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Linzer cookies

  I do love shortcrust pastries! It’s versatile, great choice of fillings allows your imagination run wild. 😀  Thus, is easy to guess that I’ve made so many shortbreads as well, some of them were not good and too crumbly for me, but I keep on.
 Linzer cookie is two nut-flavored cookies are sandwiched together with a jam, originally it was a torte, named after the city of Linz, Austrian. Do you know that such round-shaped cookies are called “Linzer eyes”. What a pretty name! 🙂
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 Based on different recipes, I used following Linzer cookie recipe:
Ingredients
100g (1/2 cup) white sugar
1 egg
120g (1/2 cup) butter, cut into small cubes, room temperature
200g (1 1/2 cup) all purpose flour
90g (1 cup) almond meal
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp lemon zest
50g (1/3 cup) or less powdered (icing) sugar
50-60 ml (1/4 cup) Raspberry jam
Method 
In a bowl on a table cream butter and sugar. Add the egg, vanilla and mix.
Finally, beat in the ground almonds.
Stir together dry ingredients in a bowl and add to the batter and blend.
Form into disk, cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Line baking trays with parchment paper.
Roll out pastry to 25-50mm (1/4-1/8 inch) thickness.
Cut out the cookies (if cookies are too soft-chill it again for 10-15 minutes).
Bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool.
Spread 1/2 or 1tsp jam on the bottoms of solid cookies. Sprinkle the cut-out cookies with icing sugar, place them on top and sandwich them together.

 

The assembled cookies can be store in an container (in the refrigerator), or I keep them without jam, in a jar, and assemble when it’s needed 🙂Love_cookies_v2-3
Enjoy! Cookies are sooooo good! 😀
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*You can cut out any shape, and use your favourite jam.
**In case if the pastry turned out too crumbly and difficult to roll it out, add 2tbsp of cold water, usually it helps me 🙂 
P.S. You can click on all photos to have a look it in full size.

 

Roast quail for St.Valentine Day

 Quail may be tiny birds but they pack a real flavor punch. Perfect for Valentine’s Day meal.

 There’s something adorable about presenting your Valentine with their own whole bird. The easiest way (and messy) to eat a small quails is with your fingers 🙂 or you can carve it as turkey.
Quail(Click on the photo to see it in a larger size)
 Serve one quail per person as a starter or two as a main course.
 
Ingredients
4 whole quails
4 medium potatoes
2 carrots
2 medium onions
1 small bunch thyme
6-8 juniper berries
2 tbsp runny honey
2+2 tbsp olive oil 
salt, pepper
 
Method
  1. If you’ve got frozen quail, defrost it overnight in the refrigerator.
  2. Take the quail out of the fridge 1 hour before cooking. Wipe the outside of the bird and inside the cavity, using kitchen paper.
  3. Season inside with salt&pepper, put in sprig of thyme and one juniper berry. Tie the legs together with string (optionally).
  4. Season birds with salt&pepper and thyme, brush with honey and 2 tbsp olive oil.
  5. Preheat oven to 200C. Put thinly sliced potatoes, carrots, onions, thyme and juniper berries into a roasting tin. Sprinkle with salt&pepper, drizzle with olive oil. Cook for 15-20 minutes.
  6. Sit the quail on top and roast for 25 minutes more.
 
Enjoy!
 

Russian kasha

 Kasha means porridge. One Russian proverb says “Bread and Porridge is our food”. A pot with a porridge and bread were the main food on a table many years back. A large varieties of cereals are produced in Russia, but the popular and loved one has been the buckweat.
 According to old Russian tradition, during the wedding a bridegroom and a bride had to cook a porridge together. If they could cooked a good, tasty porridge that meant they could get on with each other. A porridge was cooked for many occasions like a wedding or Christmas feast, birth or funeral repast. Sometimes a feast was called ‘kasha’. Every hostess had a personal recipe of porridge, which she kept in a secret. 
 
 In Russian cuisine a porridge is divided into 3 groups by it’s consistency: liquid (eaten as a soup), oozy (usually for children) and crumbly (the tastiest one). The consistency depends on a quantity of water or milk, in which porridge was cooked. Pumpkin_millet

Millet porridge with butter or lard added was the common meal for Russian labors, who had worked in fields. It’s can be eaten sweet (with sugar, honey, dried fruits) or savoury (with onion, garlic, mushrooms), as a main dish or garnish.
 Moreover, millet is rich in calcium, B vitamins, iron, potassium, and contain no gluten.

  
We need:

  • pumpkin
  • millet – 1 cup
  • water – 1/2 cup
  • milk – 1 cup
  • a knob of butter
  • few dried apricots
  • raisins
  • sugar – 1Tbsp
  • a pinch of salt
Take a pumpkin. 
Cut the lid and set aside. Clean all seeds out.
Put a knob of butter on the pumpkin bottom.
Wash millet thoroughly under running tab water. Mix with raisins and sliced dried apricots. 
Put the cereal mixture in the pumpkin. Add a pinch of salt and some sugar to taste. Pour the milk and water, cover with the lid.
Bake for 1-2 hours.
Open the lid. 
Tasty millet porridge in pumpkin pot is ready!
Serve with honey.
Pumpkin_millet-2 
P.S. For 1 cup millet take 1 cup milk+1/2 cup water. Sub millet with rice.
 
P.P.S. Don’t throw away seeds. Sprinkle over some sea salt and smoked paprika. Add olive oil and bake on a baking paper along with the pumpkin.
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