can use any pumpkin you like to make this. The cooking time will of course vary according to which type you use. You can cook it with or without the skin, also depending on the type. In these pictures I used hokkaido pumpkin. You need to cut the pumpkin into cubes around 1 inch cube. The pumpkin will disintegrate if you cut it too small, which is also a reason why you might want to keep the skin on. In my case I removed the skin.

The first step is easy enough. Put all the ingredients except the mustard seeds and coconut in a pot. Do not put too much water. If you have too much water at the end this can be saved by using coconut cream or coconut milk powder. Cover and bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer (12 - 20).

While this is going on you can prepare the mustard. This is how I did it. I first put my seeds into the grinder attachment of my Sumeet (which is a really good, heavy duty Indian liquidizer/grinder) and ground until I had a kind of fine powder. You can probably do this in any spice grinder, or if you don't have one you can use a mortar and pestle or a 'miris gala'. Sadly to release the flavour that you need for this curry this powder is not enough. I put my powder into a granite mortar, added about a teaspoon of water (water is really important), and ground until I had a smooth paste.

You need 1 teaspoon of this paste. Save any extra paste that you may have, you can put it in sandwiches or any where else that you would use mustard. You must have a granite/stone mortar. It won't work with a wooden one. Believe me, I have tried!

Once your pumpkin is just about (al dente) cooked mix the mustard into the coconut milk and then into the pumpkin curry. If you use coconut cream from a can use about 1/2 cup adding some water, if necessary. If you use coconut milk powder it is best to pour out extra water that you might have in the pot and mix the milk powder with this water. Pumpkin is very watery, so the curry tends to become too liquidy very quickly. If you use fresh coconut milk then it will probably be a bit liquid, but on the other hand you've gained on the taste. Do not cover the curry. Bring to the boil and it is ready to serve.