trout & hawk | An exploration of flavours and beauty

curried butternut squash soup

22. October 2015

When it comes to butternut squash soup I’m usually on the ~~heavily gingered~~ spicy side. Minimalist Baker’s suggestion is subtly spiced, soul-warming, silky, coconut-infused and surprisingly different.

Curried butternut squash soup
(recipe by Minimalist Baker)

1 tablespoon coconut oil
2 shallots, thinly diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small butternut squash
a pinch of sea salt and black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
400ml light coconut milk
500ml vegetable broth
2-3 tablespoons maple syrup
optional: 1-2 teaspoons chili garlic paste

Heat a large pot over medium heat.
Once hot, add oil, shallots and garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add butternut squash and season with salt and pepper, curry powder and ground cinnamon. Stir to coat, then cover and cook for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add coconut milk, vegetable broth, maple syrup and chili garlic paste (optional- for heat).
Bring to a low boil over medium heat and then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, or until butternut squash is fork tender.
Blend until creamy and smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Serve it with freshly toasted pumpkin seeds, a dollop of goat cheese or full fat coconut milk.

Bon appétit!

homemade lemonade

12. October 2015

by troutandhawk

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Drinks

homemade lemonade

This homemade goodness is definitely worth to be called LEMON AID! It’s tasty with hot and cold water and works perfectly against colds. Add hot ginger water and you will even increase the cold fighting effect.

5 organically grown lemons (peels must be unwaxed)
3 organically grown limes (peels unwaxed)
400g cane sugar ( I used the palm sugar cones I brought from Bali)
1 or 2 twigs of fresh rosemary

Wash lemons and limes. Fill lemons, limes and sugar in a bowl and rub the fruit with the sugar to release their essential oils. Pour boiling water onto the fruit and sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Let it cool down. Take the fruit out of the syrup and juice it. Add the juice and the rosemary to the syrup. Cover the mixture and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Next morning you can strain it into bottles. The lemon syrup can be stored in the fridge up to 4 days.

a basketful of muscatel grapes

8. October 2015

by troutandhawk

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Dinner / Lunch / Snacks / Sweets

I used the sweet muscatels as an edible decoration on my table, I spread them on the pizza, juiced them and combined them with little mozzarella balls and black sea salt.

And then there were these sublime
frozen grapes with hot chocolate fudge and grappa
Take the best and sweetest grapes you can get and put them into the freezer for 2 hours. Big grapes will be frozen outside, the inside will be a semi-liquid sorbet. The tiny muscatel grapes will be completely frozen, but will thaw in the moment you dip them into the hot chocolate fudge.

chocolate fudge:
200g 70-80% chocolate
50g butter
100g cream
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1/2 vanilla pod, scraped
a pinch of salt

Melt all ingredients in a bain-marie, beginning with the butter. Add slowly the cream, always stirring, until the fudge has adopted the consistence you like.
Best (and originally served) with a glass of grappa!

panna cotta + cranberry sauce

1. October 2015

by troutandhawk

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Sweets

Aunt Elisabeth’s * mantra always has been “few but only the best ingredients!” Here’s her way to prepare this Italian classic:

panna cotta:
400g whipping cream
50g sugar
1/2 vanilla pod (scraped)
3 sheets gelatine

cranberry sauce

Mix a jar of high quality cranberry preserve with a generous amount of gooseberry liqueur

Soak the gelatine in a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes. In the meantime bring cream, sugar and vanilla to a boil always stirring. When the mixture has come to a boil continue stirring on low heat for 2 or 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Drain and squeeze the gelatine, then stir it into the cream making sure that it melts completely.
Pour the mixture into small molds and put them into the fridge for at least 3 hours.

*when younger, aunt Elisabeth and her husband Hugo (both passionate gourmets) used to throw some incredible dinner parties practically living in the kitchen the days before the feast.

weekend links

26. September 2015

by troutandhawk

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mood board combining reminiscences of summer and first autumn vibes
Images 1 ⎪ 2 ⎪ 3 ⎪ 4 ⎪ 5 ⎪ 6

1. Five tips for taking photos in low light by Danish lifestyle photographer Christina Greve

2. Tips to draw better in six minutes: The Line-Fine Art Tips (I love this video!)

3. What does Bach’s Cello Suite N°1 in G-major taste like ? by Salt and Straw

4. Do you know Hipster Barbie on Instagram?

5. Our tonight’s dinner ;)

pepino y albóndiga

24. September 2015

by troutandhawk

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Dinner / Lunch

Don’t worry, I won’t write my blogposts in Spanish from now. Pepino and albóndiga have been my daughter’s favourite words in her first Spanish course. So funny, so strange, so absolutely not similar to their fellow cucumbers and meatballs in German, English or French. In the end, both nouns happen to match quite nicely in real life.

