Grab Bag

Scotch Bonnet & Garlic Compound Butter

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Here is one of my “go to” items that will improve just about any dish for me and gives it the extra kick I like in most food. I usually have some in the freezer available at all times. Add to cream soups and eggs, mount into sauces, mix into pasta and vegetables or use as spread for a tasty sandwich. If the scotch bonnet’s are too deadly for you, replace part of them or all with jalapeno’s.
Enjoy.
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Blend chilies of your choice with roasted garlic, sea salt and butter. Shape into little dollops. Freeze on plate or tray until solid. Remove into sealable plastic bag or container.

Spice up your life 🙂
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Life is Good when it’s Spicy ! 🙂
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” Fish & Chips ” In Rice Paper

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I love fish and chips. Unfortunately, it’s relatively hard to come by around here. For a while I thought I found the perfect place, “the Pub” in Pembroke Pines. Maria and I had fish & chips there a few times in a row and it was very good each time, juicy fish, not too much batter, very crispy on the outside. Then we took a bunch of friend’s there for dinner, recommending of course the fish & chips. Imagine my embarrassment when they served us soggy, tasteless doughy crap which we did not eat. A few weeks later Maria and I went again, ordering other food, which was good. We also ordered one portion of fish & chips, just to make sure. Same crap again. Time to look for another place.
So, there you have it, I am a big fan of fish & chips.
Last night all I had in the fridge was tilapia, not usually a choice to make fish & chips. However, I also had rice papper sheets in the cup board, so here is what I came up with. Although it is not even close to the traditional version of fish & chips, it was nevertheless a great version . VERY light and crispy on the outside, the fish steamed perfectly on the inside, juicy and flaky. Served with mushy peas and baked chips.
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Ingredient’s :

Tilapia, cut into wide strips
Rice paper sheets, soaked
Lime, juiced
Kosher salt,
Sriracha,

Potatoes, cut into fries shape, blanched in water
Kosher salt,

Green peas, frozen
Green bell pepper, diced
Roasted garlic paste,
Butter,
Kosher salt,
Sriracha,

Peanut oil, to fry fish & chips

Method :

Bake potatoes in oven at 425 F until crispy and golden.
Sprinkle with salt.

Saute Peppers in butter, add peas, garlic and seasoning,
heat through. Blend with stick blender until coarsely pureed.

Season fish, roll tightly in rice paper and fry until golden and
crisp, about two minutes. Serve with lime and soy for the fish,
mayonnaise for the chips.

P.S.
In case you ever wonder, yes,
I do eat those peppers and chilis I garnish my plates with 🙂

All about FISH & CHIPS

Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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Dumb Ways To Die

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Click HERE to have a Laugh !
( Relax, more food to come 🙂

Life is Good ! Don’t take everything too seriously !
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Spicy Squid & Vegetables

This recipe work’s as well with other seafood, such as shrimp, mussels, lobster, cuttlefish, octopus, etc. Even chicken, beef, pork, or all vegetables for a vegetarian version, you name it. But here, squid it is. The secret to a successful squid dish is to not overcook the squid. Sauteing a few seconds in a very hot pan, then removing them and adding back to the dish at the very end of the dishes cooking process, making sure they don’t simmer or boil anymore, will do the trick.
Enjoy 🙂
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Ingredient’s :

Squid, cleaned, cut into squares
Potatoes, peeled, cut into thick slices, cooked
Corn on the cob, sliced, cooked
Cauliflower, rosettes, blanched
Tomatoes, diced
Onions, diced
Garlic, paste
Cilantro, coarsely chopped
Kosher salt,
Hoisin sauce,
Scotch bonnet hot sauce,
Soy sauce,
Ketchup,
Peanut oil, to saute,

Method :

Saute squid on high heat until opaque, 3-4 seconds, remove, reserve.
Saute garlic and onions until fragrant, add all other ingredients
and saute until heated through. Remove from heat, mix with squid.
To serve, sprinkle with fair amount of cilantro.

Bon Appetit ! Live is Good !
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Love Everyone !

