Honey, Lime & Ginger Prawns

I had nearly forgotten the bag of prawns in my freezer. But I remembered them in time and I came up with this recipe for them, partially inspired by the internet... You can leave out the ginger and/or the garlic but it's way better with both in :-)





Ingredients:

• juice and zest of one large lime (or two small ones)
• walnut-sized piece of ginger, grated
• 1 large clove of garlic, crushed
• 2 tbsp of honey
• pepper and salt, chili flakes if you like
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 20-25 king prawns, shelled, raw

And how to make them:

• mix all the ingredients for the marinade in a freezer bag
• make sure all the honey is dissolved
• then add the prawns - if you use frozen ones like me, let them sit in the marinade until they are thawed and came to room temperature, if not, put bag in the fridge and let marinate for 1 h, then remove and let come to room temperature
• once ready, take out of marinade and put on skewers and fry in the hot griddle pan
• alternatively put in an oven-proof dish and bake for 20 mins at 180 °C
• the honey will caramelise and therefore the prawns will become partially dark, but that doesn't matter at all
• serve with some salad or just with some bread
• if you want, you can boil the rest of the marinade for about 5 mins and use it as a sauce to drizzle over your prawns (don't forget to dunk the bread :-)

Enjoy as a starter or as a light lunch. I had mine for dinner, followed by a bowl of carrot&coriander soup :-)

Finnish Oat Cookies

Me again, it seems to become a habit :-)
I was out of cookies! Seriously, this is an issue, it's almost as bad as being out od chocolate. Fortunately, I had all the ingredients at home to make some myself. Usually in this kind of occasions I either make yummy shortbread or american style cookies. This time I opted for something very different scandinavian style oat cookies. I have eaten them before and they were always good. So after some internet research I found a recipe easy enough to follow. But as usual (I don't know, what this is with me..) I just couldn't stick to the recipe... However, for those of you interested, this is the original post, note it is in German:

Finnische Haferkekse

Here is how I changed the ingredients list:

• 50 g butter
• 60 g oats ( I used the coarse ones I usually have in the morning for my porridge)
• 80 g brown sugar
• 30 g honey (or golden syrup)
• 1 heaped tbsp flour ( I "made" oat flour here, just blend 1 heaped tbsp of oats in the blender real fine, but regular wheat flour works well)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg

And how I made them:

• mix the oats with the brown sugar, the flour and the baking powder
• melt the butter with the honey on a low heat, let then cool to hand warm
• stir the butter mix in the oats mix and combine thoroughly
• when cooled, add the egg and mix until smooth
• here is now another change I made: let the dough sit for 20 mins to allow the oats to dwell, the result is a slightly thicker dough as before
• pre-heat the oven to 225 °C
• line a baking tray with greaseproof paper 
• and now another change to the original recipe: I poured the whole mixture out on the sheet and distributed it equally, the original post says set small amounts with a tsp on the sheet. The first one will give you one giant cookie that I have then cut into squares, the last one gives you round cookies
• now bake for 5-7 mins, don't leave the oven, they brown very quickly!
• then take out, let cool a bit
• if you have poured the whole lot out, then now cut the shapes you want before the cookies are cold and therefore crack easily OR wait until completely cool and break random bits of, so you get a random shaped selection of cookies
• if you made the round version, just let the cool on the sheet before stacking them

That's it. Very simple. Can be done in 15 mins total time. No electric mixer needed. I have mine with a cup of tea (how could it be any different...) or a coffee. Also, they keep quite long in a tin, if you manage to keep away from them long enough!

Steak marinades

Hello everyone,

since I am suffering from a Norovirus infection the past few days (a nasty one that is...) I am constanstly craving for a steak. Honestly, I don't know why. I am not that much of a meat eater at all, but sometimes I like a proper steak. Usually, I add it to a asian glasnoodle salad, a recipe I will have to put up at some point as well. Sometimes I just have it as such with roast potatoes and some green beans. When I just put it on the grill, I like to add a marinade. And that is exactly the reason for this post - steak marinades.


here are two of my favorite ones:

1) Lime and ginger marinade

• zest and juice of one lime
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 3 tbsp vegetable or sesame oil

2) Rosemary and garlic marinade

• 1 sprig fresh rosmary, finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp lemon juice
•  3 tbsp olive oil
• black pepper to taste

For both marinades let the meat sit in the marinade for at least 1 hour, better over night but most certainly in the fridge. I usually marinate my meat (both work for chicken as well btw) in a freezer bag over night. Then remove most of the marinade, otherwise it will burn in the pan. I then heat a griddle pan fairly hot and fry my meat to medium rare, but this is to your own liking. Very important is to let the meat rest after the frying is done, otherwise you will loose all these wonderful juices and your steak will dry out. I then cut it into strips and serve it up. 

