Buckwheat risotto with mushrooms

Another one of my (and Sophie's) staples. Best made in autumn when there's a wide range of different mushrooms available but it works just as well in spring when one is limited to brown caps and oyster mushrooms.

It isn't really a risotto as neither rice nor endless stirring and slow bit-by-bit adding of stock and wine are involved. However, the taste and consistency are very reminiscent of risotto so it seems a good name. But, as Sophie says, if you really disagree, you can always give it a new title.

No matter what you call it, it IS fantastic. Mushy, but still a bit chewy, the buckwheat and the mushrooms make for a hearty and healthy base while the white a little note of sophistication from the white wine. Perfect combination of elegance, gourmet, and nursery food. Yum. I could eat this by the bucket. 

Roasted tomato soup

Phew. It's been quite some time since my last post. Sorry. Work, Easter and the beginning of summer term have been keeping me quite busy.

But now for the new stuff. Actually, it isn't new stuff but very old: Roasted tomato soup. One of my staple recipes. 

 (No, that's not soup. I know.)

Dutch Baby Oven Pancake

The Dutch baby, also known as the German pancake, the Bismarck, or the Dutch puff (according to Wikipedia) is a relative of the British Yorkshire pudding. A very large, very puffy, very egg-y and very loveable relative. Although it is derived from the real German pancake (which in fact is nothing but a less thin and a little less large crêpe) I, as a German, had never heard of it in the 24 years of my life until a few weeks ago (when I came across it on Tastespotting). And that's got to mean that it's not really a German recipe (or that it's been completely forgot about in our little country) because, believe me, there's no German pudding I don't know about.

But it has all the fluffy, egg-y, floury, buttery goodness of a German Mehlspeise so let's just consider it (re-)adopted into traditional German cuisine.
And it's even better than normal pancakes because you don't have to watch it or flip it or anything. Just pop it into the oven and let the heat do all the work for you. Easy-peasy.

 

That's what it looked like when it came out of the oven (the white stuff in the middle is icing sugar). A naked Dutch baby, so to say (boy, that sounds a bit weird). It was actually quite a bit larger but immediately collapsed the moment I removed it from the cosy heat of the oven. Like a souffle. Or a deflating balloon. Puff!

The Dutch baby is traditionally eaten with icing sugar, apples and/or lemon slices but I prefer the more decadent version, as always. This one has a topping of cream cheese, raspberries (defrosted frozen ones, of course), brown sugar, and chocolate chips.


Dutch Baby Oven Pancake
Recipe by Completely delicious

2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 large eggs
60 g/0.5 cup all-purpose flour
125 ml/0.5 cup whole milk
2 Tbsp sugar
1 pinch of vanilla
0.25 tsp salt
4 Tbsp cream cheese (optional)
1 Tbsp brown sugar (optional)
100 g/1 cup raspberries (optional)
1 Tbsp chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat your oven to 205° C/400° F.

Put the butter into a medium-sized (22 cm/9 in) ovenproof frying pan. When the oven's warm enough, put in the pan until the butter has melted.

Meanwhile, mix the eggs, flour, milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Remove the pan from the oven and swirl the butter until bottom and sides of the pan are completely coated. Then pour in the pancake mixture, put it back into the oven and bake for around 25-30 minutes, checking on it occasionally.

Serve hot with cream cheese, raspberries, brown sugar, and chocolate chips, or with a topping of your choice.

Camembert à la surprise

Or simply camembert in a jacket. But à la surprise sounds much fancier so we'll just go with that...

For months I've been carrying around this idea of making something with a whole baked camembert but I didn't really know how I wanted to prepare it. I only knew I didn't want the old "breaded and served with cranberry sauce" variant. And so the time passed and no good idea came to mind... (this is starting to sound like a really bad fairytale. I promise, I'll come to my point very soon)...until yesterday. Long story short: Yesterday's What shall I have for dinner? problem developed into a basic I have all those ingredients that need to be eaten before they go bad so what am I going to make them into situation, and suddenly everything fell into place: Spinach and tomato stuffed camembert in a puff pastry jacket. Clever, eh?

It's neither particularily healthy nor low fat but who cares. It's winter, you're not supposed to eat low fat in winter anyway. We got hit by an extreme cold wave a couple of days ago, and it's fucking freezing around here, so fat, cheesy, warming comfort food is no longer an option but a necessity. No excuses.

Camembert à la surprise

Serves 1 hungry person (or 2 as an entrée)

3 rectangular sheets of puff pastry, defrosted

125 g/1 cup spinach

1 tomato, quartered

2 Tbsp almonds

1 clove of garlic

1 camembert

Salt and pepper

Some olive oil

Preheat your oven to 200° C/390° F.

On a flat, smooth surface, roll out the puff pastry until you have one fairly round disk of about 30 cm in diameter. Don't knead it in advance, never ever knead puff pastry!

Defrost your spinach if necessary. Make sure you get rid of all the excess fluid from the spinach, then put spinach, the tomato quartes, the almonds, and the garlic into the food processor and blend for about 2-3 seconds. You don't want it do be too smooth, there should still be some chunks. Season to taste.

Horizontally halve the camembert. Put one half on the puff pastry disk, generously spread it with the filling, and top with the other half. Gather up the edges of the pastry at the top and twist them to prevent the whole thing from falling open again. Brush it with olive oil then transfer to a baking tray. Bake for 30 minutes.

After baking, let cool for a few minutes (the cheese's horribly hot) before digging in. Bon appétit!

In case you have some of the filling left over: it's also very good on its own straight out of the bowl or as a relish substitute in cheese or turkey sandwiches.