St. George's Day Muffins

Along with lots of other nations, the English celebrate the day of St. George, who is the patron guardian of England, and in some way the equivalent of St Patrick for the Irish.
However, either the English are not being patriotic enough, or they genuinely don't like partying and celebrating too much, I didn't see almost any signs of celebration on the streets where I live, despite the reportedly organised events - parades and concerts - in the centre of London.
The day celebrated on April 23 in England isn't even a holiday, unlike in other countries.
The only sign that could suggest was the English national flag displayed on a couple of windows.
However, red and white could become a very savoury combination, if used properly, and in addition, we Bulgarians like to celebrate, no matter what.
That said, this is my creation for the English St George's Day - fresh raspberries and double cream muffins.
For the batter I used the base muffin recipe, enriched with dried cranberries soaked in creme de cassis (what a treat!), a dash of flaked almonds and chopped hazelnuts for texture, and topped with whipped double cream and sugar.
Yum!

Easter Lamb

There are so many ways of cooking lamb, but curiously, I never liked the result in any of them before I accidentally discovered the perfect marinade for cooking lamb.
It leaves just a very very delicate smell of well, you know, lamb, instead of the ordinarily very strong smell of lamb that could make one refuse to eat if not worse things.
I couldn't say that I prefer lamb, and it's of course because of the strong smell, but this recipe leaves the meat in such a succulent condition, that every lamb hater should love it.
First of all, you have to chose nice meat cuts that don't contain much suet - the lamb fat. To be sincere, I trusted our Middle-Eastern butcher and chose boneless ready diced lamb cuts of good color and minimal fat. Saying this I mean I forgot to check which part of the lamb this meat came from :)
The second step is the marinade.
For 500 gr of diced lamb, you should use the freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 large lemon, about 70 ml light soy sauce, and 1/2 big head of onion, sliced.
The third step are the herbs. I usually experiment a lot with herbs, but the nice combinations that you can always trust are fresh springs of lemon thyme, dill and a bit of rosemary.



When you mix all the stated ingredients, just add a dash of olive oil and leave aside for about 40 minutes to an hour.
Before roasting, add some 300 ml boiling water, and roast in a ceramic dish with a lid for an hour at 200 degrees Celsius, then another hour at 140 degrees.
When the meat is ready, you can remove the gravy and add it to the rice to introduce favour.
Rice goes perfect with fresh vegetables, and I would traditionally use two bunches of fresh onions. This time however I opted for sauerkraut. First cut the sauerkraut to tiny pieces and leave in clear water for about an hour to reduce salt and acidity.
After that put the strained sauerkraut over the heat in about 200 ml olive oil and 1/2 head of onion and 2 medium-sized cloves of garlic. Sprinkle with fresh dill and leave at medium heat for some 50 minutes. Be careful the heat is not too strong. If it starts to dry out, add boiling water earlier. Alternatively add boiling water after the sauerkraut is already very soft and looks transparent.
I think here's the place to mention that my preferred pan for this type of food - that could steam easily without sticking to the surface and without evaporating the water is a heavy wok with heavier lid. The lid does half of the job.
My latest most preferred type of rice is Thai jasmine rice, but I am sure, other types will do as well. For this recipe use about 250 gr of rice. Add to the softened sauerkraut, add more boiling water according to instructions. Put the lid on and leave on very low heat so that the rice absorbs the water, so that at the end it doesn't stick hard. When the rice has absorbed half the water, you can add the gravy from the roasted meat. It is also useful to taste the dish to check if it needs more salt of other condiments.
Usually the sauerkraut is so salty, it doesn't require additional salt, but it's always up to personal preferences.



And Happy Easter!



Serves 4 :

500-600 gr lamb
juice of 1/2 lemon
70 ml light soy sauce
1/2 big onion
lemon thyme
dill
rosemary
olive oil

400 gr sauerkraut
250 gr rice
1/2 diced head onion
2 cloves of garlic
200 ml olive oil
(salt)
dill
boiling water

Easter Bakes

These Easter sweets didn't have to look exactly this way, but thankfully the taste was as I remembered it. The thing is I am trying to restore a long lost family recipe, which only my grand mother knew, but couldn't remember it anymore.
I used the same recipe from a couple of posts ago for kozunak with the slight difference that when the dough rises once, it is divided into small balls with oily hands, then make a braid using your hands roll it well in plenty of caster sugar and make a knot of it. Proceed the same way until the dough ends. Place the knots on oily tins sprinkled with flour and leave enough space between them to rise. Place the tins in a warm place for an hour. Before baking, glaze the knots with egg yolk and sprinkle with sugar generously.
Bake on 200 degrees Celsius until golden - if you prefer them softer, or until brown for crunchy texture.

