Recipe: How to make perfect Onion rings

My technique to make perfect onion rings is the following.
First cut the onion and use the biggest rings, the rest keep and use for something else.
Take a seal able plastic bag with some flour, add the rings and shake. Than put the rings in the dough you made with some flour, water, egg and salt.

And back again into the back with the flour,
and as a last step before frying them in a pot with vegetable oil put them one more time in the dough.

Fry them either long to have them very crisp, or a bit shorter if you like to have a less crunchy but tasty ring with soft, kind of steamed onions.

Enjoy !


How do you do your rings, Please leave a comment if you think I could do them better ?

Recipe: Thai soup with prawns

I like spicy food, and from time to time my wife lets me cook it.
Today I cook a simple soup, here the ingredients you need:

Frozen Prawns
Dark Soy oil
2 chillies
honey
Salt,pepper, Saffron
vegetable stock
Egg noodles

Boil 1/2 litre of water and add the vegetable stock.
Heat up your wok, and fry in 3 tablespoons of oil the chillies until dark. Remove the chillies than fry the prawns. Meanwhile you did let soak the egg noodles in the hot vegetable soup, sieve them and keep the soup.

Now add the noodles to the wok and also add a teaspoon of honey and 2 teaspoon of dark soy sauce. Add the spices and finally pour the soup back in again and serve straight away. Enjoy !

Review: Cooking Class at Richys in Clonalkilty

Check out my latest Blogpost on West Cork Times about my experience at Richy's.

Review: London Restaurant Boisdale

Checkout my latest blogpost on Westcorktimes about a great Scottish Restaurant in London.

Blown with the wind

I have a little break from writing,
my "lidl" glasshouse got blown over by a stormy wind.

I will be back with new recipes and DIY reports in a week.
One of the next topics,
how to build a proper glasshouse out of recycled materials.

Recipe: Chilli Corn Chowder

 Here a other great recipe inspired by Jamie Oliver,
a super vegetarian chowder.

Ingredients:
1 Table Spoon Olive Oil
1 onion
1 potato
1 can of corn
1 vegetable soup stock and 1 liter of water
1 piece cheddar cheese
1 bunch spring onions
1 yellow onion
1 chilli

Chop the onion and fry it in the oil until brown, than add the chilli and the corn. fry it a bit than add the soup stock and water. peel the potato and grind it into the soup, the starch of it should give the soup a better consistency. Chop the spring onion and add it just before serving. Grind the cheese on top when serving.

 
It tastes great and is very filling, if you serve it as a starter make sure you don't serve too much of it.
Enjoy

Recipe: Sacher Cake (Austrian chocolate Cake)

This cake is the best chocolate cake you will ever taste, it is like the original Sacher cake from the famous coffee houses in Salzburg and Vienna.

I made it just recently for the first time, since my grandma and my mother used to bake it for me regularly. Its so simple, let me tell you how you can do it too.


Ingredients:
120 gram dark chocolate (min. 40% cacao)
120 gram margarine
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
80 gram sugar
100 gram icing sugar
80 gram flour
40 gram cornflour
--
for the filling, a drop of rum, and apricot jam

Melt the chocolate and margarine slowly. Mix the egg yolks and the icing sugar well, also mix the egg whites and the sugar, make sure you get a nice foam from the whites.
Now add a bit of flour, a bit of melted chocolate/margarine than the whites to the yolks. Always add a bit of each and mix, until you have used all and you should get a brown ish mix.

Pour all in a cake form, and bake it first at 180C for 10 minutes, after on 140C for 50 Minutes in the oven. With a toothpick you can check than if the dough is well baken, if some dough is on the pick than let it bake a little longer.

After baking cut the cake vertically, if possible twice. Than you fill the cake with the apricot jam/rum mix.
Finally melt again some chocolate and margarine (equal amounts of it) and pour it over the cake to make a nice chocolate varnish. Have a look at the Sacher website to see a example of a perfect cake.

