Bierascie roast chicken

                                                                                                           Receta en Español

The recipe I bring today is the way they cook chicken at Bierascie, a city from Belarus very near the polish border, the city is a stop of the railway line from Berlin-Warsaw-Moscow.

The result of this recipe is original and tasty.

Ingredients:

-  400 grams of chicken.
-  4 potatoes.
-  1 onion.
-  2 tablespoon raisins.
-  1 tablespoon chopped nuts.

For the sauce:

-  1 cup sour cream.
-  1 tablespoon butter.
-  1 tablespoon flour.
-  2 tablespoon tomato sauce.

Method:

1- Cut chicken in little pieces (30-35 grams of weight), sprinkle some salt over both sides of chicken.

Pour some oil in a frying pan , fry chicken.
Set aside.

2- Cut onion in little pieces sauté it. Set aside.

3- Peel and cut into cubes,salt and fry in some oil.
Place potatoes in a ovenproof dish.

4- Add onion over the potatoes.

5- Place chicken over the potatoes and onion.
6- Add some raisins.

7- Now make the sauce.
You will need sour cream at least 20% fat, you can buy it or you can make it by your own: sour cream.

8- Heat butter in a casserole, add some flour , stir with a wooden spoon.
After stirring for some time add tomato sauce, after cooking for a few minutes add sour cream, cook for 3 more minutes at medium heat , keep on stirring.
Let the sauce cool.

9- Once the sauce is cold , pour it over the chicken. Sprinkle some nuts.

10- Preheat oven at 200 ºC. Cook chicken in oven at the same temperature for 20 minutes.

My comments to the Recipe

The sauce , raisins and nuts provide a taste and juiciness to the dish.
This style of cooking a meat reminds me to the recipe I cooked for Albania: Tava elbasani (lamb with yogurt)



 Where to buy the ingredients

Sour cream can be bought at 'Extra' ,a shop specialized in russian products. The shop is located at Rafael Riego street 10  in Madrid.

The owners answer clearly every doubt , besides, the prices of the products are not expensive.

Belarus

Atascaburras

                                                                               Receta en Español

The recipe I present today , 'Atascaburras' , appears in the book '1000 recetas de Albacete y su provincia' from Carmina Useros, it is related to the village called Chinchilla de Montearagón but the dish is popular in all the province of Albacete.

The name can be translated into english as  'stuckdonkey' it comes from the similarity between the sound that we ca hear when we crush the ingredients with the help of a pestle and the sound of a donkey stuck in the mud stomping to set itself free.

Tradition tells that the origin of the dish comes from a group of shepherds who had nothing to eat but garlic,potatoes and some cod. They decided to cook and smash all the ingredients, the result was spectacular and the recipe became popular little by little.

This is a typical dish for winter but you can also eat it as a cold dish in summer.

It can be a main dish or a starter.

Ingredients:

• 100 grams of desalted cod.
• 4 potatoes (950 grams).
• 3 eggs.
• 3 clove of garlic.
• Some nuts.
• Oil.
• Salt.

Method:

1- Soak salted cod for 48 hours to get rid of the salt.

2- Wash and peel potatoes. Put in a pressure cooker together with cod ,add some salt and some water just to cover the potatoes.

Close the pressure cooker , put on a high heat. Once the steam starts to come out,  put on a low heat and cook for 10 minutes. 

3- Once cooked, crumble the cod (Keep aside broth , maybe you will need it later) .

4- Use a pestle to crush the 3 cloves of garlic until it turns into a dough.I did it in the same clay pot where I was going to present the 'Atascaburras'.

5-  Add little by little potatoes and cod , smash them. Add some oil to the mixture while you are smashing it.

6-  If the mixture is thick you can add some broth and keep on smashing.

7-  Boil eggs, cut each egg in two. 

8 - Flatten he mixture and place cooked eggs, nuts and a dash of oil on the surface of the dish.



Albacete

Baclava from Azerbaijan

                                                               Receta en Español


Baclava is a typical treat at middle East countries, it is called baklava, baklawa, baclava or pakhlava, depending on the countrie.

In Azerbaijan there are several types of baclava, the most popular is the recipe I bring to you today.

This is called pakhlava, it is one of the most laborious due to the multiple layers you need.

It is a dessert cooked for the persian holiday Novruz, the 21  st of mars to celebrate the arriving of the spring and Persian's New Year

I took this recipe from this blog flavors of baku

where you can find a lot of recipes form Azerbaijan.

Ingredients (For 55 baclava, ovenproof recipient~ 25 X 27):

For the mixture of yeast:

• 1 teaspoon of yeast.
• 1 table spoon sugar.
• 1 table spoon flour.
• 80 ml of warm water.

