Canadian Meal

This meal showcases recipes from Canada, our neighbor to the north. When I decided to cook a meal from Canada I was looking to cook traditional Canadian dishes. I found the recipe for bean cassaoulet and decided to build the meal around this dish.

Cassaoulets are predecessors of casseroles and came to the US and Canada with the immigrants from Europe. They are originally a dish from the French countryside. It takes time to cook a cassaoulet but the depth of the flavors is amazing. As a side for the cassaoulet I made a potato salad. Potatoes mashed or in salads are a favorite in our house so this potato salad was an obvious choice. I love wild rice. My daughter says she feels like she is eating leeches but I think it is very flavorful and filling. I had some in the pantry and it went very well with the cassoulet. Summer months are perfect for ice cream and sherbet so the dessert pretty much picked itself. The addition of lemon juice in the sherbet brings out the tangy flavors of the strawberry and makes for a refreshing but not overtly sweet dessert.

The new ingredient I tried was organic Dijon mustard. I had always used the yellow mustard before. I was looking up the ingredients and found turmeric was added to the yellow mustard. I am glad I decided to try the organic Dijon, all the flavor without the overpowering color.

Here are the recipes for the dishes on the menu

• Great Northern Bean Cassoulet 
• Prairie Potato Salad 
• Wild Rice 

And for dessert

• Strawberry Sherbet

Great Northern Bean Cassoulet

Cassoulets originated in the French countryside and were taken to other countries by immigrants. This French Canadian dish is a meal in itself. It is protein rich and filling flavored with cloves, bay leaves, leeks and thyme. It has a long cooking time but that is totally worth it as it allows all the flavors to blend together.

Thick gravies with few spices and a lot of flavor are very popular in my house. We loved the taste of the leeks and the mushrooms. Tomatoes are a favorite and this tomato gravy totally lived up to its expectation. As an added bonus the kitchen smelled great. I topped it with a dollop of vegan cream.

Recipe adapted from here

You will need
4 medium carrots
1 medium leek
2 tbsp. olive oil

2 garlic cloves

3 springs thyme

2 bay leaves

3-4 cloves

2 cups dry great northern beans

8-10 shitake mushrooms

4 medium tomatoes

2 tbsp. tomato paste

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. black pepper

salt to taste

Wash and soak the beans overnight. The next day pressure cook the beans for 10 minutes. When the cooker depressurizes remove the beans and keep aside. Chop the tomatoes and keep aside. Wipe clean the mushrooms, take off the stem and slice.

Wash, peel and dice the carrots. Slice the leek, wash it clean and dice. In a thick bottomed pan heat the olive oil and add the diced vegetables. Cook for 5-10 minutes until the carrots are tender. Meanwhile peel and mince the garlic. Wash the thyme springs. Crush the cloves to a powder in a mortar and pestle. Add the garlic, thyme, bay leaves and crushed cloves to the carrot mixture.

When the spices are well combined add the beans with a little of the juice it was cooked in. Cook for 5 minutes.

Add the chopped tomatoes and mushrooms. Season with paprika, black pepper and salt.

Cook for an hour on medium low heat until all the ingredients are well combined, the tomatoes are mushy and the liquid has cooked down.

Enjoy!

Prairie Potato Salad

This is a Canadian style variation of the popular potato salad flavored with eggs, radish and onion. My daughter would live on this for a month if I let her. If you love your potato salad you have to try this variation. It is divine.

My daughter helped me with this salad. She does not like Dijon mustard and read the recipe. She kept asking me if I was going to add any and I assured her I would not. The day before I had invested in a bottle of organic Dijon mustard with no added turmeric. I knew it would not color the salad yellow and she would never know. Dijon mustard completes the flavor profile of the salad so I added as much as the recipe called for. She never found out. I did leave out the celery because no one likes it in our house.

Recipe adapted from here

You will need
5 medium sized potatoes
2 eggs
4 round red radishes
1/4 onion
1/4  cup chives

For the dressing
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 tsp. Dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Put the potatoes in a pan with enough water to completely submerge them and bring the water to a boil. Continue to cook the potatoes until they are fork tender. Take them off heat and drain the water. Put the cooked potatoes into cold water for 5 minutes to stop the cooking process. Drain the cold water. Peel and dice the potatoes into small cubes. 

Meanwhile in a pan add the eggs and enough water to submerge the eggs completely. Heat the water but do not let it boil. Keep it simmering for 20 minutes. Turn off heat, drain the water and drop the cooked eggs in cold water to stop the cooking process. After a minute peel the eggs and dice. Dice the onion and mince the chives. Combine the potatoes, eggs, chives and onions.

In a bowl combine all the ingredients for the dressing and add it to the potatoes. Chill in the refrigerator for a couple hours before serving.

