Tag Archives: food blogger

Arabian kofta

Kofta or Kufta is a simple dish, small balls of minced meat – usually lamb or mutton blended with fresh herbs, aromatic spices, garlic and/or onions. These meatballs are very popular in Middle Eastern countries like UAE, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, and there is no fixed recipe, each cook adds their favourite spices like chilli, cinnamon or cardamom. I highly recommend you to not omit fresh herbs; mint, coriander and parsley give kofta amazing freshness. Lamb meat is often used for kofta, but if you don’t eat lamb meat or it’s too fatty for you – you can easily substitute it with beef; in that case I suggest you to add a tablespoon of olive oil or butter for richness. And of course, the meat should be finely minced.

#10 Arabian meatballs

Kofta meatballs can be grilled, fried or even baked. Serve them with rice, fresh tomatoes and olives. I love to eat them wrapped in Arabic bread with a slice of roast eggplant, tomato and chopped fresh herbs, and dipping this lip-smacking wrap into hummus. 🙂

Arabian kofta

Servings: 28 small meatballs
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

500g finely ground lamb

100ml sparkling mineral water

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

1 Tbsp fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

3-4 Tbsp fresh coriander leaves, chopped

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2-1 tsp harissa paste, optional

S&P to taste

2 Tbsp olive oil for frying

Garnish

Arabic bread, hummus, chopped iceberg and herbs

In a large bowl, mix meat with water. Add garlic, herbs, spices, season to taste and mix throughly with you hand.
Form small meatballs, the size of walnut.
Heat the frying pan with oil, add kofta meatballs and fry all over for 6-7 minutes or until cooked through.
Serve with bread, lettuce, herbs and hummus, if desired.

Enjoy!

Macaroni a la flot

Flot means fleet in Russian. This simple dish consists of macaroni mixed with fried minced meat. In 17-18th centuries, in Russia similar dishes were quite popular among travelers and especially sailors; that no-fridge time meat was salted-cured and kept in barrels, thus seamen could cut a piece of the meat anytime, fry it and mix with some boiled macaroni. The dish became popular again during World War, but instead of fresh or frozen meat was used tushonka – canned stewed meat (usually fatty pork or beef), which was always on hand, and it could be stored up for years without loosing its nutritional value. Post-war period was also hard time for Russia, so such not expensive and nourishing dish didn’t get out of use. Nowadays, ‘macaroni a la flot’ are still widely-cooked and well-known dish; normally pasta tubes are used for macaroni, which mixed with fried minced meat (it can be pork, beef or mixture), onions and sometimes tomato paste or fresh chopped tomatoes.

Macaroni a la flot

Servings: 4
Time: less than 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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You may try to add a shredded carrot or chopped tomato and saute it along with meat.

Ingredients

500g minced beef meat (with not less then 15% fat, or you may add some pork)

350g uncooked tube macaroni (like maccheroni, maccheroncini, bucatini, ziti or any other)

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 Tbsp sunflower oil (or any other veg.oil)

1/2 Tbsp butter

salt, black pepper

chopped parsley or fennel for garnish, optional

Instructions

In a deep pan, melt the butter with oil on a medium heat, add onion and fry for 4-5 minutes. Add meat and use wooden or stiff spatula to break it up into small pieces. Season to taste. Ensure you stir the meat regularly so it doesn’t stick to the pan and to make sure it cook evenly. The meat is cooked when it shows no signs of pink.
Meanwhile, put pasta into a large pot of boiling water. Be sure to add plenty of salt to the water. Cook the macaroni according to package instruction.
Add 3-4 Tbsp of pasta-boiling water to the meat, mix well.
When the pasta is al dente, drain it and add to the pan with meat. Give it a good stir.
Serve warm. Sprinkle with chopped parsley or fennel, if desired.

Enjoy!

Winter Orange Cake

Hello everyone! Hope you had wonderful and joyful winter holidays! As you may know from my previous posts, me and my husband have been to Russia, and it was a memorable and great trip. We celebrated New Year and Christmas eves with the whole family, met with friends, and had lots of fun with a snow: throwing snowballs, rolling and tumbling around, and exploring virgin and deep snow on foot! Once we almost were frozen to the bones, because it was -30C/22F (and the phone told me it was felt like -40C in the night)! But wool socks, mittens, fur hats and thick coats do wonders! 😀

So, I was torn by what recipe to start 2015 with. I decided to warm up cold days with a superb and fantastically delicious winter dessert -an orange cake. Oranges and mandarins may not be the most obvious fruits in baking, but for me it symbolizes the winter season. The smell of mandarins rind always brings back my childhood memories, when my parents bought them for the New Year eve. The cake is moist, bright, tangy, and delightful in both taste and texture. It is also great any time of the year. 🙂

Winter Orange Cake

Servings: 6-8
Time: 1 1/2 hr+
Difficulty: moderate
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You can use fresh orange slices as is, or cook them in a sweet water (1 cup water+1/3 cup sugar) for about 20-30 minutes on a medium heat – it helps to get rid of orange bitterness.

