No long stories today, I’m afraid, just popping in quickly to say hello! You see, I happen to be out and about these days, traveling to Romania to be precise. While I had this brilliant idea of writing a novel long post, as I was hopping from airport to airport today, the part of charging the lap top well, didn’t really happen, so instead of dedicating the long travel hours to writing, I’ve spent reading instead (not that there’s anything wrong with it).
Anyway, it’s a rather late hour here, and time is ticking, so a few words about this bake. If you’re tagging along my occasional tweets, then you may know that I tend to choose weird time for bread baking, like 6 a.m. (and no I’m not training to become a boulangier).
I do however have a very easy bread recipe, that requires no bread making machine, no other fancy tools or equipment and the best of all – barely 10 minutes of your time, and that’s the recipe for today. I bake this beauty about twice a week, and can never get enough of it. Actually, before tasting it the first time,I never understood, how pure, unadorned bread can be appealing to someone and well, now I do.
Today, I only have the photo of the whole bread, but later in the week I’ll add a few how it looks from the inside!
| Healthy bread |
|
- 1 liter water (room temperature)
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 30 grams salt
- 900 grams whole wheat flour
- 45 grams wheat bran
- 90 grams linen seed
- 155 grams oats
- 3 tablespoons sourdough starter
- sunflower oil
- sesame seeds
- Melt the sugar and salt in water.
- Mix the flour, wheat bran, linen seeds and oats, then slowly stir in the water mixing all the time. Stir in the sourdough and mix very thoroughly (I use a wooden spoon).
- Set aside 3 tablespoons of sourdough (for next time).
- Grease the baking tin with sunflower oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Pour in the dough and sprinkle some more sesame seeds on top.
- Cover with a towel and place in a warm place for up to 12 hours (I usually leave overnight).
- When ready, remove the towel and place the bread into COLD oven. Set the temperature at 200C and let it bake for 1 hour 5-15 minutes, depending on the oven.
- Once baked, cover with a damp towel and let it cool down for at least 15 minutes.
Before I get into describing what this pink stuff is all about, a few words on detox, I’ve been going through this weekend.
Having successfully finished the 2 day process, I’m now slowly getting back to normal eating regime, I though of sharing a few thoughts on it detoxing. I should say again, that this detox has nothing to do with any diets or stuff like that (no diet in my opinion is worth such effort), but rather doctors orders.
The detox I’ve been assigned to go through, basically consists of 2 liters of citrus (lemon, grapefruit, orange) juice mixed with 2 liters of water and that’s all you get for a day. Such detox is the most extreme and should be done for 1-3 days maximum. Additionally, you should prepare by a week before and after cutting out meat, dairy products, alcohol and preferably coffee (that’s always a challenge for me).
How does the detox go? First of all, you don’t really starve. For the daily citrus dose you need 6 large grapefruits (among other citrus) and they have a tendency to keep you filled, so as long as you’re not running a marathon and continue to sip the watery juice all day long, you’re fine (4 litres ain’t so little).
Second, during and after you feel surprisingly energized. Now, a week before detox I’ve spent working particularly long hours, and sleeping as little as 3.5 hours a day, so normally after that I would spend a weekend in a coma like state (nothing fun here) but this wasn’t the case. Instead, after completing the both days I’m feeling as energized as ever and while normally when my alarm rings at 6 am, I practically crawl out of bed, these days, I’m already wide awake by 5.30! Not that I’m actively promoting here though the detox… but it’s not as horrific as it may seem.
But enough about the detox, to continue with the Lithuanian cuisine editorial today is all about the pink soup or as we call it in Lithuanian šaltibarščiai. It’s a cold soup made with beets and kefir (or buttermilk) and always served with boiled potatoes, and is very popular in summer as a main dish or as a refreshing snack.
While almost everyone I know is quite crazy about this soup, it was one of the things I never even looked upon when it was made at home. I tend to think that beets are to blame here, as they were always one of the very few things I just couldn’t stand and only started to slowly appreciate them recently.
It actually took my French husband to start liking this soup a lot, for me to give it another try and I have to say I’ve been eating it ever since. If you fancy beets, then there isn’t really much not to like in this soup: it’s refreshing, has a sweet-sour touch and with the eggs and potatoes filling at the same time.
Note: for this soup traditionally the beets are grates, but it’s quite a messy process to grate them, so I used a blender, which makes it more time efficient.
| Lithuanian cold beet soup (šaltibarščiai) |
|
- 500ml kefir or buttermilk
- 3 medium beets, boiled and peeled
- 2 large cucumbers, diced
- 2 eggs, hard boiled
- a bunch of chives, chopped
- a bunch of fresh dill, chopped
- salt
- freshly grounded pepper
- crème fraiche
- 450 g potatoes
- Boil the potatoes. You can either serve the potatoes boiled or to add an extra crisp, quickly sautee them in oil before serving.
- Blend the kefir and beets in a blender, season with salt and pepper. You may need quite a bit salt here as the beets give a lot of sweetness and adding salt will balance it, so add it according to your taste.