Wild Rice

Wild rice was eaten in north America long before the European settlers arrived. I have always loved this nutty flavored rice. I had never cooked it on its own before. I always created a rice blend with brown basmati rice. They both take a long time to cook so they can be paired together. I have to say the wild rice tasted very good on its own.

I make this rice occasionally mixed in with our regular basmati brown rice. Years ago when I made it for the first time my daughter, then 5, said it looked like little leeches. Not exactly the kind of description I want to hear when I am about to put something in my mouth. But she ate it without complaint. Since then it has been a part of our diet, though infrequently.

You will need
1 cup wild rice
3 cups water
1 tsp. black pepper
salt to taste

Here is a sample of what the grain looks like uncooked.

In a pan boil water with the wild rice. Add black pepper and salt to taste. Continue to cook the rice for the next 40-50 minutes. The rice grain will split open when it is cooked. 

 

Turn off heat.

Strawberry Sherbet

I have made a lot of ice cream and sherbets this summer. This strawberry sherbet for one of the best I made. It is easy to make and very satisfying. The lemon adds an unexpected tang to the taste.

During the summer months the demand for ice cream is high. Grocery stores entice us with sales. They fill the end cap freezer displays with ice cream and put up big sale signs to rope us in. I found these easy to make sherbet with fresh fruit a much better option. Knowing what goes into making it makes the dessert a lot sweeter.

Recipe adapted from here

You will need
2 cups diced sweet ripe strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 cups non-fat or low-fat buttermilk
1/2 cup cream or whole milk

Note: Reduce the quantity of lemon juice if your strawberries are tart.

In a bowl combine the strawberries with the sugar and keep aside for about 15 minutes. The sugar should be moistened or dissolved.

Puree in a blender. Add the remaining ingredients except cream to the strawberries in the blender jar and blend together. Add the cream and whisk only until combined. Pour into an airtight metal container and freeze for 3-4 hours.

Transfer to the blender and whip it until smooth. Transfer back to the container and freeze for another 4-5 hours. If frozen solid, transfer to the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes before scooping out to serve.

Bulgarian Meal

A couple months back I tried this very beautiful Sunflower bread. It is baked for special occasions in Bulgaria. Other than this bread I did not know much about Bulgarian food. I was totally undecided on whether I could come up with a complete meal from a region about which I knew next to nothing.

Then I saw these peach cookies or Praskovki and my mind was made up. These cookies are so pretty. They are shaped and painted to look like peaches. I simply HAD to cook a meal from Bulgaria so I could try out these cookies.

As I researched some more I found out that a lot of different vegetables are grown in Bulgaria. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a host of vegetarian dishes with ingredients that I routinely stock up. I made shopska, a vegetarian salad that is very popular with the locals and tourist alike. It is very addictive for a dish with such simple ingredients so it is no surprise it is so popular. Though fresh vegetables play a big part, the cheese makes this dish. It is nothing like cheese we had tasted before. I would not try this dish unless you had the right cheese or else you would be eating something very different not shopska. :)

Cucumber salads are common in a large part of the world. Tarator (cold cucumber soup) is the Bulgarian variation. I rounded out the meal with patatnik (potato pancakes). My daughter loves potatoes so I have tried to make as many variations of potato dishes as possible. I also got a chance to try two new ingredients.

Sirene is a white cheese from Bulgaria made with sheep's milk. I visited the local Mediterranean store and found Rodopa brand Bulgarian Feta in brine. Research told me this was the cheese I was looking for. There is a lot of controversy on the use of the word 'Feta' in the European Union but I will side step that and focus on the taste of this cheese. The cheese comes soaking in brine and has a salty taste. But that is where the similarity with the feta cheese we get in the regular grocery stores in the US ends. This cheese is light and full of rich flavor and blends very well with the vegetables it is served with.

Rose hip jam is the second new ingredient I used. I found some rose hip butter at the local Mediterranean store. It turned out to be the kind of jam I like, not overtly sweet.

As they say in Bulgaria, Dobar Apetit!

Here are the recipe for the dishes on the menu

• Shopska (Vegetable Salad)
• Tarator (Cucumber Salad)
• Patatnik (Potato Pancake)

And for dessert

• Praskovki or peach cookies

This is my entry for the letter B for BM #44 for the theme Around the world in 30 Days. Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#44.

Praskovki (Bulgarian Peach Cookies)

Praskovki, a peach shaped delicious cookie, is a specialty from Bulgaria.

The cookies are made with a moist sticky dough. Then their centers are scooped out and mixed with a buttery sugar and walnut filling. This filling is used as glue to get two cookies to stick to one another forming the shape of a peach. The cookie is then painted red and yellow to resemble a peach.

