Ganda's Kitchen

12th July 2017 Ganda

Leave a comment

So our youngest came home from a holiday with his best friend and his friend’s father in Hastings where the father grew up. He brought us presents: Marmite and Crumpets from Warburton. We never had Crumpets before and fell completely in love with them! I started searching the net for recipes and also asked friends from U.K. for help as I had ordered a set of crumpet rings from Amazon as soon as I finished my first crumpet, knowing I had to try to make my own.

Here is my first attempts- not as spongy or with as big holes as the ones from Warburton- but still delicious.

Recipe:

Mix lukewarm milk with two spoons of yeast and spoons of sugar, let it stand aside a while to activate the yeast. Sift strong flour with a teaspoon spoon of salt, a teaspoon of baking soda – pour in the yeast mixture, half water half milk and stir it into a thick batter ( not a dough) and let it rise at room temperature for and hour or two- until double in size and lots of bubbles has formed ( it has to be froathy)

Warm a greased flat pan ( not a curved one as the batter will rise unevenly), place your greased crumpet rings and when hot pour batter in them, not more than half. Bake/ fry on the pan on low to medium heat till lots of bubbles has formed and burst ( this will take about 5-8 minutes) and the top has dried out, then flip them very briefly on the other side- and take them off the pan and repeat the process.

Careful not to have too much heat so the bottom will brown and burn- and not too low either as then the bubbles doesn’t form/ grow as well.

I have to say it was tricky for me to get the bubbles to stay, in the beginning the holes formed but didn’t stay, they sort of just got covered with batter when they ‘burst’. I read somewhere that the flour has to be ‘strong’ which means it has to have a high amount of protein- or the batter can’t hold the holes/ canals of air holes- which is the purpose of a crumpet: to hold as much butter and jam ( or Marmite?) as possible.

Bread and Pastries,Uncategorized

Fast Chocolate Snacks

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

These chocolate snacks are very fast to make and extremely easily done- you can make it anyway you want it so there is no real recipe

Wanna be recipe:

Dark chocolate ( rich dark and with a large % of chocolate beans)

Corn Flakes

Melt the chocolate- I have to admit I just throw the chocolate into a big thick bottomed pan and smelt it slowly, stirring all the time. When its all melted and cooled off for a minute or two ( it shouldn’t be too hot as it will soften the cornflakes or too cold as then it will stiffen when the cornflakes gets in) stir the cornflakes carefully ( dont break them) and pour the mix into little paper cups. Cool off and eat!

Keep them in an airtight container after cooled off completely.

Note: You can use milk chocolates as well or mix the two that makes it very nice- not too sweet ( as I tend to find milk chocolate) and not too bitter ( as my kids tends to find the dark chocolates, which are my favorite). You can stir in roasted nuts ( unsalted), coconut, candies fruits with the mix as well.

Cakes,Snacks

Kokosmakroner

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

These Danish coconut macaroons made with egg whites, sugar, grated coconut and marcipan and coated with dark chocolate are really nice when eaten on the same day as they are baked. They are supposed to be crispy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside- so dont bake them too much! I found this recipe in my daughter’s cookbook and its actually quite nice;)

Recipe:

2 egg whites ( use the pasteurized to make sure you avoid salmonella)

100 gr sugar

100 gr grated coconut

25 gr pure marcipan

100 gr dark rich chocolate

Mix egg whites and sugar well together in a bowl, grate the marcipan and add it. Leave for at least 30 min.

Make 16 spoonful of the mix on a baking tray ( use baking paper or it will stick), press them into shape with your hands and bake them at 175 degrees for about 15 or until slightly light brown.

Cool them off/ and when cooled dip the bottom of the macaroons in melted dark chocolate of a good quality. Leave to cool and serve when completely cooled off.

Keep them in an airtight container if you have any leftovers.)

Cakes

Gitzes Mini Muffins!