For the dough:

•   1250 grams of flour.
•   1 egg room temperature.
•   1 table spoon sugar.
•   The mixture of yeast.
•   3 table spoon sour cream.
•   250 ml warm milk.
•   250 ml melted butter.
•   Salt.

   
For the Filling:
   

  450 grams nuts (without the shells).

  450 grams sugar.

  1 teaspoon ground cardamom.

  1 teaspoon ground coriander.

  1 teaspoon vanilla sugar.

  250 ml clarified butter.

 To decorate:

  2 yolks.

  1 teaspoon saffron infusion.

  1 teaspoon olive oil.

  15 nuts.

For the Syrup:

  125 ml clarified butter.

  250 grams of sugar.

  125 ml water.

  125 ml thousend flowers honey.

  1 tablespoon lemon juice.

Method:

1-  We are going to prepare first the mixture of yeast,flour and water. Let stand for half en hour.

2- Add to the bowl where you have the yeast the rest of the ingredients except the flour: egg, sour cream,milk, melted butter and mix well. Now add flour little by little passing it through a sieve.



3- Knead the dough until it is not sticky. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let it stand for 2 hours at room temperature. Yo can see in the pictures the dough before and after the 2 hours:

4- Now we prepare the filling. Crush the nuts in little pieces , mix with sugar, cardamon, coriander and vanilla sugar.

5- Now it is time to build the baclava, it has 12 layers of dough, you should divide the dough into 10 balls the same weight and other 2 balls with a little more weight , these two layers will be the upper and lower layers.

My dough weighted 1830 grams, I used 140 for each of the 10 layers and 215 grams for the upper and lower side layers.

To make the layers in a good shape I cut parchment paper with the same shape as my oven mold.

Sprinkle a little quantity of flour over the parchment paper, take one ball of dough , spread it over the parchment paper with the help of a rolling pin.

Then you should place the layer in the oven mold.

Don't forget to grease the mold with a little of clarified butter (see point 6) before putting inside all the layers.

I had a 35 x 27 mold

 6- To clarify the butter you should follow this procedure.

Heat butter in a casserole, once it is melted , turn off the heat and get rid of the white part that you see on the surface.

A little quantity of white will remain on the bottom of the casserole so be careful when you take the butter to avoid this part too.

7- After the first layer of dough (215 grams) is in the mold, paint all the surface of the layer with some clarified butter until it is brilliant (use a kitchen brush).



8- Now put some of the filling (point 4). I had 900 grams of filling 900/11 = 81 grams . So I took 81 grams of filling and spread it evenly over the first layer.

9- Now prepare the second layer using the same procedure : Layer of dough, clarified butter and filling.

Until you arrive to the last layer , here you don't have to brush with clarified butter,  no filling either.

After every layer be careful to place it evenly all over the surface of the mold.

10- To have baclavas with a rhomboid shape, cut the dough with diagonal strips:

 and now horizontal strips:

11- To decorate, brush the surface with a mixture of egg, saffran infusion and oil, this is to have a good colour after cooking in the oven. Place half a nut in the middle of every baclava.

12- Preheat oven at 180 ºC and cook baclavas in oven for 20 minutes.

13- Take out of the oven, spread 125 ml of clarified butter over the surface.Cook in oven for 15 more minutes.

14- Prepare syrup, mix water and sugar and cook for 20 minutes at low heat. Then add honey and lemon juice , stir and let cook at low heat for 10 more minutes.

15- Take out the baclavas from oven, with the help of a knife recut the baclavas in case they have stuck together.

Pour syrup over the baclavas.

16- Cook baclavas 5 more minutes in oven.

17- Let the baclavas get cool.



18- When baclavas are still a little warm separate them and place them on the serving dish. you can eat them now or wait until they are cooled . This baclavas last some days.





Nuts Kadaif

                                                                               Receta en Español

This recipe shows the great influence from  arabic cuisine in the Albanian gastronomy, this dessert is also cooked in Algeria,Armenia, Turkey....

Ingredients:

• 500 g Kataifi.
• 500 g unsalted butter.
• 800 grams sugar.
• 1 liter water.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla or vanilla sugar.
• half a cup of cold water.
• a dash of lemon juice.
• 350 grams chopped nuts.

Method:

1. Spread Kataifi on a dish , it is necessary to let it dry, then turn it to dry on the other side, it takes 2 hours drying each side.
2. Spread Kataifi on a baking dish, pour melted butter over the Kataifi. 

3- Preheat oven at 200 ºC. Cook for 25 minutes until it gets golden. Then let it cool.

