Tag Archives: cooking

Scallops. Impress your guests!

Hey guys! Excluding this awesome, simple and yet satisfying recipe, I have a question for you. Have you ever gone out from your comfort zone? Are you doing anything unusual or off-limits during the week or month, that people usually don’t expect from you?
Can you take a bicycle instead of car and go to work? Or can you stop eating desserts just for a week? Or may be say ‘yes’ to green tea, even if you never drink it, instead of your fav coffee? Can you stop drinking cola (I hope you don’t drink it at all)?
 Or may be to call a person, who is really dear to you, and you’ve been shy to speak to, and invite him/her for a dinner? 😉
Start from simple things, try out new recipe! Prepare this amazing and delicious appetizer! Impress yourself and only then others! 🙂
Scallops

Scallops with avocado puree and strawberries

You can serve tender scallops with strawberries or just with sauce. A glass of bubbly or chilled white wine would be perfect here! 
Ingredients
6 scallops
1 avocado
60-80g cream cheese
2 tsp lemon juice
8 strawberries
2 Tbsp finely chopped coriander
1-2 Tbsp olive oil, for frying
sea salt, white pepper
Sauce:
60-80ml dry white wine
1 tsp garlic puree (roasted garlic is great here)
1 tsp finely chopped coriander
1 Tbsp butter
Chop and blend avocado, add cream cheese, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.
Cut strawberries into small cubes, mix with fresh coriander.
Season scallops with salt and pepper, fry in the piping hot pan 2 minutes on each side.
In the middle of serving plate, arrange avocado puree, top with strawberries; then arrange scallops.
If you don’t like avocado, you can serve scallops simple as is with a sauce. In the same pan, where you fried scallops, add wine and deglaze the pan’s bottom. Add garlic, coriander, season to taste and bring to boil. Add butter, mix well and cook for few minutes more. Pour the sauce over the scallops.
Enjoy!

Jam Cake

 This cake is well-known in my home-country, and it’s quite popular among village people, or at least who prepare homemade jams. Oh, we love make jams in Russia! Nothing can beat a real homemade jam, jam for which you picked up fruits or berries yourself in the garden or forest during summer. And like everything is done at home the taste of every jam in every home is unique. When it is dark and dank outside, or even when it’s a snowstorm during cold Russian winters, it’s such a great pleasure to be at warm and cozy home, sip a hot herbal tea with a spoon of jam, or spread it thickly over a piece of bread.
 Many Russian grandmothers used to make this cake, mainly when was a cup of jam left, and nobody wanted to eat it up. Among such ladies was grandmother of my classmate, she used to make delicious cake with strawberry jam! 
 The cake recipe is very easy and quickly to prepare, you need only few ingredients and patience while it cooks, and the result is sweet and tasty cake! Ability to use any jam is excellent, every time you’re getting new-flavoured cake! Isn’t it cool? 

Jam Cake

Jam Cake

Ingredients
200ml jam, not watery (I used plum jam)
200ml full fat kefir
1 tsp baking soda
50-100g white sugar, depends how sweet is jam
1 big egg or 2 small
300-350g all-purpose flour
In a big bowl, mix jam and soda, leave it for 5 minutes. In another bowl, slightly beat eggs with sugar. 
Add kefir and beaten eggs into jam mixture, stir well. Add flour, and combine all ingredients.
The consistency of the batter should be little bit thicker than for pancakes.
Pour batter into greased pan, bake in preheated 180C/360F oven for 50-60 minutes.
Sprinkle with icing sugar and decorate with fruits or berries, if desired.
Enjoy!

Jam Cake with plums

Sweet Galette

 From time to time everyone of us have come across special moments, which we enjoy. What about baking or probably preparing a hearty stew or a pie, which recipe was received from mother or grandmother, or trying something new. It’s hard to explain, but there is something magical, sense of happiness and satisfaction, when I’m making dough for a pie, baking. I adore making pastry, especially when much time is not required to make it. Like short pastry, you need only four ingredients to get smooth, buttery pastry.Cherry-Peach Galette

Simple, but beautiful, always delicious, with apples or apricots, it’s all about Galette. I’m so excited that this crusty cake one day came into my life! I still remember my very first galette, it was sweet galette filled with mix of wild berries, and it’s turned out so tasty and delightful, that I couldn’t expect more. Since then I’ve experimented with various fillings, tried savory galettes too; and I’m sure now that it’s almost impossible to choose the favorite one, I love them all! My fellow-bloggers don’t drop back, just look at aromatic galette from Seana @cottagegrovehouse, I almost can feel sweet-smelling scent of apricots! Or another delicate grape galette from Suzanne @apuginthekitchen, it can be a great weekend brunch with a glass of crispy rosé!

A couple of weeks back I bought sweet cherries from Iran and was nearly to eat them all at once. 😀 I had in a fridge few cherries and peaches. So, all those goodies I put in galette on a bed of cottage cheese, and folded in rich nutty pastry! Yummilicious!