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

My daugther Regitze is very interested in cooking and baking and has been engaged in cooking like folding springrolls and making soups and cakes since she was 7-8 years old. When she made these she was 11- her fantastic Mini Muffins:

Ingredients:

3 eggs

2 dl sugar, prefereble ecological sugar cane sugar ( we dont use the white refined sugar- not much taste or soul to it!)

2 dl. flour ( again here she used ecological flour)

1 1/4 dl sunflour oil ( we use oil instead of butter as its less unhealthy than butter;)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar ( if you dont have the right stuff)

Rind of 1-2 lemons ( make sure they are ecological, so you dont eat all the fertiliser poison stuff they spray with)

1/2 dl juice of a lemon

Icing sugar for sprinkling on top when they are done

Mix everything together, dont whisk it but stir it loosely. Regitze started with adding the eggs, then sugar, the flour, salt, baking soda, vanilla, oil and then the lemon stuff. Pour it into small mini muffin moulds, in a mini mufifn paper cup and bake them till just firm and slightly brownish in a 180 degrees oven.

Serve them sprinkled with a bit of sifted icing sugar or make a lemon icing for them. They are delicious!

Cakes

Emok*s Yorkshire puddings!

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

..an attempt to copy my favorite chef’s recipe for Yorkshire puddings…mine didn’t look like his at all, but they tasted great!!

Emoks original recipe:

1 Cup of plain flour
1 Cup of eggs ( Free range ofc)
1 Cup of milk
Salt and White pepper ( plenty off as the flour will take a lot guide is good 4 pinches of both)

* Place all ingredients into a bowl and mix together.
* Put some oil ( enough to fill the bottem of each Muffin hole ) into the muffin holes.
* put into even Medium heat, Gas mark 6 , about 160 oC. for 20 mins
* WARNING do not open oven while cooking if u have to check after 20 mins then only have a lil tiny peak as if the heat gets out they will flop and turn into crappy pancakes.

Side orders Yorkshire puddings

Apetizers with olive tapernade

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

So this is a little snack to be served with a drink or just as an appetizer- they are quick to make, you can freeze the unbaked rolls and thraw them just before you bake them! Easy and tasty and looks so good;)

Get a roll of Puff pastery, lay it out flat on the table. Take a jar of black olives ( they are more deocorative) mix it in a small blender with a clove of garlic, a few pieces of sundried tomatoe, some lemon juice, some lemon peel, a pinch of salt or a few salted anchoves and some red chilie if you like;)

Blend and spread out on the puff pastery- and roll it up. Leave it cool for a couple of hours till cold and harden- then cut it out thinly and bake in oven will light brown and crispy.

Snacks,Starters

You take one duck and inflate it!

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

Peking du pekingduck2 ck! This has to be the silliest thing I ever cooked–the recipy it self was sooo funny..starting with you take the duck, dry it up, inflate the duck with a bicycle pump…. It took me days and it was so much trouble for a little housewife like me- but it was worth it. It didnt presented itself like a real Peking duck, but then again..I am just a housewife;) But I read somewhere to my own consolation that a Peking Duck chef works for 10 years before actually getting to cook a duck! Its an art! This is my homemade art:

Anyways..so I took the duck…dried it in front of a ventilater for a day or so..inflated it..and NO..the bycycle pump didnt work, so I just sort of blew some air in with a straw. The trick is to get the skin as crispy as u can and still have the meat as tender as can be. When you dry the surface of it..the skins starts to loosen from the skin and the reason why you force air in is to make a pocket of air between the skin and the meat. Then I basted it in some sauce and cooked it and voila..served with spring onions, hoisinsauce, and cucumber- and not to forget the mandarin pancakes to roll it all up in…mmmm….its sooo good once you had it, you will always want more! In real Peking Duck kitchens you get the meat and the skin served seperately- the skin is so crispy its unbelievable and the meat so tender and moist! My skin wasnt that succesfull so I just sliced the duck very thinly;)

Asian food

Does frying pans dream of electric pancake machines?