- Stir in the diced cucumber. Divide between plates and serve with a dollop of crème fraiche, a few slices of egg and generously sprinkled with chives, dill, and potatoes on the side. Enjoy!
The post title doesn’t give much I know, but that’s because today I’m sharing two things on the opposite side of the food scales. One as you can see above is the definition of comfort food: fried sourdough bread with plenty of cheese on top, this is something for you.
On the other side of the side of the scale is this.
I would love to tell you that this is some undiscovered wonder. I would love to tell you that this tastes incredibly good, but unfortunately, it’s only citrus juice and water and I’m stuck with 4 litres of this stuff for each day of the weekend. No food, just this. Not for fun really, doctors orders I’m afraid for steering the health back in the good direction (cuz I’d never give up food for drinking watery juice for two days…) and like any person deprived of food I’m dreaming of something very comforting today, like this little stack of bread.
A small cultural note here, fried bread like this is probably the most favorite snack in Lithuania, usually taken with beer, and beer my dears is the drink. We have countless number of breweries and quite a few restaurants that make beer on site, and some locations more in the countryside where they make beer such that one glass is usually too little and two are well, too much; and indeed nothing goes better with beer than such bread.
Now you can have this bread two ways, one is simply fried bread rubbed with some salt and garlic (which is a snack I used to have very often at home) or with some mayo and melted cheese on top (that’s how you get bread when you order it in most restaurants). The first version is obviously a little healthier, but both are equally good. Even if you don’t fancy beer much, this is such an indulgent treat that simply cannot be skipped (and if I was in a position to eat something this weekend, I surely would).
| Fried bread (kepta duona) |
|
- 250 g of bread (half rye, half wheat and preferably sourdough)
- 50 ml sunflower oil
- few garlic cloves
- salt
- 4 tablespoons of mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon of water
- 200 grams of grated cheese
- pinch of white pepper
- Heat the oil in pan.
- Slice the in slices as in the photo above and fry on both sides until nicely brown. This will go very fast so take care not to burn. You will have to do this in batches.
- Once the bread is baked, transfer it on a paper towel to absorb extra oil, directly sprinkle with salt and rub with garlic.
- The cheese sauce can be made few way, you can make it as a sauce on side, by simply mixing mayo, cheese, water and pepper and heating it in the oven till it melts.
- Alternatively you can you pour sauce over the bread and heat it in the over or microwave altogether till the cheese melts. Enjoy!
There is nothing short of craze or obsession with things that can be thrown together in a matter of minutes these days. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but then again not every single dish can and should take barely minutes to make.
I’ve always had this notion that things taking some effort and time to prepare are far more special and if they were made too often they would loose that special touch. One of such cakes is Napoleon, otherwise known as mille-feuille, made of layers of flaky pastry and filled with crème pâtissière (pastry cream). Obviously, this tart has not originated in Lithuania, but rather in France around 17th century. However, as far as I know it has been immensely popular in Lithuania for over a hundred years, so I guess it could be easily called part of the traditional cuisine.
Traditionally, millefeuille is made using with 3 layers of puff pastry while the one we make in Lithuania usually has 7 or 9 puff pastry layer and plenty of cream, which is another reason why this should not be made too often as it is no friend of your waistline, but that’s what makes it a true treat to indulge in.
When we shot this photo, I’ve made a miniature version of Napoleon, for the sake of photos only (as there were no particular occasions to overly indulge in it). This weekend however, having been visited by parents in law (which truly calls for a special occation cake) I’ve made the full one or rather half of the version we used to make at home. Despite the little calorie bomb that this cake is, it’s not at all sweet, rather has a delicate taste where vanilla and candied orange are allowed to shine, and if you fancy a piece of cake with coffee, then you won’t find a cake more perfect than this.
P.S. while the recipe for the cake I’ve dug out of my family old cookbooks, the pastry cream recipe is from Raymond Blanc which I’ve tweaked a little bit.
P.P.S. While I’m still drowning in work and can’t keep up with posting too often, I’m happy to say, that next week, I’ll be back to more frequent posting, with some quirky dishes prepped!
| Napoleon cake |
|
- PUFF PASTRY
- 450 grams flour
- pinch of salt
- 250 grams unsalted butter
- 100 g crème fraiche
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- PASTRY CRÈME
- 7 egg yolks
- 80 grams sugar
- 550 ml milk
- 25 grams flour
- 4 ½ teaspoons cornflour
- 2 vanilla pods
- CANDIED ORANGE PEEL
- 1 -2 oranges
- 2 cup sugar
- 4 cups water
- To make the pastry, be sure the butter is cold when using it. Whiz the butter with four, salt in the food processor, until it starts resembling breadcrumbs. Then add crème fraiche and beaten egg, and whiz for a few more seconds. The dough should start forming a ball. Divide the dough into 7 equal balls wrap into cling film and place in the fridge to rest for at least 3 hours; I usually keep them overnight.
- Once the dough has rested heat the oven 220C. Choose a plate or a chef’s ring that will be used as an indication for cutting out layers.
