Tomato soup with spices

(Texto en Español más abajo)

Summer in Berlin. And I'm using italics because this year summer has been almost inexistent, as all my berliner fellows are well aware of. So here we are, end of August and temperatures of around 15 ºC. My plan for last night was to make a gazpacho, but on my way home the chilly wind made me discard the idea. What to do then with all the red tomatoes in my fridge? I started revising my list of reference blogs and found this tomato soup recipe published by Mercado Calabajío a while ago. The sound of tomatoes with paprika, saffron, and cumin suggested a very intense taste, making my blood flow warm in my veins again. And when German tomatoes are reddest and cheapest, and the weather invites for the first soup of the season, isn't that a great opportunity to try this recipe?

This impulsive decision caught me without any broth nor the vegetables to make it (I know, I know, shame on me!) so I used plain water instead. However, the extra virgin olive oil, and the Turkish spices did the trick. The result was a tasteful soup that I will surely repeat during the next days, before red tomatoes disappear from German supermarkets.

What you need:

• 6 red tomatoes
• 1 red pepper, large
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 onion, medium size
• olive oil
• paprika
• cumin
• saffron
• salt
• 300 mL of vegetable broth
• 6 slices of bread

How to prepare this Tomato Soup with Spices:

Chop the garlic, onion and pepper, and fry them in some olive oil in a cooking pot. Let them fry slowly until tender, but without overcooking. We don't want any dark-brown vegetables in this soup. Meanwhile, grind the tomatoes.

Sprinkle the paprika on the fried onions and stir a bit to mix it with the vegetables. Add the tomatoes right away so that the paprika does not get burnt, and let it cook for 10 minutes.

Now you can incorporate the salt, cumin, saffron, and broth. Mix everything together and let it cook for another 20 minutes.

Soak the bread slices in the soup, serve, and enjoy!

Sopa de tomate con especias

"Verano" en Berlín. Y entrecomillo porque este año el verano aquí ha sido prácticamente inexistente, como bien saben mis colegas berlineses. Así que aquí estamos, a finales de agosto y con temperaturas rondando los 15 ºC. Mi plan para la cena de anoche era hacer un gazpacho, pero de camino a casa hacía un viento tan fresquito (una rasca, vamos) que se me quitaron las ganas. ¿Y ahora qué hago con todos los tomates rojos que tengo en la nevera? Me puse a revisar mi lista de blogs de referencia, y encontré esta receta de sopa de tomate publicada hace algún tiempo por Mercado Calabajío. El sonido de tomates con pimentón, azafrán y comino sugería un sabor muy intenso, que hizo que mi sangre volviera a circular caliente por mis venas. Y precisamente ahora que los tomates alemanes están más rojos y más baratos, y que el tiempo invita a preparar la primera sopita de la temporada, ¿no es una oportunidad estupenda para probar esta receta?

Tengo que admitir que esta decisión impulsiva me pilló sin ningún tipo de caldo ni las verduras para prepararlo (lo sé, lo sé, una vergüenza) así que usé agua en su lugar. Sin embargo, el aceite de oliva virgen extra y las especias turcas cumplieron su cometido y el resultado fue una sopa muy sabrosa que seguro que repetiré en los próximos días, antes de que los tomates rojos desaparezcan de los supermercados alemanes.

Qué necesitas:

• 6 tomates rojos
• 1 pimiento grande (yo usé rojo, que es el que tenía; aquí los pimientos verdes no los hay tan a menudo)
• 1 diente de ajo
• 1 cebolla mediana
• aceite de oliva
• pimentón dulce
• comino
• azafrán
• sal
• 300 mL de caldo vegetal
• 6 rebanadas de pan

Cómo preparar esta Sopa de Tomate con Especias:

Pica el ajo, la cebolla y el pimiento, y ponlos con un poco de aceite en la olla que vayas a usar para hacer la sopa. Sofríelos a fuego medio, hasta que se pongan tiernos, pero sin quemarse. Mientras tanto, ralla los tomates.

Espolvorea el pimentón sobre el sofrito, remueve un poco y añade en seguida los tomates para que el pimentón no se queme. Deja que se cueza todo junto durante unos 10 minutos.

