Potato Cakes With Ground Beef And Pine Nuts

While Wil is ripping the kitchen apart in order to install our dishwasher (finally), I decided it's time to sit down and write a new blogpost.

It's been too long again...

I have been cooking a lot lately, mainly from my new favorite cookbook "Casa Moro - The second cookbook".
You can find more information about the restaurant and published books here:
http://www.moro.co.uk/shop.php

No, I don't have their first cookbook. But I will probably get it very soon, given that their Spanish and Middle Eastern recipes are sooo delicious.

This one here is going to be part of our summer party next Saturday.
It's a bit of work, but it's totally worth it.

There is (almost) nothing better than cinnamon spiced ground meat.

The original recipe which is assumed to have originated from Iran, or Lebanon, or Syria called for lamb, but we used beef instead, simply because we didn't have lamb at home.

Here is what you need:

Potato Dough

700g potatoes, skins on
sea salt
1 rounded tablespoon plain flour (plus extra for dusting)

Meat Filling

25g butter
2tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 pinches freshly ground pepper
2 pinches freshly grated nutmeg
3 cardamom pods, black seeds only ground to a fine powder
3 cloves, ground with a pinch of salt to a fine powder (together with the cardamom seeds)
200g finely ground beef (or lamb)
50g pine nuts, lightly toasted
1tbsp tomato purrée
3tbsp roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
sea salt and black pepper

Instructions

To make the dough, boil the potatoes in salt water (with skin on!) until cooked, but not mealy and mushy.
Drain well in colander for about 10 minutes.
While they are still warm, peel, then mash thoroughly.
Stir in the flour and season to taste with a little salt.
The dough is now ready.

While the potatoes are boiling, make the filling.
Melt butter with olive oil over medium to high heat.
Add the onions and soften until it is translucent and lightly browned.
Now add all the spices and cook for another minute.
Add the ground beef, stirring and breaking it up.
Stop stirring and let it stick for a minute or so. That way it can stick to the pan and brown a little, which adds more flavor to the meat.
Cook for about 5-8 minutes, until the meat is nicely browned.
Finally stir in pine nuts, tomato purée and parsley.
Season with salt and pepper.

Now to prepare the potato cakes.
Make sure your hands are dry.
Then flour them, as well as the working surface.
Divide the dough into four balls.
Flatten one ball to a disc of about 1cm thickness.
Place two tablespoons of filling in the center, then bring up the sides of the dough-disc, in order to enclose the meat filling.
Neaten the shape and patch up any cracks and gaps.
The result should look like a round patty, 10cm across and about 3-4cm thick.
Repeat with the other dough balls, always making sure that wherever you place the dough/patties the working surface is well-floured, to prevent the dough from sticking.

Generously cover the bottom of a frying pan with oil, about 3-4mm deep.
Place over medium to high heat, until hot and nearly smoking.
Gently lift up the cakes with a spatula and carefully lower into the oil, one by one.
Do not disturb until they are a dark golden color and crispy on the bottom, then carefully turn the cakes with the spatula, in order to brown the other side, as well.

When done, take out and using kitchen paper gently dab off any excess oil.
Keep warm in a low oven, or serve immediately.

We served our potato cakes with:

200 g Greek yoghurt, thinned with 2tbsp of milk and seasoned with one garlic clove crushed to a paste with salt using mortar and pestle.

Notes

For the party I will try to turn the cakes  more into bite-sized balls...We'll see how that goes.

You have to be quite careful not to make the potato dough tear apart.

Also, make sure the potatoes don't cook too long.
If they get too mushy the dough will be much more difficult to handle.

First Potato harvest!

Yesterday we harvested our first potatoes.

After the harvest of our balcony potatoes in Berlin had been rather "modest" (100g total...), we actually picked more potatoes yesterday than we were able to eat. And that was only our first pick!
They were absolutely delicious!

Wil made rosemary garlic potatoes, and the best part was, that except for the sour cream, olive oil, salt and pepper, all the ingredients were from our garden.

Originally we had planted four different kinds: Yukon Gold, Warba, Pink Fir Apple and Russet Burbank.

the lighter ones with the sometimes pinkish skin are Warba, the other ones are Yukon Gold, with maybe one or two Russet Burbank hiding....

We mainly had Yukon Gold and Warba yesterday, since the Pink Fir Apple and Russet Burbank weren't ready yet.

Yukon Gold which seems to be a very popular potato among Canadians, was a great firm potato with a nice classic potato flavor and golden yellow flesh -  a very good allround potato.

The Warba really surprised me. Softer, but not mealy, with pretty white flesh, at times reddish-pink skin tone it was much more flavorful than the Yukon Gold, almost spicy.

