We started a tradition of tea parties a while ago, where we meet at somebody's house, bring lots of baked goodness and indulge in deserts and tea, while chatting or watching a movie, mostly an Audrey Hepburn one. My friend Connie was hosting one of those now-traditional tea parties the other day and it was right before out friend Honey's birthday, so I thought I would bake a birthday cake for Honey. The sad part is, I started to feel kind of sick and had to leave early, before we got to the cake and sparkling wine part! So I never got to taste this cake, but the reports have been very positive. It's a bit labor-intensive, so I don't know if I'll be making it again anytime soon, but it sure looked and smelled (and allegedly, tasted) very good.

Cake:

3 tbsp hot melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 eggs
2/3 cup sugar

Orange syrup:

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tbsp Grand Marnier

Chocolate mousse:

6 ounces (175 grams) semisweet chocolate, cut into small pieces
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 large egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the pan (9-inch). Whisk together eggs and sugar, heat them up until lukewarm, then beat with a mixer until reaches whipped cream consistency (about 5 min). Sift the flour and the cocoa on top of the egg mixture slowly, stirring in between. Melt the butter and add to the mixture together with vanilla extract. Bake for about 20-25 min.

Mousse: Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form and put in the refrigerator. Put the egg yolks in a container. in a sauce pan,mix the sugar and the water, bring to a boil and keep stirring over the heat for a while until turns into a sugar syrup, then pour the egg yolks slowly into the syrup while stirring continuously. Beat the mixture with a mixer until it becomes whitish in color and doubles in size. Melt the chocolate and wait until it cools down to be lukewarm. Add the chocolate into the egg mixture, beat with a mixer until the mixture is cool. Fold this mixture into the refrigerated whipping cream.

Cut the cake in half, soak both half with the orange syrup, then spread the chocolate mousse between the layers and on top. The mousse was runny at the beginning but it did get more solid after refrigerating.

We're just back from skiing in east Turkey (Sarikamis). It was a great time, and back from there, I decided to make something that is from that region (well, east Turkey is large, so more or less...) This is a perfect winter soup (yes, it is still quite cold in Netherlands - sob sob). It can be quite light if you use low-fat youghurt and boullion but of course, if you want it to taste really good you should use regular yoghurt (preferably Turkish/Greek/Bulgarian yoghurt or whatever they call that kind of yoghurt where you live). I have read somewhere that this recipe is very old, going back almost thousand years back till Seljuk times. They used to dry a combination of eggs and yoghurt to make it, and obviously used self-made pasta (called tutmach) but this is a simple modern recipe, adapted by me a little. Enjoy!!!

Tutmach Soup

250 grams yogurt
30 grams flour
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground blackpepper
3 teaspoons salt
1 lt boullion (home made, or the liquid version of commercial boullion)
80 grams small macaroni/vermicelli (100 gram when using fresh macaroni)
300 grams cooked green lentils
4 cloves garlic
to top: (optional)
butter
paprika powder/paste (i.e. sambal oelek)
dried mint leaves

1. Mix eggs and flour. Add yoghurt, cumin, black pepper, salt and keep mixing until homogeneous.
2. Add 1 liter of water to the boullion and cook. Add the macaroni and keep boiling until the macaroni is half-cooked (watch out of you are using fresh macaroni, just 1 over minute can be enough!)
3. Take some of the cooking liquid, add to the egg-youghurt mixture and mix quickly. Repeat this a few times so that the egg-yoghurt mixture is half-mixed with the hot soup. Then add the mixture to the soup and stir. (If you add the mixture directly to the soup, the egg will cook in pieces and you will not get the creamy texture that we are aiming at)
4. Cook, stirring regularly, for about 5 minutes.
5. Add the cooked lentils, cook another five minutes at low heat.
6. Turn off the heat. Crush the garlic and add to the soup. Stir.
7. If you want to include the topping (which is very tasty but definitely adds some fat and calories!): Melt butter (about one spooonful for 3-4 people) and add the hot red pepper to it. Traditionally, we use thick pieces of dried red peppers for this (pul biber), but you can also use cayenne pepper or some hot sauce. Let the butter and pepper heat together for a short while, don't burn the butter but make sure it starts to color.
8. Pour the soup into plates. Add some butter mixture on top and some dried mint leaves. Eat warm with some fresh bread!

If you love chocolate (and if you don't, what are you doing looking at this blog anyways?), you probably love chocolate truffles too. They are actually much yummier than chocolate, I think, with their soft texture and rich chocolate flavor. When you make them, the reason becomes obvious, of course: It's all the fat content! But they are really delicious, and making them is really fun, as you can get creative and make many varieties (and lick off the chocolate from your hands in the end!).