Ahora podemos incorporar la sal, el comino, el azafrán y el caldo. Mézclalo todo bien y déjalo cocer a fuego medio durante otros 20 minutos.

Sumerge las rebanadas de pan en la sopa, dejando que se empapen bien. Servir y disfrutar.

Sunday treat: Lemon Sponge Cake

It was one of those weekends when I fancied a breakfast treat but we hadn't made plans to go for brunch on Sunday - the perfect excuse to prepare a sponge cake! My man likes it simple (no frosting at all) so that he can dip it in his coffee, and as you might suspect by now, I love citrus, so this is a regular at home: lemon cake. Easy to make, tasty, and moist. Check by yourselves!

What you need:

• 4 eggs
• 10 full spoons of white sugar
• 10 full spoons of wheat flour
• 2 lemons
• 1 glass (250 cc) of sunflower oil
• 1 packet of baking powder

How to prepare a lemon sponge cake:

Pre-heat your oven to 180 ºC.

Blend the eggs and sugar together in a big bowl. Add the oil and keep mixing.

Zest the lemon skins (try to avoid the white part) and then squeeze the lemons. And the zest and juice to the bowl and blend everything very well until you obtain a somewhat foaming mixture.

While you keep mixing with your hand blender, slowly add the flour and baking powder. Make sure that you obtain a very homogeneous mixture.

Pour into a baking pan and bake for about 35 minutes. That's it! you will obtain something like this:

Have a nice breakfast!

Pasta al limone

Pasta, pasta!

I love pasta, but am tired of making the same old bolognese once and again, and strongly refuse to use one of those sauces that you can buy in the supermarket. So I have decided to experiment with new recipes. For tonight I have chosen pasta al limone because I have never tried something like that before, but also (mainly) because I love citrus. I have followed my friend Gata Vagabunda's recipe and am quite happy with the result! The recipe is very simple, and the result is surprising (at least it was for me). So I would suggest you to give it a try sometime. Here it comes.

What you need for 2 servings:

• 250 g long pasta like spaghetti. They should preferably be thick-ish. I used bavette n. 13 instead.
• a bit of butter
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled but in one piece
• 2 big lemons, the freshest ones you can find
• 200 mL cream
• parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper
• basilicum

How to prepare this Pasta al Limone:

Fill a cooking pot with salted water and heat until boiling. Cook the pasta in that water until al dente (you can follow the time suggested in the pasta package).

Let's prepare the sauce while the pasta is boiling. First, zest the lemons using a thin grater. Beware not to take also the white part of the lemon skin, because that would make the sauce too sour. Keep this lemon zest for later.

Take a large frying pan and put some butter in it. Heat slowly until the butter melts, and fry the garlic cloves there. Once the garlic is toasted, take it out from the pan and instead add the cream and the lemon zest, salt and pepper. Let the sauce cook until the pasta is ready.

Drain the pasta, bring it to the frying pan with the sauce, and stir it all together. Serve and top with grounded parmesan cheese and a couple of basilicum leaves finely chopped. Ready! It will please your taste, and leave a delicious smell in your kitchen.

Going veggie: green beans with potatoes and carrots

Today I have prepared a vegetarian dish which is not only healthy and light to digest, but also very tasty. Having said that, some of you might still be reluctant to try it because, after all, it's just green beans, and green beans are boring by definition! Well, let me tell you that there is nothing boring about this dish. Even if you have eaten something similar one thousand times before, this recipe is different. Basically, El Comidista has added his personal touch (I would dare to even say reinvented) to a traditional mediterranean dish, and the result is amazing, so I strongly suggest to give this a try. You will be surprised!

You will need:

• 500 g of green beans
• 2 potatoes (medium size)
• 4 carrots (large)
• 1 onion (large)
• 1 teaspoon of brown sugar
• 150 mL of white wine
• 50 mL of balsamic vinegar
• olive oil and salt, for dressing

How to prepare these green beans with potatoes and carrots:

Wash the potatoes, put them in a cooking pot, unpeeled, and cover them with water. Boil then until they are tender. This process can take around 30 minutes. Afterwards, replace the hot water with cold one, and once you can handle the potatoes without loosing the skin in your fingers, peel them and cut them into large pieces.