Cakes, Cakes, Cakes - Marmorkuchen/Marble Cake

After finishing my teaching job, I wanted to say thank you to my teaching colleagues. What could be better than a home-baked cake. For this occasion I wanted to get back to a standard cake here in Germany as I haven't baked one of those in ages: Marble cake!

I loved it as a child and it is so easy to do...

Ingredients:

• 3 medium eggs
• 150 g caster sugar
• 150 mL oil (rape seed is good here)
• 250 g flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 150g full fat yoghurt
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder

And how to do it:

• beat the egg and slowly add sugar
• after you have obtained a light texture, slowly add the oil while stirring
• next combine the flour, backing powder and yoghurt and add to the egg mixture
• now line the baking tin with grease-proof paper or grease the tin thoroughly
• add half of the batter, then add the cocoa to the rest and mix
• layer the dark batter on top of the light one and marble both carefully with a knife
• now bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 °C for 40-45 mins.
• once cooled, either dust with icing sugar or cover with a chocolate coat

I hope you enjoy this, simple and so good :-)

Pimped-up Bruschetta

Hiya,

I have been playing a bit with different textures that tomatoes can develop. So there is the tomato as such, so raw, you can cook them and blitz the result to a soup, so they become silky smooth, or you can dry them. You can also roast them and make a slow-roasted tomato soup out of them (recipe coming up soon).
I ended up with almost 3 kg tomatoes from the market and started of with drying them.


Oven-Dried Tomatoes

Set the oven to 100-120 °C (or lower if you use a fan). Then oil a backing tray lightly with olive oil. Cut small tomatoes in half, bigger ones in quarters or even eights. In my experience, plum tomatoes or small cherry tomatoes work best. Then set them cut-side up on the baking tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and some dried herbs like basil, rosemary or thyme. And now put them in the oven and forget about them for at least 3 hours, sometimes even longer. Dry to your own taste, I prefer it, if they have a little bit moisture left.
Fill them hot in a mason jar and add garlic and fresh herbs. Fill up with good quality olive oil. Store in the fridge. They keep for weeks, but never in my fridge :-)

So, after having made a huge amount of dried tomatoes, now to an all-time favorite, bruschetta.
The classic version doesn't include the dried tomatoes, but I prefer a mixture of fresh and dried tomatoes, think textures and taste.

Pimped-up Bruschetta

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of ciabatta or similiar bread
• 4 small or 2 large tomatoes
• a small handfull of dried tomatoes, chopped into small chunks
• 1 clove of garlic, finely diced (less or more, depending on your taste)
• 1/2 red onion, finely diced
• olive oil (take from the dried tomato container)
• balsamic vinegar (I prefer the white one here)
• fresh basil leaves
• salt, pepper

And how to make them:

• either put up a griddle pan and turn the hob on on the highest mark or turn on the grill of your oven
• slighlty oil the ciabatta slices on one side, when pan/oven is really hot, grill for a few minute until slighlty charred but still soft inside
• meanwhile, take a knife and slightly score the outside of the fresh tomatoes with a cross
• pour boiling water over them until the peel comes of, then drain and quickly wash with cold water
• peel and de-seed, then cut into small chunks
• mix with the dried tomatoes, the garlic and the onion
• add 1 tbs of olive oil, 1/2 tbs of balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper
• chop up the basil leaves and mix
• now top the olive-side of the bread with the mixture

That's it. A simple but so good starter or even a light lunch. If you want to add a bit more substance, you can also add some mozzarella or mushrooms (they need to fry first or be very finely sliced, so that the marinade basically cooks them). I prefer however the all-tomato version...