Bouillon Cubes

When cooking pasta, rice or barley I noticed a long time ago that the ready bouillon cubes come in very handy.
Instead of adding plain salt to the water, I put one cube in it. It has much more taste compared to the salt, and the different varieties can be used in different dishes, to give them a "kick".

- Vegetable bouillon cubes are good when pasta, rice or barley are supposed to be a mild background for the dish.

- Beef cubes - I don't use those much, except for when I want to enrich a stew or make a nice base for a sauce, the meat is cooking in or for a separate sauce. I use those sometimes in a red beet bouillon.

- Wild Mushroom cubes - I love to use them in rice, as it really gives it a rich taste. But I use it in the dishes, where rice is a side dish for meat cooked in its own sauce.

If I will find out some other uses for them, I'll test and share :)

Karjalanpaisti - Finnish Karelian hot pot

Few years ago, when I had a chance to live with a Finnish family, I had tasted once the traditional Karjalanpaisti dish. Since then I wanted to make it all by myself. The hot pot is very easy, but the cooking time is very long. The Finns, over the years have modified the recipe adding some ingredients to it, and developing new techniques.
The very original Karelian hot pot, contains only meat (beef or pork), onions, allspice, bay leaves and salt. Lots of people add also carrot and some add even parsnip.

I dig through the internet, to find the perfect recipe, but I ended combining few different ones into one.
The very important thing in preparing this dish is the pot. It should be either made of cast iron or one made of glazed pottery, that can withheld high temperatures.

I, on the other hand, don't have any of those, so I tested my Pyrex glass pot, and it was a good choice :)

So here we go:

Ingredients:

- 700 g of pork and beef, cut into half inch cubes
- 2-3 onions
- 2-3 big carrots
- 10 allspice berries
- 3 bay leaves
- 1/2 tbs salt

1. Cut the beef and pork into half inch cubes; get rid of any excess fat. Leave some fat though for the taste.

2. Chop the onions and cut the carrots into big pieces.

3. Put the meat, onions, carrots and spices in the pot and cover it with the water. You should pour so much water, so that it would just cover the ingredients.

4. Heat the oven to 150°C, and put the pot with he lid on. Leave it there for 2-2,5 hours.

5. Serve hot with boiled potatoes or potato mash.


Now, I made some modifications to the original recipe. The original one says, the oven should be heated up to 225°C, and the hot pot should be baking like this for 1 hour, with the lid. After that, the lid should be taken off and the temperature decreased to 150°C, and the hot pot should stay like this for another hour in the oven.

I set the temperature on 150°C and poured the boiling water on the meat. Then I left the lid on for the whole time the pot was in the oven.
Some people fry the surface of the meat before they put it in the oven. This way the broth is much more clear, but accordingly to the original recipe, the meat should not be fried.

The meat was delicious and soft, mmm.....

Lazanki with fresh cabbage

This dish is a derivative of one of the traditional Polish dishes. The proper Lazanki, were a handmade dish of boiled home rectangularly shaped pasta, decorated with some fried bacon and the fat from frying the bacon. They might be served as an addition to soup.

The version I like, is not to be served with anything, but eaten as it is.

Ingredients:

- small cabbage
- 200g of dried, small shaped pasta, like conchiglione or pipe rigate
- 400 g of bacon
- 2-3 onions, or more if they are small
- a splash of olive oil
- about 1 tbs of salt - this depends on how big the cabbage is

- salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Dice the bacon and chop the onion, then fry them together in the saucepan with a splash of the olive oil. The bacon should be semi-crispy, and the onion should turn golden.

2. Remove any damaged leaves from he cabbage, as well as the middle hard part of it. Chop the cabbage to 1 cm or smaller "ribbons". Rinse the cabbage and place it in a big pot. Add water - enough to cover it as well as the salt.

3. Cook the cabbage until soft, but avoid overcooking it. When the cabbage is soft enough, it will slightly change colour and become translucent. Drain the cabbage.

4. When you are cooking the cabbage, cook the pasta as well, according to the instructions on the package. When ready - drain it.

5. Depending on how much of the ingredients you have, you may need a bigger pot, to combine all ingredients. Mix everything adding salt & pepper and serve in bowls.

The cooking time for it, together with the prep is about 40 minutes.
You can also freeze this dish and reheat it later on, when you feel like it :)

Smacznego :)

Lasagne with a Mexican twist



Already started...mmm

Ingredients:

- one package of Knorr's Lasagne
- one jar of Dolmio's white lasagne sauce ( the Bechamel one)
- one small jar of medium salsa
- one sweet red paprika
- 6-7 champignon mushrooms
- a package of middle-sized tortillas
- one package of streaky bacon
- shredded cheese (emmental and/or mozarella)
- 3 dl of milk

- and of course about 500 gramms of grounded beef :) or chicken if you like
(Good advice - never, ever, ever use a chicken in a Thai marinade for the lasagne. Trust me it does NOT work)

1.
Take the meat out of the fridge, so that it reaches the room temperature before frying it.
Chop the mushrooms & bacon. Chop the paprika in the pieces of your desired size.

2.
Fry the mushrooms & bacon, and add then the meat. Prepare the sauce according to the instructions on the package. I do a little trick though - I mix the milk, water & the powder in a separate container, so that they are mixed properly, before I pour the mix on the pan.

3.
When the filling is ready, start layering the meat mix, tortillas, paprika, salsa and cheese. Leave the attached lasagne pasta untouched ;)

4.
When your done, top it all with the white sauce and the final, thicker layer of cheese.

5.
Bake it and enjoy :)