Origins

I fell upon something curious today.
Primarily I'm a linguist and words and meanings have always interested me, as well as ethnic cuisine. I come from a region (The Balkans) where national identity is very strong, each of our neighbours is proud with its history, traditions and culture, and sometimes declares them as genuinely "theirs", not even mentioning that due to the specific history of the region, a lot of our traditions, music, language, even foods have ended being pretty much similar.
One funny thing I remember was when I was little, I knew that for example moussaka is a Bulgarian dish, something I would identify with me and my nationality. I was very surprised of course unpleasantly to find out that the Greek also have a similar dish called the same way. Well, the recipes vary, but I didn't know this then. It felt like a theft of national identity to me :)
I suppose Greeks have been thinking the same.
The same rule applies to various food and drinks, including not only Bulgaria and Greece, but as well the other countries in the region Romania, Turkey, Serbia and Macedonia.
We're getting closer to the story. In Bulgaria Easter is a big holiday, maybe bigger than Christmas. It is traditionally celebrated with painted boiled eggs (as a difference from the chocolate eggs consumed in the UK), a braided bread that we call kozunak, roasted lamb with rice and fresh onions and herbs.
It's the braided bread that I want to talk about.
Pure logic made me suppose that as we bake a traditional Easter bread, maybe the Greeks make the same too, furthermore we are both on the same side of Christianity.
When I checked this fact, it proved to be right. The Greek Easter bread is almost the same as ours, but it's called tsoureki.
I didn't even suppose, but apparently Turks have the same bread as well, called corek. Interesting.
This year I was planning to bake my own kozunak because I didn't expect I could find it freshly baked in the UK, despite the large number of cultures here.
Well, you can imagine what my surprise was when I found a piece of nicely looking freshly baked braided bread in supermarket. Just poppy seeds sprinkled instead of caster sugar and almonds. Looking just like a decent kozunak has to look like, despite the small differences.
And how surprised I was to know its name - Cholla. What kind of a name that could be? I was wondering the whole way home. Needless to say a sample of this cholla thing was taken to be investigated.
It sounded somehow Irish to me but this was too far from the truth. A quick search showed that Cholla/Challah is a Hebrew word for traditional breaded bread, which is eaten on Jewish Sabbat and holidays, one of them being Pesach. Yes. Pesach (Passover). Pascha. The same word used to note Easter in Christianity.
Could this be a coincidence? Apparently Pesach is celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Nisan, which is equivalent to March and April in Gregorian calendar. Near the time when Easter is celebrated.
Apparently Jews are eating the same kind of festive braided bread in this period, which corresponds to Easter for the Christian world.
Really curious.
It is clear that Christianity and Judaism share some common beliefs and parables, as well as historical routes, although they differ in many other things.
It is also clear that Christianity stated spreading largely across Europe mainly under Greek influence, after Byzantine emperor Constantine I declared it official religion somewhere around year 300.
Could adopting a religion that initially started in a region close to Byzantium/Greece mean borrowing some specific food practices as well?
I wish I knew the answer.
:)

From nutritional point of view challah and the orthodox Easter bread differ in recipes. For example challah is considered neutral food in Jewish tradition and is made without milk compared to European Easter bread recipes.
Another difference is challah's four or six-strand braids, compared to the three-strand braids of the Balkan Easter breads.

A Spring Special - Veggie Veloute

I got addicted to my new liquidiser jug as it proved a very useful in making soup veloutes.
It's easy, fast, delicious and let's not forget healthy (or at least believed to be so)

The tactic is easy - just bring a number of vegetables of your choice including potatoes to the boil, then liquidise in the jug, add some single cream, bring back to the boil, garnish with grilled asparagus tips, mushrooms or even bacon, toasted nuts, fresh herbs and serve.

