Scones (pogacsa) with butter and Brindza ewe cheese

After so many Christmas sweets, it’s good to the stomach some savory pastry, just like pogácsa.

Pogácsa, or poğaça (in turkish) is a kind of savory pastry or bread, and looks very similar to the scones. Very popular in the area of Balkanic, Turkey, and of course here in Hungary. We often bake it with cheese, or paprika, or potatoes.

It has a secret: you have to fold in sides of the dough at least 3 times.

I use „Brindza” ewe cheese, it’s salty and savory like Feta cheese.

You can read about Turkish poğaça: here and here.

Scones (pogacsa) with butter and Brindza ewe cheese

600 g flour, 200 g half soft butter,

200 g Brindza ewe cheese (or 150 g feta),

1 tsp salt, 2 egg yolk, 25 g fresh yeast,

100 ml warm milk, 125 ml sour cream.

Top: egg white and 100 g gouda cheese, shredded.

Mix the fresh yeast and warm milk and rest, when it becomes bubbleing. In a large bowl mix the all ingredient: the flour, salt, bubbles yeast, egg yolks, half soft butter and ewe cheese. Add the sour cream. And knead it, until you get a smooth dough.

Roll out dough to 10 mm tall. Fold in 3 sides of the dough (from left end right at the same size= 3 layer, then fold in half) and place about 20 minutes (for example here).

You repeat it twice, after 20 minutes place.

Roll out dough to about 1 or 1,5 fingers tall and cut with a small size glass (with snaps or licquer glass).

Place the pieces on a baking tray. Then brush each pogacsa with egg white for glazing nd stir with shredded gouda cheese. Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 20 minutes.

All-time french favorite: Salade Nicoise

The Nicoise salade is my all-time favorite, with green beans, tunafish, tomatoes and capers. It's a perfect all-seasoning lunch dish and very colorful with the halved hard-boiled eggs, red tomatoes and green lettuce.

Salade Nicoise (for 2)


Ingredients: 1 cup lettuce leaves, washed and dried,
1 cup green beans, cooked or streamed,
3 potatoes cooked,
3 or4 cherry tomatoes, halved,
2 hard-boiled eggs,
1 talespoons anchovy,
2 or 3 tbsp capers,
1 can chunk tuna,
green or black olives, salt and ground pepper.

For the vinaigrette: 2-3 tbsp wine vinegar,
1 tbsp Dijon-style mustard,
100-150 ml olive olil,
2 cloves garlic, minced,
juice of half lemon, salt and pepper to taste.

Make the vinaigrette: in a bowl make the vinaigrette by whisking together vinegar, lemon and the mustard. Slowly whisk in the oil, stir in the garlic. Mixing well. And taste with salt and pepper.
Make the salad: Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the poatoes. Cook just until they are tender through, about 15-20 minutes. Peel them as soon they are cool enough to handle. Bring some water to a boil in the bottom of a steamer. Add the beans, cover and steam unil they are tender.
Drain the tuna of oil.
Place the potatoes on a platter. Sprinkle with the green beans, and lettuce. Quarter the eggs and place them with the tomatoes and olives around the beans and potatoes. Drizzle them with 3 or 4 tablespoons of vinaigrette.
Break the tuna apart with a fork and arrange top of the beans and lettuce. Sprinkle with tuna and anchovy. Drizzle with any remaining vinaigrette.

Comeback

I'll be back again

Buckwheat noodles in Japanese style (Fried Soba)

Although it has Chinese origin, this is a popular Japanese dish. Soba is the first meal of the year for many Japanese, eaten at midnight to ensure good luck and health in the coming year.

The reason that I started to make Japanese-style meals at home was soba. Soba is the name for noodles made from buckwheat flour. It’s thin, greyis brown with a silky smooth texture.

I’m convinced that it is heathy and makes the veins stronger.

I baked some rolls, bread and pancakes (galettes) using buckwheat flour before, then some days ago I read about soba at Nigella and in the books of Naomi Moriyama, and I fell in love with it!

Buckwheat noodles in Japanese style (Fried Soba)

250 g dried soba, 1 tablespoon sesame oil,

1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 1 onion, 2 clove garlic, crushed,

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger,

300 vegetable-mix (carrot, shredded cabbage, french beans etc.),

1 tablespoon shredded dried seaweed.

For the sauce:

1 tablespoon sugar, 60 ml ricewine (mirin),

60 ml japanese soy sauce, 2 tablespoon sake.

Sauce: I combined ingredients in a small saucepan and stirring until sugar dissolves.

Cooked noodles in a large saucepan of boiling water. And heated sesame oil and vegetable oil in a wok with the onion, than I added mix-vegetables, and heated till then it’s softens. Added grated ginger and crushed garlic and buckwheat noodles. Sprinkled with seaweed. Combined to reheat. And poured the sauce and mixed.

Japanese Cooking Course: Homemade Maki Sushi

I have desire to make sushi has been rolling around my head for quite sometime. But I often tend to think that it is extremely difficult to make it. Then one day I read some French blogs, (for example) and just got brave. And I realised how easy it is to make sushi and fun.

A know Japanese food is not all sushi and there are many others. A have another favorites from it (everything with soba (buckweat noodle) and slowly I just discoverd and learn it.

Sushi rice:

The success of homemade sushi depends on perfect cooked rice and cooled vinegared rice.

How to make: cook 200 g rice in water until it is completely absorbed. During this time, stir combined rice vinegar (3 tbsp), sugar (2 tbsp) and salt (2 tsp). When rice is cooked, pour the mixture with the vinegar above, mix very delicately and spread rice in flat-bottomed bowl (or bamboo) with a spoon or spatula.

And let rice cool.

Salmon and cucumber roll: 1/3 of sushi rice (by each nori), 100g of salmon, ¼ cucumber, 3 sheets of alga nori, 1 teablespoon Tahini, and Wasabi, Japanese soya sauce.

ham and cucumber roll:1/3 of sushi rice (by each nori), 2 or 3 thin slice of ham, ¼ cucumber, 2 or 3 sheets of alga nori, 1 tsp Tahini, and Wasabi, and Japanese soya sauce.

Makisu: a bamboo mat to roll the maki

Roll One (filling salmon and cucumber): Spread out 1/3 of rice over the nori by leaving place well on the sides and especially in top (approximately 2 cm in top and 1 on the other sides). Place cucumber and slice of salmon, than spread tahini. And roll forward pressing gently but tightly. Cut out the rollers in sections with a wet knife (it is the small secrecy!), and lay out on a plate.

The maki is tasted with a little sauce of soya or wasabi served separately, and can be accompanied by a beautiful green salad.

Serve maki sushi with wasabi or soya sauce separately.

Roll Two(filling ham and cucumber): sushi rice topped ham ad cucumber before rolling.

Alternativ filling:

- cucumber (kappa maki)

- cucumber, tuna and pickled ginger (tekka maki)

- cucumber and thin slice of ham

- Thin strips of avocado and salmon

- Cucumber and pickle plum