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Watching THIS VIDEO should make your day .
Happy sunday 🙂
Life is Good !
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Image Source: Gabriel Angel and Atumn Sunshine

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Curry Wurst Mit Fritten

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” Curry Sausage With French Fries ”

A post worth writing / reading you ask ? Well, if you ever had a good curry wurst, you start salivating just by reading the title. If you never had one, you might shake your head in disbelieve. What could be so special about a sausage drowned in curry-ketchup ? What the heck is curry ketchup ? Like many things in life, a mere description can never do justice to the actual experience of eating the real thing. I for one love my caviar, foie gras, lobster and so forth. But as you must have realized by now, I just as much appreciate the simpler thing’s in live. “Curry wurst mit fritten” certainly is one of them. Now, there are many different sausages suitable for this dish, but since I live in the states, it is more difficult in certain areas to source good quality sausages. However, I have access to very good mild Italian sausages which fit perfectly. As for the curry sauce, many elaborate sauces have been concocted over time, some more, most less successful. What works best for me is a quality ketchup mixed with roasted garlic puree, good quality curry powder and a bit of salt. That’s it ! Please don’t knock it before you tried it. I have surprised many a chef over the years with this simple sauce (condiment), most of whom were eager to get the “secret recipe”. Important also is to sprinkle a fair amount of the curry powder over the sauced sausage just before serving. I can think of no other dish in the world were I would suggest that, but here it works just beautifully. Also very important are first class, crispy french fries, sprinkled generously with sea salt and dipped into mayonnaise. Yep, the comercial kind of mayo works best here. Save the good home made stuff for something else 🙂

Guten Appetit ! Life is Good !
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Phyllo & Pork Cigars

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Many years ago, when I went to Istanbul for the first time, one day my friend’s and I went to a port side restaurant which had the day’s menu displayed as actual food on a table outside.
One of the things that caught our eyes where wonderful pastries, rolled up like cigarettes and obviously stuffed with ??? We could not find out from the waiter what it was stuffed with (nobody at the place spoke english ), but because they looked so appetizing we ordered a bunch. When they were served, much to my disappointment the first bite almost made me gag, because they were filled with feta cheese amongst other goodies. My friend’s loved the “cigarettes”, but sadly, I could not eat them. Although I am a fanatic cheese lover, one of the few cheeses I can not eat is feta cheese. But over the years, these pastries vividly stayed in my memories of my first visit to Turkey and I have since then created many different versions. ( None of them containing goat cheese ) but using fillings made of lamb, shrimps, lobster, vegetables, fish, as well as a number of sweet fillings, chocolate, strawberries, bananas, etc. They are great as party food, snack, appetizer or, as here, a main course .
Here is a version of Turkish Sigara Boregi I concocted earlier today. Because they served as dinner, I made them much thicker then the usual Sigara Boregi, so instead of cigarettes I call them Cigars 🙂
I just loved this dish, Bella and I pigged out and eat the whole tray for dinner, all eight of them.
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Ingredient’s :

Pork, ground
Vegetable stock,
Onions, diced
Peppers, diced
chilies, diced
( I like my filling VERY spicy. If you don’t,
you might want to hold off on the scotch bonnet’s )
Tomato, chopped
Garlic, paste
Kosher salt,
Smoked paprika,
Parmigiano reggiano, finely grated
Butter, for phyllo
Olive oil, to saute
Red wine, to deglaze

Method :

Saute the meat in the olive oil until it start’s to brown.
Add the vegetables, continue sauteing until the onions
are translucent. Deglaze with red wine, add stock and
seasoning. Let simmer until meat is done and liquid
has mostly evaporated.
Brush each phyllo sheet with butter before topping with
the next sheet. In this recipe I have used three layers of
phyllo. Put some of the pork on one end of the phyllo sheets,
sprinkle cheese on top, roll up into cigar shape, cut to desired length.
A variation would be to sprinkle the pork loosely over the
entire surface and the roll them into cigarette sized rolls.
As dipping sauces I had sweet Thai chili sauce and dill-yogurt.

Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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Fruit Yogurt

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Most times I buy those little cups of fruit yogurt at the
supermarket like most other folks. They are convenient and
an easy, mostly guild free fix for a little sweets – craving.
But lately I use a lot of plain greek yogurt in my cooking,
so earlier when my sweet toot acted up, I took some Fruits
I had in the fridge, (apples, grapes and strawberries), mixed
some yogurt with vanilla essence, castor sugar, freshly
squeezed lime juice and a bit of cayenne pepper. Some
of the Yogurt on the bottom of the plate, then the fruit,
then topped with more of the yogurt. Very quick, cheap,
delicious and pretty to look at.
Question is, WHY do we buy these little expensive
tasteless cups of fruit yogurt if this is so much better ???