The albóndigas in our recipe are crispy veggie balls, being best when you flatten them to the max – the flatter the crispier!

pepino y albóndiga

the pepino:
Peel the cucumber and cut it in stripes with the peeler. Discard the seeds.

the albóndigas (yields about 15):
200g carrots, finely grated
200g broccoli stems or zucchini, finely grated (I added half a small beetroot for the colour)
100g onions
2 eggs
200g cottage cheese
140g fine oatmeal
a pinch of Cayenne pepper, black pepper and nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix salt and vegetables, let it soak and discard the water. Use your hands to combine the grated vegetables, cottage cheese, eggs, oatmeal and the spices in a bowl. Add more salt if necessary. Form the albóndigas with moist hands and fry them until they turn golden and crispy. Serve with parsley and mint leaves.

apple and fig galette

17. September 2015

by troutandhawk

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Cakes + Cookies / Sweets

Galette or crostata, a rustic pie crust filled with fruit, is the tastiest and easiest way to cope with an abundance of ripe apples, plums and figs. Be it your homemade pie crust or the store-bought puff pastry you take as a bottom, the result will always be amazing.

Over the time I learned a few tricks to turn the galette into a true delicacy.

1. macerate the fruit in 1 or 2 tablespoons sugar for at least 1/2 hour
2. add some lemon (juice and peel) or a few drops of vanilla essence to the macerating fruit
3. place a thin layer of raw almond cream on the bottom of the galette
4. add a tablespoon ground almonds or corn starch to prevent the fruit to become too runny
5. pair different types of fruit: berries with plums, figs with apples, peaches with plums…..
6. the more rustic the look, the better!

apple galette / fig galette

250g puff pastry or

250g homemade pate brisée
4 parts flour
2 parts butter
1 part water
+ a pinch of salt and sugar

fruit for the filling ( I took 3 apples and 4 figs to fill my little tarts)
sugar
1 lemon
vanilla essence
1 egg, for the egg wash
icing sugar to sprinkle after baking

Roll out the dough on a floured surface into a relatively circular shape.
Place it on a parchment covered baking tray or into a buttered baking mould.
Fill it with the macerated fruit. Fold the dough up and over the filling to create a crust at the edges.
Brush any exposed dough with egg wash.

Bake the galette at 180°C for 30 minutes or until the dough turns golden brown. Sprinkle with icing sugar.

The galette is best at room temperature.

travel essentials

10. September 2015

by troutandhawk

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I never load my suitcase to the top and I detest to have to deal with heavy hand luggage . To be honest I don’t like hand luggage at all. Wherever I travel I love to only carry a handbag.

Over the time a few items crystallized to be my travel essentials: besides the necessary money, phone, passport they are:

my travel camera
a thrilling paperback
a soft woolen scarf
good quality noise-cancelling headphones
Grown Alchemist Hydra-Mist
Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream for lips
Dr. Hauschka’s moisturizing lotion in a small container
a few moisturizing and sun-screen samples
Optrex Actispray to spray on the eyelid. It cools and moisturizes the eye and the lid.
Origins’ Sensory Therapy “Peace of Mind”

Safe travel ❤️

Ketut Sri Nadi’s Dadar Cake

3. September 2015

by troutandhawk

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Breakfast / Snacks / Sweets

In Bali we got to enjoy Ketut’s Dadar Cake, a Pandan scented crêpe filled with coconut and palm sugar syrup. We loved it so much that we had it nearly every morning for breakfast together with a fruit plate and a freshly opened coconut.

It made me more than happy that one day Ketut invited me to join her into the kitchen to give me a master class in dadar cake cooking. I tried to make it back home (I even had brought a whole twig of pandan leaves) at 5 o’clock in the morning (jet lag!) and I admit, the result has been good enough to satisfy my cravings, but in no way it reached the effortless art of chef Ketut.

Dadar Cake
(yields 6 pancakes)

for the the batter:
1 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
pandan leaf scented water
butter for frying

for the filling:
about 200g palm sugar
a pinch of salt
1 cup water
grated coconut

Chop the pandan leaves, fill them into a blender and add about 600ml water. Blend the leaves shortly and pour the beautifully green liquid through a strainer. In case you’d run out of pandan leaves, I would recommend you take organic green food colouring (the kind you use for macaron making).
Put the remaining ingredients into a bowl and always whisking, slowly add as much of the green liquid as you need to obtain a rather thin batter.

For the filling mix palm sugar, salt and water in a sauce pan and cook on low heat always stirring until the mixture gets syrupy. Always stirring start sloooowly adding grated coconut. You should know that the balinese grated coconut is fresh and moist in comparison to our imported and packed one so you will need a rather small amount in order to keep the filling soft and moist.
Once finished the filling can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

Use butter for frying the crepes and make sure they are very thin. Fold in about 1 tablespoon of coconut palm sugar into each pancake. Serve with fruit and coconut water. Enjoy!

summer, oh summer + black sesame ice cream

27. August 2015

by troutandhawk

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Sweets

black sesame ice cream

250ml milk
100g sugar
pinch of salt
250ml cream
2 sachets nanfang black sesame powder
6 egg yolks

Warm the milk, sugar and and salt in a sauce pan.Pour the cream into a large bowl and whisk in the black sesame powder. Set a mesh strainer on top.
In a separate bowl whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scape the warmed egg yolks back into the sauce pan.
Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatial, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and and stir it into the cream. Whisk until the the sesame powder is completely dissolved. Sir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator , than freeze it in your ice cream maker.