4- It can be done with a single layer or two layers. If you want two layers use half of Kataifi for  each layer, then do the same explained in point 2 for each layer (you should sprinkle chopped nuts over de first layer), bring it to oven as in point 3.

For Syrup:

5. Take a pan, combine sugar, water, vanilla and a dash of lemon, bring it to a boil. Stir until sugar is well dissolved. It should take 30 minutes. Then turn off the heat and pour the cold water.
6. Once Kataifi is cold, pour Syrup over it. Sprinkle chopped nuts and let it cool at least 1 hour to let the syrup dry. The more you wait the more delicious it will be. Then cut in pieces and serve.

You have it!:

Where to buy Kataifi in Madrid

You can buy Kataifi near Madrid mosque, at Antonio Calvo street , I bought it at 'El Hogar'.

My comments to the recipe:

Kataifi was very long and I decided to do two layers, butter provides a marvellous taste, syrup moisturizes the inner layer so it has a different texture to the outer layer and the taste is intense.
The next day the taste is better because it has absorbed the syrup.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

• 

  Albania

Bahraini Halwa

                                                                                                                       Receta en español

Halwa is an Arabic word that means sweet.

It is a dessert wide spreaded throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, India and even European countries like Greece, Bulgaria, Bosnia...,so far I've avoided to make this recipe because I thaught it would have a chewy texture.

In Bahrain Halwa is the staple dessert ,besides, they have their own halwa recipe. I should try this time making the halwa recipe.
It has been a nice surprise, it is not chewy, it is gelly like, very tasty and easy to eat.

Most Halwa are made from semolina flour , but Bahrain's recipe differs in that it is cooked with corn starch and canola oil.

Bahraini Halwa  is a variation of the halwa made in Oman, most Bahraini shops where this sweet  is sold ,are run by the Showaiter dynasty, so the recipe that I bring you today is called in Bahrain "Halwa Showaiter" but in other countries it is called  Bahraini Halwa.
It is usually taken with coffee and is widely consumed during the three days of Eid after Ramadan.

In the following link you can see how they make this sweet in Bahrain: Halwa Showaiter.

Ingredients (for a 24 cm diameter recipent):

•   800 grams sugar.
•   1200ml water.
•   4 teaspoos lemon juice.
•   60 grams butter.
•   2 tablespoons grounded cardamon.
•   1 tablespoon nutmeg.
•   10 saffron threads.
•   120 grams corn starch.
•   1 dose food coloring, this is optional, I didn't use it.
•   330 ml canola oil.
•   2 tablespoos Rosewater.
•   150 grams raw pistachios.
•   130 grams raw almonds.
•   100 grams nuts.
•   3 tablespoons raw sesame seeds.

Method:

1-   Infuse saffron in a cup with 240 ml of boiling water: I use the microwave to quickly boil water, put the saffron into the boiling water and let stand for one hour. 

2-   Toast almonds and pistachios in a saucepan without oil, we toast them during 5 minutes at low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon.

Before toasting:

Toasted:

Add nuts:

3-   Put the sugar in a large pot with 960 ml water, saffron infusion and lemon juice , boil over medium heat , when it reaches boiling point, reduce heat to low, stir and cover the pot, cook for 5 minutes.

4-   Add Little by Little canola oil and stir well,  cover and cook for 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.

5-   While the previous mix is cooking, prepare Brown butter : Put the butter in a pot and heat over medium heat during 2-3 minutes, until butter is melted.

6- Still over low heat add cardamom and nutmeg into the pot with butter:

7- Add rose water , coloring liquid (optional) and 240 ml water. Add corn starch little by little, quickly stirring with a wooden spoon to avoid lumps.

8- After the 30 minutes cooking of point 4 are finished, add litle by little the mix obtained at point 6 into the pot of point number 4,stir in circles and cook during 15 minutes over low heat.
There will be big bubbles, be careful not to burn, we see that the mix thickens becoming a gelly, when it reaches that point , put aside and remove with a spoon the excess of oil that you can see at the surface.

9- Put again the pot over low heat and add the dried fruits (except the sesame), stir well and cook during 5 more minutes.

After that pour the mix in the recipent where you want to present the dessert.
Sprinkle over the Surface sesame seeds.

It can be eaten cold or warm, both ways it is delicious!.

My Comments to the Recipe

As I said before, I was astonished by its gelly texture . It may be too much sweet, because of this you should eat it by little portions, despite of that it is tasty with a special flavour given by the spices.

Where to buy the ingredients in Madrid

Sesame seeds can be found at herbalist's shops.
The rest of the ingredients you can see where to buy them following the links.

Rose water
Canola oil

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools



Bahrain