letsstartsimple.com

I decided to take this thing a little more seriously by hosting my own wordpress blog.

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letsstartsimple.com

Chickpea Falafel with Simple Yogurt Sauce.

Chickpea Falafel

Ingredients:
1 can of chick peas, rinsed
3 cloves of garlic
1 onion, finely chopped
3 tbsp. fresh cilantro
1 tbsp. fresh parsley
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground chile
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

3-4 tbsp. whole wheat flour

grapeseed oil or other oil for frying

Put all ingredients, except flour in your food processor and pulse until well crushed. Pour mixture into a big bowl and add flour until it is dry enough to be rolled to small balls. Roll balls and flatten with your palms. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Heat oil in a shallow pan until hot. Deep fry the falafels until golden, turning them once. Put on paper towels and serve however you like them.

Simple yogurt sauce

Ingredients:
1 cup greek yogurt
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. of lemon juice

mixed fresh herbs, finely chopped (i like a mix of parsley, chives and a bit of dill)
salt & pepper to taste

Mix yoghurt with olive oil, garlic and lemon juice. Stir until well combined, add herbs and season with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 2 days.

Simple Lemon Basil Tagliatelle with Salmon Filet.

This is an amazing and pretty dish you can easily throw together in some minutes. Or in some hours if you decide to make the pasta yourself. Especially with homemade pasta this dish is great, because the light sauce does not overpower the pasta at all.

Ingredients:
salmon filets
tagliatelle
cream
some fresh basil leaves
peel of one lemon plus some of its juice
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the tagliatelle according to package instructions and set aside. Heat some olive oil in a pan (medium-high) and gently fry the salmon filets skin-side down until the filets have lost their raw colour up to around half of their depths. Flip them over, turn heat down to low and let sit on the other side until the filets are as done as you prefer them. Heat cream in a saucepan and add lemon peel, chopped basil leaves and tagliatelle and season with salt and pepper. Mix until the sauce is distributed evenly between the tagliatelle. Put tagliatelle on a plate and arrange salmon filet(s) on it. Feel free to decorate it with some more lemon peel.

Pâté de Foie.

I found the recipe for this treat at shesimmers and after some weeks of having it bookmarked I finally tried it. The result is a perfectly creamy mousse, that definitely reminds me of foie gras, even though there still is some difference. Still, I think it’s the perfect thing to serve with some bread and wine if you have guests and want to keep things simple.

Plus, it’s not even remotely difficult to make. Just sauté onion and garlic in butter, add more butter and cream, combine with chicken liver, salt and pepper in a blender, blend and strain the whole mixture through a fine-meshed sieve in the (preferably porcelain) serving container of your choice. The only thing left to do now is baking it au bain marie and topping it with some herb gelée, made with fresh herbs, water and gelatine.

Getting Started.

Starting this whole thing before even thinking about it. I’m quite ambitious about the whole cooking thing, so some web 2.0 profiling sounded like a good idea. We’ll see where it takes me.