Now it's a good moment to start preparing the caramelized onion, since it needs to cook for a while. Use the onion, wine, vinegar, and sugar, following the directions in this previous post.

Meanwhile, wash the green beans, and using a peeler, remove those sort of fibers that they have on the sides. Then, with the help of a knife, cut the beans into very thin and long stripes. Peel and wash the carrots, and chop them into thin sticks of length approximately half of the bean stripes. This task is somewhat laborious, and it might seem that right now we are just victims of aesthetics, but I promise it will pay off.

Vapor-cook the beans and carrots until they are tender, but take care that they are not overcooked. If you are using a rapid-express-pressure cooking pot, then you only need to cook them for 5 minutes after the valve rises.

Now choose your favorite serving plate and place there, in layers, first the potatoes, then the beans, the carrots, and end up with the onions. Add some salt and olive oil as a dressing, and voilà, you have just prepared a delicious and colorful dish full with vitamins!! Don't forget to share it with your loved ones.

Starting with gorgonzola

Last night we went to a little dinner party. Since I really enjoy cooking with friends, we came early to help the hosts. We prepared mainly some fingerfood, because the idea was not to be sitting down, but rather standing up and chatting and moving around. My contribution was some gorgonzola toasts in two flavours: one sort with caramelised onion and walnuts, and another one with red-pepper jam.

Gorgonzola, caramelised onions and walnuts toast

We begin preparing the caramelised onion. For this we need an onion. We will peel it and cut it in julienne strips: we will cut the onion in half and slice it very thinly to obtain curved sections. Put it in a frying pan with a little olive oil, cover it with a lid, and let it cook slowly for 20-25 minutes, stirring every now and then, until the onion has softened and looks transparent. Then add a bit of salt, a teaspoon of brown sugar, 150 mL of white wine, and 50 mL of balsamic vineger. Remove the lid now and turn the heat up for 5-10 more minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Once the onion has cooled down we can proceed to prepare the toasts.

Take about 100 g of gorgonzola cheese (I used the piccante variety and liked the result, but next time I will try with gorgonzola dolce), put it on a plate, and smash it with a fork to blend it down.

Now spread a fine layer of gorgonzola on the bread (I recommend some slices of slightly toasted brioche). Using a fork, take a little bit of the onions, and let them fall gently on the cheese, so that they do not scatter on the toast, but take a form similar to a nest. On top of the onions, place some walnuts. Ready!

Gorgonzola and red-pepper jam

For these I simply spread some gorgonzola on the toast and added some of my sweet-and-sour red-pepper jam on top. The combination is both colorful and delicious!

Sweet-and-sour red-pepper jam

My mother is always researching and trying new recipes. She found this one somewhere in the web, or in one of the multitude of cooking books and magazines that she owns, who knows, and since then it has been almost a constant in her fridge. I love its sweet and sour taste, its gorgeous shiny red color, and it fits perfectly with cheese, of which I am a huge fan. So I have decided it should definitely appear in this blog.

You will need:

• Two large, very-red peppers
• A bit less than one glass of apple vinegar
• One glass of white sugar

How to make this red-pepper jam:

Wash the peppers and chop them into very small pieces. Put them in a saucepan, add the vinegar and the sugar, and stir to mix well all the ingredients.

If chopping the pepper feels like a tedious process to you, think about using your blender instead. In that case, break the peppers into pieces, add the vinegar and blend-blend-blend until you obtain a mixture with the desired texture. I prefer to see small pieces in the jam, completely homogeneous jams seem artificial to me, but I guess this is a matter of taste. Afterwards, just bring the mixture to the saucepan, add the sugar, and stir together.

Let the jam cook very slowly for a couple of hours, stirring every now and then to check that it is not sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. Do not use a lid, since we want the vinegar to evaporate. In order to know when you can stop cooking, you can check that the mixture has the consistency of any jam that you have seen before (although you should keep in mind that a warm jam is somewhat more liquid-ish than a cold jam). A second test is trying a little bit to see if it still tastes too much like vinegar. If it does, let it cook a bit longer.

As I said, this jam fits perfectly with cheese. You can use some creamy cheese, for example. In the picture above, I am combining it with some old goat cheese, which makes a very good companion. But you can also simply spread it on plain bread, on butter, or on some liver pate.

Enjoy!