Tag Archives: food photography

Mandarin-lemon pudding

There are so many recipes in this world, including pudding recipes: some are baked, another prepared with gelatin and then cooled in a fridge.. and then I’m feeling stuck and really don’t know which one to try. 🙂 I like easy-to-make recipes like this one – baked pudding. It has the amazing mandarin-lemon flavour and bright tasting. The pudding is good on its own, but I also prepared a simple citrus sauce, that I made for this peach pie, and it was absolutely delicious! 🙂

Any favourite pudding recipes, guys? I’d like to hear which one do you like and cook.

Baked mandarin-lemon pudding

Servings: 2
Difficulty: easy
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For the citrus sauce recipe click here.

Ingredients

2 medium eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of nutmeg, optional

50g white sugar

zest from 1 mandarin +1/2 lemon

100ml full-fat milk

50g plain flour

1 tsp melted butter, for greasing

Preparation

Beat eggs until pale and fluffy.
Add vanilla, nutmeg, sugar, zests and whisk for a few minutes.
Pour in milk.
Sift in flour, whisk to combine.
Grease tins with butter. Divide the batter between tins. Optionally sprinkle with citrus zest.
Bake in preheated 200C oven for 18-20 minutes. Then reduce to 190C and bake for 7-10 minutes more.
Serve warm with sauce. Enjoy!

Adapted from Russian telecast “Cook with A.Zimin”

Millet bitochki

Bitochki or bitki is the name for round-shaped, flattened cutlets (côtelettes/patties) in Russian cuisine, which are prepared from chopped meat or grains. Originally in old Russia, a good and expensive cuts of meat were flattened, cooked and called bitochki, but lately people adapted the recipe and began to use cheap meat. Any remaining meat was chopped, mixed with other ingredients and then served fried or baked. Poor people even used grains.

Nowadays, not only poor one can make such bitochki. I used millet for mine. Bitochki are not only tasty, but healthy and it is a good option for a meatless day. Millet is one of the healthiest grain, moreover is considered to be one of the digestible and non-allergenic grains*. It contains lots of fiber and low simple sugar. Finally, bitochki have such a nice texture inside (it reminds a white fish a bit) and crispy outside.

You can serve them with a lettuce-tomato salad on a side. I made mushrooms sauce, but if you are run out of time or lazy – serve with a good dollop of sour cream (or creme fraiche).

Millet bitochki with mushroom sauce

Servings: 12 pieces
Difficulty: moderate
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Instead of mushroom sauce you can serve bitochiki with sour cream.

Bitochki as well as mushroom sauce can be made a day or two ahead and then gently reheated.

*You can use both cream and sour cream, or any one.

Ingredients

150g millet

500ml hot water

1 medium egg

2-3 tbsp finely chopped parsley

1 medium onion (any sort you like)

300g mushrooms (I used oyester and champinions), chopped

1 tbsp butter+ 1 tbsp olive oil, for mushrooms

20g butter

15-20g plain flour

100ml 35% cream*

2-3 tbsp sour cream*

150ml hot water

salt, freshly ground pepper to taste

fine homemade breadcrumbs

2 Tbsp olive or sunflower oil, for frying

some chopped parsely, for garnish, optional

Preparation method

Wash millet throughly under running water, cover with hot water, season with some salt, bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until millet is ready. You need to cool it completely. To make it faster, spread millet on a large plate and put in a fridge for 10-15 minutes, while preparing the mushrooms and sauce.
In a frying pan, heat butter and oil, add onion and fry for 5 minutes (set aside half of onions for millet ). Add mushrooms and fry on a hight heat for 10 minutes or until all liquid is evaporated (if there is any). Season to taste. Set aside 3-4 tbsp mushrooms for millet; then chop it finely.
Meanwhile, in a small pan, add butter and flour, stir on a medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir into mushrooms.
Pour over cream along with sour cream, give it a good stir. Pour in hot water. Check the seasoning. Simmer on a medium heat for 5-8 minutes. Add more hot water to reach desired consistency. Keep the sauce warm.
Transfer cooled millet in a mixing bowl, add egg, parsley, season with salt and pepper. Mix in fried onion and mushrooms. Combine the mixture. I didn’t use any flour, but if the mixture seems doesn’t want to resemble into a patty, add a tablespoon or two of plain flour.
Generously spread breadcrumbs on a large plate. With a tablespoon take a millet mixture and make a ball, pat it down with your hand or spoon. Cover in a breadcrumbs. Repeat with all millet mixture.
In a large frying pan, heat oil, put bitochki and fry on both sides until golden. To keep it warm while preparing others – put them in a preheated 120-150C oven.
Serve with mushroom sauce and sprinkle with extra parsley, if desired.

Enjoy!

Persimmon&Jamon Salad for Women’s Day

March 8, 2016
milkandbun
6 comments
appetizer, cooking, festive cooking, food, food photo, food photography, food styling, jamon, persimmon and jamon salad, photography, salad, starter, Women's Day

Today, March 8th, many people are celebrating International Women’s Day across the globe. Of course, each country have their own means of celebration, special traditions and demonstrations, gifts and food. In my home-country (Russia) this day even is a public holiday. It is also another good day/reason to call your mother, sister or a friend and say how much they mean to you, or celebrate a woman who has always inspired you. And why not to rise a glass for yourself? 😉

This elegant salad can be served as a tasty fare for the Women’s Day. You need only few minutes literally to assemble and serve the salad. Salty dry-cured meat and tender persimmon slices go perfect together here. Impress your guests or and simply enjoy it yourself.