- Taking one dough ball out of a fridge at a time, roll it about 3 mm thick, then using either a place or any other stencil, cut out the layer and prick with a fork. Transfer it onto a baking parchment together with the leftover pieces and into the oven for about 5-8 minutes. Depending on the oven this maybe more or less. The layers should not get brown when baking.
- The outer cuts will later be used for decoration of the cake, and the reason I prefer to cut then when the dough is raw is to prevent it crumbling too much, as puff pastry is a delicate thing.
- Repeat the same with the remaining dough and let cool down a little.
- To make the pastry cream, split vanilla pods, scrape the seeds out and add everything to milk. Bring the milk to boil and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Then take off the heat, strain and let it cool down for a minute.
- Beat the egg yolks with sugar until pale, then stir in flour and corn flour till fully incorporated.
- Once the milk has cooled down a little (not more than a minute or it will be too cold) start adding it to the egg mixture, a ladle at a time stirring vigorously. After 3-4 ladles have been added, pour in the rest of the milk, stir well, the pour everything to a pot and stirring all the time bring to boil, then boil for another minute (stir all the time). Your pastry cream is ready, transfer it to a clean bowl, cover with cling film, so it would touch the cream (this will prevent from skin forming) and cool. Pastry crème can be made up to 3 days in advance.
- To make the candied orange zest, peel the orange, the gently cut all the pith out leaving only the “orange” part. Boil a few cups of water and cook the orange peel for few minutes.
- Drain then bring two cups of water and 2 cups of sugar to boil, add the orange peel and simmer till it becomes translucent (about 30 minutes). Drain, dust with sugar if you’d like and leave on a rack to dry for a 3-4 hours.
- To assemble the cake, layer the puff pastry layers with vanilla pastry cream, you can even add some chopped candied orange peeled in between. Then cover the sides and top of the cake with pastry cream as well.
- Crumble the leftover pastry pieces (food processor works best) and cover the cake all over. Top with some orange peel and let it sit in the fridge for at least few hours, overnight would be best. Enjoy!
Isn’t it wonderful that there is a cheesecake that is perfectly decent and acceptable to be eaten for breakfast? In fact, this one is not only fit for breakfast but can work just fine for lunch and dinner too.
Back in the introductory post to the Lithuanian cuisine I’ve mentioned that dairy products are quintessential and cottage cheese or quark is on of those ingredients that we couldn’t get around without. We use it in both sweet and savory dishes, as there are so many things that could be done with it (I’ll post a few more along the way). The most popular of all are probably this type of cheesecakes, or as the literal translation would be more like cottage cheese bake or something like that (in Lithuanian it’s called “varškės apkepas”).
The reason for it’s popularity, is the use of very basic ingredients and the ability to add pretty much anything to it. I like to flavor it with lemon zest and vanilla only, but you could easily add raisins, fresh/dried berries and fruits to it. As it doesn’t use much sugar, it can be eaten even for a light main course or as a dessert.
The only thing to keep in mind though, is that the consistency of cottage cheese depends on the place where it’s made. In Lithuania it’s so dry, that we buy it wrapped like butter, while in the Netherlands the one I get is rather watery. Hence, to have the same results always (despite which brand you use) it’s useful to drain it beforehand.
The rest is very easy and some beating, whipping, greasing and dusting later, this is what you’ll end up with:
One last thing, you’ve probably noticed that the posts have been less frequent recently. It just so happens that there is a direct correlation between the busyness of my schedule at work (you know, the day job) and the time I have to blog; and as the working hours these weeks have been growing from the usual 40 to 50 and more, well sadly something’s gotta give… Within a week or so things should be coming back to normal, so thanks for your patience, I promise another sweet treat on Saturday! Have a good week!
| The breakfast cheesecake (varškės apkepas) |
|
- 500 grams cottage cheese or quark
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 lemon zest or vanilla pod
- 4 eggs, separated
- 5 tablespoons semolina
- 50-100 ml milk
- pinch of salt
- 40 g butter (room temperature, diced) plus extra for greasing the baking tin
- Breadcrumbs
- STRAWBERRY COULIS
- 200 g strawberries
- dash of lemon juice
- 1 -2 tablespoons powder sugar
- whipped cream
- Heat the oven to 200C.
- Pour the milk over semolina, just enough to cover and let it steep for 30 minutes.
- If the cottage cheese is watery, drain it first, then if it’s too crumbly whizz it for a few seconds in a food processor, or mash it with a fork.
- Beat the egg yolks with sugar until pale, then beat in the butter, stir in the lemon zest, cottage cheese and milk with semolina and stir well.
- Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt to stiff peaks and gently fold in 1/3 of the whites into the cheese mixture, followed by the rest. Careful to not over stir it.
- Grease the baking tin with butter and dust with breadcrumbs, then pour in the batter. Bake for 30-40 minutes. To check the readiness, stick a toothpick into the cheesecake, it should come out clean when ready.
- To make the strawberry coulis, puree the strawberries in a blender with sugar and a dash of lemon juice, taste to check.
- To serve, pour some of the coulis on the plate and spread. Place a piece of cheesecake in the centre. If you want to make the heart circle, then add drops of whipped cream in a circle around the cheesecake, then using a toothpick draw through each. Serve and enjoy!