The filling is traditionally made with walnuts but I have lately developed an allergy to walnuts so I used almonds instead. I am sure that altered the taste but never having tasted the original we would never know. I did get a little carried away with the quantity. For some reason I did not realize I would end up with so many. But this is a make ahead cookie and it tastes better the next day. I refrigerated them and my daughter had them as dessert for a whole week.

The recipe was adapted from here

You will need
For the cookie
1 cup sugar
2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp. yogurt

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

3 cups all purpose flour

For the filling
1/2 cup crushed walnuts (I used almonds)
3 tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
hollowed out crumbs from cookie center
2 tbsp. rose hip jam

To finish
4 tbsp. milk
a few drops red color
a few drops yellow color
sugar as needed to roll the finished cookie in

Combine the sugar and eggs in a bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Add the vegetable oil, yogurt, baking powder and baking soda. Beat together to combine. Add 2 1/2 cups of the flour and knead well. The dough will be very sticky. Form a ball, cover and keep aside for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Mix in the reserved 1/2 cup of flour to the dough and knead well. Divide the dough into lime size portions and place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Make sure you have an even number of cookies.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until the cookies are cooked through but their color has not changed. The under side of the cookies may be brown but the tops should be white. Cook on a rack.

While the cookies are cooling make the filling. Crush the walnuts or almonds and combine with all the other ingredients.

Scoop out the center from the under side of the cooled cookie and add it to the filling. Repeat for all the cookies.

Fill the scooped out area of two cookies with the filling. Place them together back to back to form a peach. Wipe off any filling that oozes out but keep enough to let it show. Repeat with all the cookies.

To finish mix in the colors with the milk. This is your chance to let your inner artist bloom. Either make two bowls and color with yellow and red separately or mix them together and color the cookies orange. I did both.

Roll the painted cookie in sugar and place it in a muffin cup. The muffin cup prevents it from sticking until they are dry. Cover and keep aside overnight.

Enjoy!

Tarator (Bulgarian Cucumber Soup)

Tarator or cold cucumber salad is perfect for a hot summer day. What surprised me was how close in taste it is to cucumber koshimbir that we make in Maharashtra. The only difference was the use of crushed walnut and dill leaves instead of the peanuts and cilantro that we use.

The recipe called for walnuts but lately I have developed an allergy to walnuts so I used almonds instead.

Recipe adapted from here.

You will need
2 cucumber, chopped
2-3 springs dill, minced
2 cloves garlic (optional, I did not add any)
3 cups yogurt
10 - 12 walnuts, crushed (I used almonds)
salt to taste
1 tbsp olive oil

Mince the garlic , if using, and add to the yogurt. Whisk the yogurt and combine with the other ingredients in a bowl. Add water to adjust consistency if needed. Chill before serving.

Shopska (Vegetable Salad)

Shopska is a salad that is served covered with sirene cheese. It is very additive. It is little wonder it is so popular in Bulgaria. I have to say the cheese makes the dish giving the vegetables a lovely flavor that is hard to put into words.

I am glad I took the time to find this Bulgarian cheese in our local Mediterranean store. Sirene or Bulgarian Feta is not available by the name 'Feta' because of European politics. It is a white spongy cheese made from sheep or goat's milk. The cheese goes very well with the vegetables and the salad was amazingly good.

This recipe is mainly adapted from here and here. I read a lot of travelogues with pictures of this dish as presented in restaurants in Bulgaria and used that information for the presentation.

You will need
1 cup Sirene cheese (white sheep or goat cheese)
2 salad tomatoes
1 cucumber
1 red or yellow bell pepper
a bunch cilantro (the original uses parsley but we don't like it)
1 tbsp. olive oil
salt to taste if needed

Chop the tomatoes, pepper and cucumber. Mince the cilantro and combine it with the other chopped vegetables in a bowl. Add oil and mix together. Plate the vegetables and shred the cheese over the top. If needed add salt. I did not add any.

Patatnik (Bulgarian Potato Pancake)

Patatnik or potato pancake is very common in Europe. This is the Bulgarian variation. The addition of cheese and cilantro make the pancake very flavorful. They can be served as a side in a meal or even for breakfast.

The addition of sirene (white cheese) enhanced the flavor a lot. I cooked it on the stove top but Patatnik can also be baked in the oven. After I made these pancakes I invested in a cast iron pan. The next time I make them I will bake them in my cast iron pan.

Recipe adapted from here.

You will need
3-4 potatoes
1 egg
1/2 cup Sirene cheese
a bunch cilantro
a bunch parsley (I did not add any)
salt to taste

Olive oil for pan

Wash, peel and grate the potatoes. Combine with the other ingredients. Heat oil in a pan and add a thin layer of the potato mixture. Brown on both sides. Take it off the heat. Repeat with remaining potato mixture. Serve hot.