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

I Springrolls (12) usually makes small crisy Thai springrolls, but this guy at work, Long made the most fantastic huge springrolls, with his own springroll wrappers and home made chili sauce, so I started experimenting to make them like his. I never succeeded even after quite a few attempts, so Long is still the Springroll Master, but mine didnt turn out that bad even so;)

Filling: First I prepared the filling with minced meat and other stuff ( Long says meat and cabbage and stuff..I just used meat and bamboo and onions, salt and peber and left it to cool.

springroll filling Springroll wrappers:
Mix eggs, salt and peber, water, flour ( 1 eggs to 300 gr of flour approx) into a nice smooth, not too thick not too thin…and leave it for a while. Bake the pancakes on a pan – on only one side! I brushed the pan with a tiny bit of oil when needed and poured the batter on and baked them on one side till they look like they were just baked, not browned yet. The I peeled it off the pan and proceeded to the next one. I left them to cool completely off before rolling them.

I deepfried the ones we wanted to eat and put the rest in the freezer. Very easy to take them out, thraw them and deepfry them if we feel like some warm crispy springrolls!

AND now we’re at it…I want this springroll machine for my birthday! That has to be better than sex!!

Asian food springrolls

Pies on my mind!

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

Pies with meat and onions- a bit of Branston Pickle, and a hint of Heniz ketchup and a touch of Tabasco. The crust is readymade shortcrust. The pies took 10 min to make! A really fast super snack!

I have been looking, wishing me, asking for, dreaming of a piemaker for years and years after having borrowed Glyn’s fantastic Magic Piemaker from Breville which magically made 2 wonderful pies at the same time at least a dusin times and sometimes for half a year at the time. At some point they stopped making it, but I read somewhere that after a lot of protests they starting making piemaking machines again- if’ this is true or not I dont know- but when they finally started making it. with 2-4 or 8 slots (!) I couldn’t find a place that would send it to Denmark- but finally wit Piemaker open

h the help from my good friend Brodock who found it for me on Amazon, here it is my very own Gourmet Piemaker from Breville which makes 4 pies at the same time!

Snacks Pies

Moroccan filled msemen a la Ganda!

18th August 2015 Ganda

Leave a comment

I tri mseman (2) ed this Moroccan filled bread at an event at my daugther’s school, every family brought food for a big joint dinner and one of the mothers was from Morocco and had made this wonderful food. I fell completely in love with it and went home and tried it out the next day or so! So here is my version of the Moroccan Mseman or Rghaif – the filling isnt original, but I found it worked for me;)

Recipe for the dough ( which I found on the net) :

4 cups of flour
1 cup of semolina, fine
2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 3/4 cup warm water

My own Filling:

A mix of minced lamb and viel- fry it up with garlic, lemon peel, lemon juice, salt and peber and a touch of cumin and some lemon juice in the end. Leave it to cool off, add chopped parsley.

How to make them:

Mix the dry ingredients together first then mix in the wet ingredients. Mix/kneed well and leave for 30 minutes. Roll into little balls and leave them for 15 min. Then spread them out- dont use a rolling pin but use ur hands with a mix of oil and butter or just oil- with the filling as shown below.
After having made one ball into a packet- make another ball into a square and place the already folded package on the second wrap/ square with the folded sides down and fold it. So each packet has been wrapped twice!

( see pictures below)

How to bake them:

Leave the folded msemans for 15 min, then place one at the time on an oiled surface and strech it, like when you made the mseman/ wraps/breads in the first place- do it carefully so you dont break them ( too much, its hard not to break them at all, for a beginner anyways) – stretch them with your oiled hands and bake them either in the oven or on a pan like I did, at moderate heat.

I cut mine out in four pieces each and ate them with fresh parsley- really good. Not as good as Mounas..but still good! Its surposed to be crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

I have to say..it took it’s time.. and wasn’t just as easy as Mou mseman (17)

na told me ( she proberbly made it a million times) but at the same time it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be- and it was really worth the effort! I read somewhere that they eat msemen with all kinds of fillings: spinach, onion, or just eaten freshly baked with a dash of honey enjoyed with a nice cup of tea.

Main Courses,Snacks,Starters Msemen,Rghaif