Ingredients

2 small oranges or 1.5 medium size, sliced

3 Tbsp demerara sugar

160g butter softened

120-150g golden caster sugar, depends on your taste

3 heaped tbsp orange jam (or fine-cut marmalade)

3 eggs, beaten

160g plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/3 tsp baking powder

40g almond powder (ground almonds)

1.5 medium-size oranges or 2 mandarins, finely grated zest and juice

Glaze:

3 heaped tbsp orange jam/marmalade

1-2 tsp orange-flavoured liqueur (Grand Marnier or Cointreau), optional

Method

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease the 18cm loose-bottomed cake tin. Sprinkle the base with demerara sugar. Arrange orange slices on the base, making overlapping layer.
Beat the butter and caster sugar until pale, mix in marmelade and beaten eggs. Fold in flour, salt, baking powder, almonds, orange or mandarin zest and juice.
Pour the batter into tin. Bake in the oven for 45-55 minutes, until golden and firm to touch.
Allow to cool for a few minutes at room temperature.
Meanwhile, make a glaze by warming 3 Tbsp jam and liqueur (if using) in a small pan with a little water.
Carefully turn out the cake onto a serving plate, while it’s still warm. Prick holes in the cake. Spoon glaze over the cake.
Serve warm! Enjoy!

Adapted from Jamie Oliver magazine/issue 26

Merry Christmas

My winter holidays are just around the corner, and for the next two weeks I will be travelling to my home-country, socializing and eating, and thus not too much blogging. I’m sure you are in the midst of the Christmas preparations also, and before that I’d like to wish all of you my wonderful readers and blogging friends a Magical and Happy Holidays!

May this Christmas day will be a very merry, peaceful and delicious! I know not all of you celebrate this day (I will be celebrating Christmas on the 7th Jan) but do want to take a moment to thank every one of you for your comments, likes and support throughout the year. You have played an important role in my blogolife, without your posts I couldn’t be inspired to try out new recipes, without your comments I couldn’t improve my photography. Every time I come here-to my and yours blogs I feel like having a tea-time with some lovely friends. 😀

Looking forward to read more interesting posts and tasty recipes from you, guys! And I promise you to post a delicious recipe of one Russian pie soon, it has a fish shape and filling is fish, too. And another recipe of absolutely tasty orange cake, that almost screams – it’s a winter holiday! Stay turned! 🙂

Trout fritters with green peas

Last weekend I bought a beautiful rainbow trout. It’s a very delicious fish, that rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and its’ also an excellent source of vitamins and protein. One its part gone to be cured (you may find the recipe here), another was roasted and I still had some more. I decided to make a pie from the book “pies and tarts” by S.Reaynaud. The recipe is very simple, it’s called for the trout, puff pastry, peas and horseradish, I’d had all that stuff. I’d made the filling and was disappointed because its quantity was more then enough, despite that I used more puff pastry then was needed. Fortunately, the overall result was fine, and the pie tasted pretty good. Have you tried to cook any pies from that book?

Thus I had to fix the remaining trout.. And here is the easiest and quickest recipe of delicious fritters. I used fresh trout, but you can substitute it with salmon, fresh or canned. I ate these little fritters for breakfast, they were good and satisfying!

After plating I topped it with with sour cream and some horseradish sauce, also I recommend finishing it with a slice of cured trout or salmon. It was truly divine!

Trout tritters with green peas and horseradish

Trout fritters with green peas

Servings: 2-3
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

100-150g fresh trout, chopped

2 large potatoes, peeled and grated

50-60g green peas, fresh or frozen

1 Tbsp finely chopped onion, optional

1 egg white (or whole egg)

1-2 tsp horseradish sauce

3-4 Tbsp thin cream

4 Tbsp or more plain flour

sea salt, white pepper, to taste

Garnish: sour cream, horseradish sauce, lemon wedges, cured trout/salmon slices

Method

Preheat oven to 200C. Line the baking tray with parchment.
Squeeze out the liquid from potatoes. Add it to a mixing bowl along with trout, peas and onion. Add horseradish, egg white, cream and combine.
Add flour, salt and pepper, and mix well.
Scoop out the dough to make 10-12 fritters. Gently press them down with hand.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden-brown.
Serve with sauce you like and cured trout slices.

Enjoy the meal!