Chocolate Truffles

230g semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
3/4 c. whipping cream
2 tsp unsalted butter

Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Heat butter and cream at medium heat, bring to a boil. Pour the hot mixture over the chocolate pieces, stir and whisk until smooth. Put the mixture in a container and refrigerate until firm. You can also add some sort of liqueur (about 2 tsp) while whisking the other ingredients. I usually like to put the mixture in 3 separate containers, add two different liqueurs to two of them, and leave one alcohol-free. I have tried rum, cointreau and Irish cream so far, my favorite was cointreau.

Once the mixture is firm, comes the fun part. You need to roll them into little balls, and cover them with something like toasted nuts, icing sugar (I prefer this for rum and cointreau, as it balances the bitter taste from the liqueur), processed cocoa, ground coffee (I find it much better to cover the plain ones with coffee than the Irish cream mixture) or sprinkles, if you're in a colorful mood. I sometimes also take whole nuts and make the rolls around them, but covering is a must regardless, in order to keep the round shape.

Enjoy!

Recently, I discovered that I really like Thai food and I can train myself to take the level of spiciness involved in a mild-medium Thai dish. Most restaurants in Edmonton are willing to sacrifice some authenticity for the comfort of your taste buds and crying is a socially-acceptable reaction in most of them, so I am doing quite ok with the eating-out experience. But I just wanted to create some Thai-like food for days when I am not willing to hurt myself -either physically or psychologically-, and here's my creation:

Lemon-Grass Chicken for Babies

3 chicken breasts, cut into pieces
1/2 medium white onion, diced
2 tsp fresh ginger, cut into small pieces
2 cloves of garlic,minced
5 sticks of lemon grass
1 small carrot, cut into small pieces
1 cup sugar-snap peas, each cut in half
1/2 cup canned baby corn
Salt
Cayenne pepper, if you insist on being hard-core

In a medium frying pan, fry the chicken and onions for about 3 min, mix in minced garlic and ginger, cook for another 3 min, add in the carrots, stir and cover. Cook until the chicken breasts look white and the onions are soft. Cut away the hard ends of the lemon grass, and peel the hard outside layer. Cut the remaining parts into about 3cm long pieces and bruise them with a tenderizer (or end of a knife, or any other hard object you fancy). Stir the lemongrass into the frying pan, cook until all the ingredients are almost completely cooked,and finally, add in the baby corn and peas, salt (cayenne pepper) to taste cook for another 2-3min. I really like the flavour of lemongrass, but I must warn you that in this recipe, the flavor is not subtle at all, so if you prefer a subtle taste, you might want to reduce the amount to 3 or 4 sticks. I also like everything really softly-cooked, except for the peas, which I like a little crunchy. If you prefer them softer, you might want to drop them in a little earlier. Another nice addition could be roasted almonds, which I planned to include while making this, but forgot to add :)

I put the lemongrass chicken on some coconut rice. I simply buy some coconut milk and replace half of the normal amount of water I use when making rice with the coconut milk, it gives a perfect result. Needless to say, try to buy the heavy coconut milk for the best taste :) Also, I prefer to use long-grain rice rather than sticky rice for this, as the coconut milk already makes it pretty sticky in the end.

Enjoy!

Kisir is a Turkish salad made with bulgur wheat (usually available in organic food stores and in the oriental food aisles of some grocery stores), very common especially in the southern / southeastern parts of Turkey. It is commonly served as a cold starter before any meal, with raki or as a salad in any type of gathering. It is usually served with leaves of lettuce on the side, and sometimes eaten by wrapping a couple of spoons of the salad in a lettuce leaf. Most people add quite a bit of cayenne pepper and make it pretty spicy (which is probably how the original recipe is supposed to be), but I prefer it with just a hint of spice or no spice at all.

Another note is on the sour pomegrenate extract, which is also pretty common in the southern and southeastern parts of Turkey. So far I have seen this only at the Greek supermarket north of downtown in Edmonton, but it might be available in specialty stores selling Mediterranian food. It is a very sour and concentrated liquid with a dark red - brownish color. It tastes awful by itself but adds a wonderful flavour to salads, especially this one. Moreover, it improves the appearence quite a bit by making it look a little darker. So, if pomegrenate extract is available, it wins my vote over lemon juice.