For this particular soup you need

3 medium sized potatoes (king Edward the best)
1 medium sized courgette
a hand full of spinach leaves
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
100 ml single cream
1 cube chicken stock
a dash of olive oil
about 2 l boiling water
a pinch of salt, pepper, herbes de Provence

3-4 mushrooms sliced and grilled with butter
fresh spring onion tips


Boil the ingredients in the first list without the single cream until the potatoes are ready, then liquidise. Add back the single cream and bring back to the boil.

Before serving arrange the grilled mushrooms.

Matcha and Cardamom Centre Chocolate Truffles

I bought a matcha (green tea) powder some time ago with the intention to make or bake some sweets with it. However, it turned out that the beautiful green colour one can see in products made with matcha does not come from it, but from green food coloring instead. Very disappointing.
Matcha powder does colour foods, but much more delicately, and its flavour is so intense, that it is not advisable to use large quantities to achieve the green color.
However, I am against the use of (artificial) colouring both in food photography and cooking. I think the food should look and be as natural as possible. That's why you might not be able to see the centre of the truffles as green as you might have expected, but the green tea powder is in it.
Rich in antioxidants, matcha powder gives a hint of freshness to these truffles.
To combine the taste I used only finely crushed cardamom seeds for their aroma. I find the combination fascinating, though a simple one. :)

For the centre I used about 200 gr of good quality white chocolate melted in a dash of previously heated double cream. When the chocolate melted, I added the green tea powder and cardamom and set aside to cool, then put in a fridge for 24 hours.

I made balls from the mixture, rolled them in crushed hazelnuts and put on a wire rack. i had to work quick because the ganache mixture starts to melt because of the hands heat.
In the meantime I melted other 200 gr of good quality dark Belgian chocolate and put it aside to cool down a bit.
I covered the truffles using a simple spoon and then put to a fridge. Keep refrigerated.

They can make a nice treat for Easter.

Kozunak

Kozunak is a very traditional Bulgarian Easter bread. It is similar to Greek tsoureki, though not so complicated in terms of flavours and herbs used. There are different variations of the main dough, as dried fruit, lemon zest, raisins and nuts with cinnamon and sugar can be added.
The most important thing when preparing this recipe is to allow the dough to rise properly, for which you will need a very warm room for about 5 hours.
Because kneading this dough is quite tricky, I used the help of a bread maker instead of kneading by hand.
This is my first successful result after two failures, and I am quite happy with it.

So here are the products for a base recipe for two 500 gr loaf tins.

500 gr strong white flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
175 ml warm milk
1 tbsp yeast
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp flour
200 gr sugar
100 gr melted butter (or 50 gr melted butter and 50 gr sunflower oil)
vanilla

for glazing:
1 egg
more sugar to sprinkle
(flaked) almonds

Note: The dough should rise twice for about two hours each time.



Method:

First dissolve the yeast in the warm milk and add 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp flour. Leave aside to 15 minuties until the yeast is activated and starts to rise.
Beat the eggs with the sugar very well. Add the milk and yeast and mix.
Heat the bakepan of the bread maker a little, so that it is not cold. Place the eggs and milk mixture, add the flour, vanilla and salt and turn on the dough programme.
After the first several turns, start adding the melted butter very carefully and litrtle by little, so it is incorporated gradually. Wait until the first dash of butter is incoporated before adding more. Add the whole butter in 4-5 dashes.
Then leave the mashine to knead and wait for the whole programme to end (it should take about 1:30-2 hours). During this time, the dough should have risen once.

Prepare the loaf tins - make sure they are heated and warm as well. Line with baking paper.
Divide the dough in two, and then each half in three, so you have six dough balls. Work with oily hands and divide the dough by pulling it until it breaks, do not cut.
Using your palms form rolls from the dough, twisting slightly.
Make each three rolls into a plait and place the two plaits in the warmed loaf tins and cover with cotton kitchen towel. The plaits of dough should occupy about 1/3 part of the loaf. Leave aside to a very warm place. I placed the tins over the radiator.

Now the most important part - do not allow the temperature to decrease.

After two hours, if the temperature has been kept high, you'll notice that the dough has doubled in volume and lightened in weigh. Now the kozunak is ready for the oven.

However, before placing it there, cover the top with the beaten whole egg. (You can also use only the yolk, or only the egg white instead). Sprinkle enough sugar on top and enough almonds.

Preheat the oven to 200 (210) degrees and put the two loaves inside. After 10 minutes lower the heat to 180 (190) degrees and bake for more 30 minutes.