Austrian Meal

Remember the song 'Raindrops on roses ...' from the Sound of Music? - 'cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudel, doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles' it went . I took inspiration from the song and prepared a meal of noodles (and a few other dumplings) with apple strudel. I am presenting a vegetarian Austrian noodles and dumpling meal today.

It was hard trying to put together a meal from a country where the main dishes are usually not vegetarian and the non-vegetarian component is usually the entire dish. That leaves little room to convert the recipe to a vegetarian one. Noodles and dumpling are the exceptions and so I decided to make a meal with them. Kärntner Kasnudeln or noodles from the province of Carinthia are one of our favorite cheese noodles. I have made them a few times before. Though each noodle has to be shaped individually they are easy to put together and taste great. This was the dish around which I built the menu.

In addition to these noodles I made spinach, bread and potato dumplings. The spinach and the bread dumplings are a great way to use up day old bread rolls. I know this sounds backward but for this meal I made a couple extra bread rolls the previous day so I would have leftovers. I served Gruyere white sauce over the dumplings. I made Apfelstrudel for dessert using a wonderful homemade flaky pastry.

I have always wanted to make Apfelstrudel but did not care for puff pastry. This recipe uses a homemade pastry that is really easy to make. The rolled out pastry sheet is then filled with apples, breadcrumbs, raisins and cinnamon. The kitchen smelt great for hours after I baked it.

Fresh cheese is needed to make Kärntner Kasnudeln and I use quark. Whole Foods used to keep this cheese in stock. But apparently they have very few takers for this cheese in summer and stopped stocking it. They offered to order it for me. I had to wait two weeks until it arrived but it was worth the wait.

My original plan was to make Kasespatzel or Austrian macaroni and cheese along with all the other noodles and dumplings. The day I made this meal, I had planned to cook Kasespatzel after I was done with everything else. But once I looked at the quantity of the food already cooked I decided to drop it. The spinach, bread and potato dumplings are usually eaten fresh. However, I made the bread and potato dumplings a day ahead. My plan was to make this meal for dinner. But it took too long and the light was fading so I decided to stop, store what was already prepared and start off again the next day. In hind sight I think that was a wise decision. Because of texture issues we enjoyed the not-so-moist dumplings more than we would have enjoyed the just-out-of-the-water-bath ones. Once the meal was served everyone enjoyed it and that was the most important part.

As they in Austria, Guten Appetit!

Here are the recipes for the dishes on the menu

• Kärntner Kasnudeln 
• Spinatknödel (Spinach Dumpling) 
• Semmelknödel (Bread Dumpling) 
• Erdäpfelknödel (Potato Dumpling) 
• Gruyere White Sauce 

And for dessert

• Apfelstrudel (Apple Strudel)

Gruyere Cheese Sauce

Gruyere white sauce is usually served over dumplings. But you can use it in any recipe that calls for a cheese sauce. This sauce is really an application of the béchamel sauce with Gruyere cheese. The cheese thickens the sauce. This is a nice to know basic recipe that can be pulled out of the hat when needed.

Use a cooking cheese like gruyere or substitute Asiago or Romano.

You will need
4 tbsp. butter
4 tbsp. all purpose flour
1 cup cold milk
1/4 cup gruyere
salt and black pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Watch the pan, I looked away and burned one batch of butter. Add the flour and whisk continuously until the flour is blended in and the mixture cooks and turns a light brown color.

Add cold milk. If you cook with wine use 3/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup dry white wine. Let the mixture cook for about 5 minutes. Add shredded cheese and season with salt and pepper. Turn off heat and whisk until smooth. Tastes best when hot.

Note: If you like it a runnier texture increase the amount of milk or decrease the amount of flour.

Semmelknödel (Bread Dumpling)

Bread dumplings are a great way to use up day old bread. If you have ever been in a situation where you have bread made the previous day and do not know what to do with it, make these dumplings. They are delicious.

I made extra bread rolls the day before I planned this dish so I would have day old bread to use.

Recipe adapted from here
You will need for 12 dumplings
150 gm old bread rolls
1/2 onion
25 cilantro
30 gm oil
150-200 ml milk
1 egg
salt
25 gm flour

Cut the bread rolls into small cubes. Dice the onion and chop the cilantro. Heat oil in a pan and add the bread cubes, onion and cilantro. Saute until the bread is toasted and crispy.

Add the milk, egg and salt. Mix well so that the liquid is absorbed. Add enough flour to form a sticky mixture that holds it shape. Form about 12 bite size dumplings. Bring water to a boil and add a little salt to it. Add the dumplings.

Cook for about 10 minutes or until the dumplings float to the top.