Homemade ice tea and rosemary garlic potatoes with sour cream and lots of other herbs.

For now the Warba wins the contest of best tasting potato in our garden. Let's see how the others compete, once they are out of the ground. I only heard good things about the Pink Fir Apple...

Red beets salad with caramelized pecans and dill

After travelling and extreme floods, here is finally a new blog post with a fantastic summer salad.

This red beets salad is super refreshing and a perfect way of getting all the raw vegetables and nuts you need.
It's a nice addition to all that meat at your barbecue party and can also be served as a nice and healthy appetizer or as a light lunch or dinner.

I cannot wait to use the beets from our garden for it! Still have to wait a little on those ones...

What you need:

4-5 red beets (fresh)
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 spring onions, chopped into fine rings
300-350 g (approx.) 1-1.5 cups of yogurt (around 3.2-3.5% fat)
150-200ml (approx 0,25-0.5 cup) heavy cream
150g pecans chopped
1 bunch of dill, roughly chopped
1 bunch of chives, roughly chopped
salt, pepper, honey/sugar
olive or carmelina oil

Directions:

Peel the red beets.
You may want to use gloves for that because of the red dye. I didn't and it washed off my hands quite easily.
With the grating attachement on a food processor (ideally) roughly grate the beets.

In a pan slowly roast the chopped pecans.
When browned, add some honey or sugar and caramelize the pecans with it.
Remove from heat and set aside to cool down.

In a pan heat up some olive/carmelina oil at medium heat.
Add the garlic and spring onions and sautée for a few minutes, until soft (do not fry them!).
Set aside and let cool down.

In a big salad bowl mix together grated red beets, yoghurt and cream.
Add dill and chive, as well as garlic, spring onions and roasted pecans.

Mix well.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and maybe a tiny bit of sugar.

The salad tastes even better a day later, after it has been sitting in the fridge for a while.

Notes:

All the measurements especially for the yogurt and cream are pretty much measured by eye.
I don't follow a recipe when doing it.
It always depends on how big the beets are. The beets should be nicely coated with the yoghurt-cream mix.
And regarding the dill and chive: Be generous! You cannot really screw anything up by adding 'too many' fresh herbs.

You could use sour cream instead of yoghurt, as well.

Fetuccine with green asparagus and garlic pepper butter

Before asparagus season is over I had to prepare one more favorite asparagus meal.
Tim Mälzer, Germany's Jamie Oliver once cooked this in his show.
It is very simple, but so delicious!
It's best if you use fresh pasta and not the dried one.
I'm lucky to have several markets near my apartment that have fresh pasta stands.
You do not have to use Fetuccine.
Tagliatelle is fine and might even be better since the pasta is a little thinner.

Here is what you need for two people:

300-400g (fresh) Fettuccine/Tagliatelle

750g green asparagus

250g butter

65g green pepper (in a glass/pickled?)

3-4 garlic cloves (preferably fresh)

chervil (one bunch)

salt

parmesan (grana padano/parmigiano reggiano)

Chop the garlic cloves.
Blend the green pepper corns with garlic and season the mixture with salt.
Mix in the butter until everything is evenly mixed.
Remove the dried out ends of the asparagus and cut it into bite-sized pieces.
Heat up a pan and add about two tablespoons of the garlic-pepper butter.
When melted add the asparagus.
Make sure all asparagus pieces are coated with the melted butter.
Fry it for 3-5 minutes.
Then add a little bit of water (about 100ml) and let everything cook for at least another 5 minutes.
The asparagus should neither be too hard nor too soft and mushy.
Meanwhile fill a big saucepan with water and bring the water to boil.
Then add about 1-1.5 Teaspoons of salt and the pasta to it.
If the pasta comes in a bundle make sure to disconnect and losen the pasta strings a bit from each other.
Boil for about 5 minutes or according to the cooking instructions on the package.
Better try in between to make sure the pasta stays al dente.
When al dente strain the pasta.
Then add it to the asparagus and garlic-pepper butter and mix well.
Pour into two bowls and garnish with chopped chervil and freshly grated parmesan.

Pair with a Pinot Gris or pinot Blanc.

PS: I couldn't find chervil this time. So I used parsley as garnish instead.
Chervil tastes better though.
It is finer and tastes almost sweet, a bit similar to anise...

"Visa vis" with the T-Bones

Wil got his one year artist visa at the Ausländerbehörde Berlin yesterday!
In order to celebrate he bought two giant T-Bones at KaDeWe.
He always wanted to get some of those.
Yesterday his dream finally came true.
And what can I say?
I'm still stuffed!

















That was probably 500g of meat per steak...

As good as it was, I kind of am now looking forward to vegetable season!