KISIR

2 cups bulgur wheat

1 small onion

6 green onions

3 tomatoes

1 green bell pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh dill weed

Juice of 1 lemon or 2 tbs of sour pomegrenate extract

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp cayenne pepper

Salt to taste

Put the bulgur wheat in a cooking pot, add 2 cups of boiling water, cover and leave to simmer. Chop the onions, tomatoes and peppers finely. When the bulgur wheat absorbs all the water, add in the cayenne pepper, salt and the onions, mix well and knead with hands like kneading dough. Then add the rest of the ingredients and mix well and let cool down. The salad is usually served at room temprature.

These raspberry bars are really good if you like chewy, but would rather go for cruncy... They are sort of chewy at the buttom and very crunchy at the top. I also really like the mixture of hazelnuts and raspberries, my two favorite flavors in cookies (well, ok, maybe chocolate comes before the raspberry. I recently discovered that this recipe works really well with gluten-free flour too!

Raspberry Bars

3/4 cup unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 3/4 cups flour

3/4 cup hazelnuts (chopped)

1 cup raspberry preserves

Heat oven to 350 Fahrenheit (175 Celcius), butter the baking pan (I use a 9 inch - round pan, so anything close in size should be ok). Cream the butter and sugar at room temprature, beat in the egg after the mixture is completely homogenous. Add the flour, mix just until blended. Add the nuts and again, avoid mixing unnecessarily long.

Press about 2/3 of the mixture at the buttom of the pan, spread the raspberry preserve on top and crumble the remaining dough on top (you can add some extra flour to this portion if it seems to be too moist to be crumbled). Bake for about an hour, until the top is light brown.

I am a huge fan of chicken! Well, yes, I know, it doesn't have too much of a taste of its own... But I guess that's what I like about it the most: It is so open to take flavours of sauces, vegetables, herbs and spices, and then, add to the flavor in its own way. Here's a recipe for braised chicken thighs that has been modified from a recipe in one of the older issues of Fine Cooking Magazine. You can basicly add/delete anything from this recipe, use different meats, different vegetables etc. But the key to good-looking, good-tasting braised chicken seems to be following a couple of basic steps:

1. Brown the chicken first on medium to high heat, adding salt and pepper. This gives the chicken a nice brownish color, helps the meat to become a little tastier especially if you're using relatively dry parts such as breasts, and gives the meat some time to absorb the taste of pepper and salt.

2.Deglaze the pan with some sort of tasty, flavourful liquid, such as white/red wine, soy sauce, chicken stock, vegetable stock, or a mixtue of those (you can also try replacing wine with a bit of balsamic vinegar for a stronger taste, in which case you need to add some sugar to the mixture). Deglazing helps to mix the browned and caramalized tasteful mixtures at the buttom of the pan to mix in the sauce and makes it several times more flavorful.

3. Cover the pan and let the chicken and all the vegetables cook together in the liquid at low to medium heat. You can also choose to simmer the mixture in the oven, which in my opinion, makes it even tastier.

Braised Chicken Thighs

6 pearl onions, peeled

6 chicken thighs

Salt and pepper

Vegetable oil or light olive oil, about 2 tbs.

8 white mushrooms, sliced

3-4 bacon strips, cut on two

1 carrot, sliced

1/2 cup white wine

3/4 cup chicken broth

Thyme

Put the stove to medium-high heat, heat the oil in a pan, then place the chicken on it, add salt and pepper, cover the pan and cook until one side of the thighs are browned. Turn the thighs and add the bacon, onions, carrots and a little later, the mushrooms, cook until the other side of the thighs are browned. When the chicken is brwon, remove the chicken and add the bacon, cook bacon and vegetables together until the bacon is crisp. Add the wine and thyme, bring to a boil, scraping the brown pieces at the buttom with a wooden spoon. Add the chicken back, pouring the chicken stock, boil all of them together until the liquid is reduced to about half its original amount, reduce heat and let it simmer until there's very little liquid left. I like it with mashed potatoes, as I did in the picture, but it would work with rice too. I like drinking minerally, light white wines with it, like the Pieropan Soave in the picture, for which I don't remember the vintage. It just seems to work for me because it kind of balances the extremely strong flavor from the braised chicken, but really, what do I know?...

For the chicken stock, I prefer to make my own stock, which means eating chicken and mayonaisse sandwiches for a while afterwards :) But if you prefer to buy chicken stock, try to choose the ones that have reduced salt. If you can't find one, you might want to consider not adding any other salt when browning the chicken, because these things are pretty damn salty.

Enjoy!