Sweet Galette

You can divide the pastry into 2 partss to make 2 small galettes with different filling
Walnut Short Pastry
170g/6oz all-purpose flour
120g/4.2oz butter
50g/2Tbsp walnuts, roasted and finely chopped
1/2 Tbsp caster sugar
a pinch of salt
50ml cold water
Put flour, sugar, salt, walnuts,  and butter in a big bowl. Rub ingredients together until breadcrumbs. Add water and mix until the dough is formed. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. You can keep the pastry in a fridge up to 3 days.
Filling
2 peaches, cut into wedges
few cherries
100-200g soft cottage cheese/farm cheese/ricotta
50-70g brown/raw or white sugar
1 egg, yolk and white separated
1 Tbsp brown or demerara sugar
Method
For the filling, beat sugar with cottage cheese with a spoon or hand whisker, then add egg white and beat.
On a lightly floured table, roll out the pastry into 30cm/12inch circle.
Place cottage mixture in the middle of the pastry and spread evenly. Arrange peaches and cherries as desired. Sprinkle with some brown/demerara sugar. Brush pastry all over with egg yolk.
Bake in preheated 190C/370F oven for 45-50 minutes or until the pastry is golden.
Enjoy!

If you like peaches, have a look here to get the recipe of amazing cake!
Sweet Galette

Grilled Tiger Prawns

 Summer is a lovely time to spend outdoors, having a barbecue, grill meat and veggies, enjoying weather..with some exception for Dubai, it’s terribly hot; the barbecue standing lonely, and waiting for the chilly days to be dust off.. If you are lucky and enjoying weather, I recommend to try this one of the most flavorful grilled prawns recipe I have tried (or grill it in the oven). The recipe is on my list of easy and impressive dishes!Grilled tiger prawns

I’d like to invite all bloggers who’s parting @FF to try these scrumptious prawns! I’ve got a couple of bottles of white wine.. 😉 I’m sure today evening will be a hit!

Grilled Tiger Prawns

  • Servings: 3-4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

2-3 prawns per person are enough for an appetizer, but for the main course increase the quantity as many as desired.

Can be served with a glass of good wine and pineapple salsa.

Ingredients

12 tiger prawns

1 shallot or small red onion

3 garlic gloves

1 small red chilli, optional

1 Tbsp fresh coriander, finely chopped

½ lemon, juice

sea salt, black pepper to taste

Butter Sauce

60g butter

2 Tbsp coriander, finely chopped

2 Tbsp lemon juice

  • Cut prawns in the middle and clean. You can cut off heads or leave it. Arrange them in a big shallow dish.
  • Finely chop shallot, garlic and chilli. Sprinkle it over prawns along with coriander, add salt and pepper to taste. Cover the dish and let it marinate in the fridge for 1-3 hours or overnight.
  • Remove from the fridge 30 minutes before grilling. Grill for 5-7 minutes.
  • Make the sauce. Heat the butter in a small pan, add remaining coriander and lemon juice; adjust seasoning.
  • Serve hot! Enjoy!

Grilled tiger prawns by milkandbun

 

Transformer Pie

 Transformer movie is now showing in cinemas here, I’ve already watched it, and you? I know it’s totally not girly film, but all those metal giants.. Don’t you want to be friends with one of those robots? 😀                                                                                The below pie is also like transformer. Why don’t you invite friends for a dinner and make a surprise for them, say that you had time to prepare only sugary pie with meringue top.. They didn’t guess until you begin to cut it.. Surprise! You’ve got a slice full of savory filling!

Chicken Pie
 I used chicken and brown button mushrooms, but you can add some potatoes instead of mushrooms. The pie can be easily turned into sweet; use sliced apples or pears along with a handful of raisins, nectarines and blueberries are great too, and don’t forget to beat egg whites with icing sugar. Small disadvantage in sweet option are unused egg yolks, which should be used somewhere; put them in a small cup, cover with cling-wrap and next morning prepare scrambled eggs, or much better – make khvorost.

Transformer Pie

Ingredients (for 20cm/8inch round baking dish)
400-500g puff pastry, preferably homemade (with butter, not margarine)
2 small chicken breasts, around 350g
150g mushrooms, washed, sliced or cut into halves
1 leek or onion, chopped
1/2 Tbsp chopped fresh tarragon, optionally
1 whole egg
2 eggs, yolks and whites separated
1 tsp strong mustard, like English
2 Tbsp fatty creme fraiche or sour cream
50g grated Parmesan or any hard cheese, optionally
salt, pepper to taste
1 Tbsp oil + 1 tsp butter
Preparation
  1. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the pastry (4mm/0.15inch thick) and cut a 28cm/11inch disc. Line a baking dish, pop into the fridge for 20 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, cut chicken into small cubes or strips; put in a bowl, add 1 egg yolk, 2 tsp sour cream, salt, pepper, tarragon (optionally), cover and leave to marinate for 20 minutes.
  3. In a medium pan, melt butter and oil, add onion and mushrooms, fry on a moderate heat for 10-15 minutes. Add mushroom mixture to the chicken and combine.
  4. Beat whole egg and egg yolk with remaining sour creme.
  5. Take out the baking dish. Spoon the chicken mixture in, pour over beaten eggs.
  6. Bake in preheated oven 180C/360F for 40-45 minutes.
  7. Beat egg whites with a good pinch of salt until firm peaks. Optionally, you may gently fold in cheese.
  8. Take out the pie. Spread the meringue mixture over the pie, bake for 20 minutes more or until slightly brown.
  9. Allow pie to cool for 15 minutes. Slice and enjoy!

Chicken Pie/SliceCheck out another recipe – Kournik, Russian chicken pie!

Chicken Meringue Pie

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