Life is Good ! Enjoy a better Fruit Yogurt ! 🙂
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10 Quick Ways To Become A Better Cook (By Adam Roberts)

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Seldom do I agree with any of those self help writers,
especially when it comes to our profession.
Yet, whenI read these 10 tips at the HUFFPOST,
I couldn’t agree more with the author –

Adam Roberts

Writer, The Amateur Gourmet

10 Quick Ways To Become A Better Cook

Excerpts from the HUFFPOST :

Cook Often. The best chefs are the best chefs because they spend most of their time cooking. Looking at all of the chefs who I met and cooked with while writing this book, almost every single one either went to culinary school or grew up in a family of cooks. That makes sense because in both cases they had to make the same dishes over and over again until they had those dishes mastered. That repetition reinforces basic techniques — sharpening your knife, seasoning properly, getting your pans hot — techniques that resonate throughout a lifetime of cooking. So if you say “I’m a bad cook,” chances are it’s because you don’t cook often enough. Make yourself cook at least three times a week and watch your skills improve immeasurably.
Make What You Like. Too often people who don’t cook finally set out to make dinner and choose the healthiest, most punishing recipe imaginable because they’re on a diet orsqueamish about making something with fat (how else are boneless, skinless chicken breasts so popular?) This is totally the wrong way to go about it. When you cook, especially if you’re a beginner, you should make things that are over the top delicious. Extra cheesy lasagna. Balsamic-glazed spareribs (one of the recipes in my book). Dark, decadent chocolate cake. When you make food that pleases you, chances are it will please others and the ensuing praise will make you want to cook again. And next time you cook, you can scale back a little on the fat without making the food punishing. The key, though, is making something that you yourself want to eat. All of the chefs I cooked with made food that they themselves loved. That’s not a coincidence.
Tap Into Your Roots…….. read more HERE

Friend’s, any comment’s ?
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Rinds Rouladen & Semmelknoedel ( Beef Roulade & Bread Dumplings )

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This goes to John and Elli Vicente in Texas,
who have requested this a couple of month’s ago.
Hope you guy’s find it like it was imprinted in Ellis’
memory back in Germany 🙂

Guten Appetit ! Das Leben Ist Schoen !
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Rouladen –

Ingredient’s

Beef, round, cut into long slices, pounded very thin
Smoked bacon, sliced
Onions, julienned
Dijon mustard,
Carrots, quartered lengthwise
Kosher pickles,
Mirepoix,
Tomato, chopped
Bay leaves,
Kosher salt,
Black pepper, freshly ground
Flour, to dust rouladen
Stock, preferably beef, substitute chicken, pork, vegetable
Oil, to saute
Kitchen twine,

Method :

Season both sides of beef with salt and pepper. Spread out on work surface, then top with ingredients as shown in photos. Roll up tightly and tie with kitchen twine. Saute in oil until nicely browned on all sides, remove and reserve. Saute mirepoix until caramelized, add tomatoes. Deglaze with a good amount of red wine, add stock, bay leaves and seasoning (Easy at this point, the sauce will reduce) Return the beef to the sauce and very slowly simmer until the meat is tender but not falling apart when handling. When meat is tender, carefully remove from sauce and cut off the twine. Remove bay leaves from sauce and with a stick blender puree the vegetables until sauce is nice and smooth. Adjust thickness by adding a bit more stock, or, if too thin, reduce until the desired texture is achieved. Adjust seasoning if required. Return rouladen to the sauce and keep warm until ready to serve.

Dumplings –

Ingredient’s

Dense bread, such as sourdough or focaccia, day old, diced
Onions, diced,
Bacon, diced
Eggs, whole
Milk, whole
Chives, finely sliced
Kosher salt,
Cayenne pepper,
Nutmeg,

Method :

Heat milk to a simmer, drizzle over bread until damp. Render bacon until crisp, add onions and further saute until translucent. To the bread add eggs, bacon & onion mixture, chives and seasoning and carefully mix all ingredients without mashing them. ( Stick your hands with fingers spread open along the wall of the bowl and lift the ingredients up, allowing them to fall back down without being mashed ). Repeat until evenly mixed. I suggest that at this point you should make a small sample to see how the texture of the cooked dumpling will be. Shape a small ball and cook it in simmering water for a few minutes. Remove from water and check. If the texture is too soft, you can add a bit of bread crumbs. If it is too dense, add another egg or two. Make another sample if necessary. If you are happy with the sample, shape into tennis ball sized spheres. Immerse in boiling salted water, bring back to a boil. Turn down heat to a very low simmer and let the dumplings cook for about 40 minutes. To make sure the dumplings are cooked through, remove one and cut in half. After they are done, serve at once.
Note : Leftover dumplings cannot successfully be re-heated in dumpling form, they will get very dense. I will post a recipe for a great dish ( Geroestete Semmelknoedel mit Ei) made with leftover bread dumplings within the next few days 🙂
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Cheers