Let it cool down and enjoy

Review Paris for West Cork Times

Check out my latest review for the West Cork Times,
A restaurant in Paris

Recipe: filled eggs

Easter is just over, and like every year I colored too many eggs. So in that way I need to be creative how to use that cooked eggs afterwards.

After Egg salad, a tasty party snack can be Filled eggs.

Just  slice the eggs once and take out the yolks. Mix the yolks with some mayonnaise and olive oil, also don't forget Salt and Pepper.

Than use a plastic bag for example, and but that filling into it, than cut a hole in the corner, now you can easily refill the egg halves.

If you have caviar (or fake caviar) handy you can put a bit on top for a extra tasty egg.

Very simple to do, but very tasty  !

Enjoy !

Recipe: Stuffed Pepper

This recipe got a little Hungarian touch, since the people east of Austria love to cook with paprika.
This recipe is very simplified, but tasty.

you need:
Peppers, 1 for each person
minced meat
tomato mark/chopped ones
onion
Salt and Pepper
Cheese for the top, and garlic if you like

Chop the onion and garlic, and mix with the meat and tomatoes.
open the Paprikas and fill them with the meat mix, on top add some cheese than bake the whole things for about 25-30 minutes on 180 C in your oven. Serve with any side dish you like.

Its yummy Tasty and so simple to make.

Enjoy !

Have you recipe you like to share with me and the other readers ?
Please send it through the comments and I feature it on this blog !

Happy Easter

Happy Easter out there,
do you know the tradition of coloring Easter eggs and bumping them against each other ?

Here a funny Youtube Video for you to watch to learn more about it.

Recipe: Easter Nest

Easter is approaching, and what is better than a bit of baking for Easter, so here a simple recipe for you to make a lovely Easter Nest. (tastes like brioche)
Ingredients:
500ml milk
100gr sugar
150gr butter
40gr yeast
2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs + 1 egg to add later to keep the dough moist

first add the yeast to the lukewarm milk, make sure you don't use to hot milk, that would kill the yeast. than add the butter and the rest of the ingredients. using a kitchen machine make sure the dough is well mixed than let it rest for at least 2 hours, the dough should double in size.

After make 3 strings out of the dough, take a cooked egg, it can be also a coloured one, and make a string around that egg, as shown in the picture.

Its a bit tricky to get it to look nice, but you have enough dough to make at least 2 of this nests.

Let it after the forming rest about 30 minutes, preheat your oven to 180 C and bake it for 45 minutes. Use a toothpick to test if the nest is fully bake.

enjoy,

Happy Easter !

How to make your own Soup Stock (powder)

Its a great thing to make your own soup / bouillon from your vegetables in the garden, or left overs, all you need is the following:
4 Carrots
2 Onions
Leek
Herbs such as Parsley
nutmeg
salt and Pepper

Cut all of that and grind it very very small,
than put the paste on a tray to dry in the oven at very low temperature for several hours.

Than grind the whole thing again and let it further dry.
You can store it than for up to 2 months, the color changes a bit to brown after drying, thats normal.

It might take you some time to get used to the taste of your bouillon, since there are no taste enhancers, etc in it.

Recipe: Tomato Pamper Soup

I transformed and adopted recently a Jamie Oliver recipe to be able to use the stuff I had at home and it turned out very yummy !

Ingredients:
Basil (fresh or dried)
3 Tomatoes
2 garlic gloves
1 piece dried bread
1 tin chopped tomatoes
25ml olive Oil
Pepper and Salt

Preparation takes you about 5 minutes.

Chop the tomatoes and garlic, ad the garlic with some olive oil in the pot and heat it up. Than add the tin of chopped tomatoes and  some basil.

bring it to boil, than cut the bread in little pieces and add it to the mix.
Spice with Salt and Pepper and Serve while hot.

Its a very tasty starter and pretty filling and healthy too !
Enjoy !