Salad with persimmon&jamon

Servings: 2
Time: 15min
Difficulty: very easy
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Few shavings of parmesan or grana padano cheese make the salad only better.

Ingredients

4 thin slices jamon serrano (or prosciutto)

10-12 thin slices persimmon (from a quarter)

2-3 tbsp pomegranate seeds

200-300g small arugula leaves

2 tbsp pistachios, chopped

Dressing

2 tbsp EV olive oil

2 tsp pomegranate molasses

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

sea salt, to taste

Preparation method

Arrange 2 slices of jamon and 5-6 slices of persimmon on each plate. Sprinkle with pomegranate seeds.
Top with arugula leaves. Mix ingredients for the dressing, drizzle the salad and sprinkle with nuts.

Enjoy!

recipe found here (in Russian)

Eat the World Dubai

Hello guys! How is your week going on? Today I’d love to share with you how I spent last weekend!

I visited “Eat the World Dubai” as a part of the Dubai Food Festival 2016. It was held on a green lawn (which is called Burj Park), right next to Burj Khalifa and the Dubai mall. It was all about street food. The most exciting thing was that 15 food trucks were brought from the UK, and as it was announced ‘the best ones’- winners and finalists of British Street Food Awards. Of course, some local street food there was as well.

I think nowadays street food means more than regular hamburgers and hot-dogs. There are lots of people/cooks who are passionate for food, who have a creativity for what they cook; people who desire to prepare something extravaganza in front of you. Plus, it should be affordable and don’t ruin your family budget.

One of the thing I wanted to try was “Crabbie Shack”. I imagine myself a huge, unreal ans super tasty patty made from crab meat. After a pretty long line of waiting, finally I got it. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed. Crab was deep-fried (I rare eat such food) and seemed it was left in some skin.. plus the bun was too greasy and it was complicated to bite the huge burger. What I like – the combination of fennel seeds and almond flakes; definitely I will use it in the future cooking. Harissa (not spicy one) and smashed avocado was another delicious touch.

It’s worth mentioning the remarkable pizza preparation. Guys were made it in a truck! Can you imagine? Oven truck! 😀

Dark Sweet side was an ice cream! One of the UAE team trucks “from Miami to Dubai” sold gelato on a stick, that you could dip into various chocolate and cover in nuts, sprinkles or coconut flakes. I tried strawberry covered with white chocolate and walnuts. Yummy! 🙂

British crew “Milo&Hector’s” brought a cute little truck and made ice cream sandwiches. Never tasted before, it was soooo good! Especially after a sunny afternoon in the park. May be I’d reduce the sweetness of cookies..

And so much more..

I enjoyed every minute of this open-air festival. There were lots of amazing smells and flavours around. Music, cooking demos, smiling people who were eating&eating, siting on a grass, relaxing..

Hope you had a fabulous weekend too!

Black Forest Pancakes

When I decided to make chocolate pancakes, I didn’t expect them turn out so good and delicious: a pure indulgence! I wanted to serve them only with a black-cherry jam. But when I stumbled upon a pack of mascarpone in my fridge, that I wanted to use somewhere else, the decision came itself – use it as a topping! Mascarpone worked perfectly as a cream and cherry syrup (I mixed jam with some water to make it thinner) sucked into pancakes very well, like into a sponge cake. All ingredients worked more than good together, dark chocolate and fresh cherry on top added a nice and charming touch as well. Plus, the taste reminds the famous cake – “Black Forest”. It’s my husband’s favorite cake, so he was on a nine cloud! Honestly, these are highly recommended pancakes!

Black Forest Pancakes

Servings: 3
Time: 1hr
Difficulty: very easy
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Ingredients

200g sour cream

250ml full-fat milk

2 eggs

2 tbsp white sugar

a pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

20g butter, melted

270-300g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

5-6 tsp unsweetened pure cocoa powder

40-50g dark chocolate (70%cocoa), chopped

sunflower or any veg oil for frying

For serving

200g mascarpone

2 tsp maple syrup or pure honey, optional

100g dark cherry jam

70ml warm water (or more to make it thinner)

1-2 tsp lemon juice, optional

Garnish

some chopped dark chocolate

fresh cherries, optional

Preparation method

In a large bowl, beat eggs with with sugar, salt and vanilla. Whisk in butter.
Pour in milk and sour cream, stir all together.
Sift flour along with baking powder, soda and cocoa into a batter. Whisk until combined. Fold in chopped chocolate.
Heat large frying pan on a high heat, pour in some oil. Using large spoon, pour in batter. Cook each pancake until bubbles appear on top, then flip and cook on another side.
For cheery syrup, in a small saucepan, bring jam and water to gentle simmer. Simmer on a medium-low heat for few minutes. If it’s too sweet, stir in lemon juice. Add more water to make it more thin, if desired.
In a serving bowl, stir together mascarpone and maple syrup or honey.
Serve pancakes with mascarpone and cherry syrup.

Enjoy!