Bright and warm winter vegetable puree

As the cold temperatures of December set in, I felt eager to share a childhood recipe that’s warmed up many a lunch and dinner throughout the years. During the winter months, a variety of vegetable purees were often served as the first course for lunch at home, and were always very welcome and appreciated. But I had my favorites, and the one I was set to showcasing here was undoubtedly king of my heart. It’d been a while since I’d last had it, too, increasing my urge to make it. A couple of National holidays combined with accomodating professors meant I was class-free for the week, which I took advantage of to visit my parents; this was perfect timing to make the recipe with my mom, who’s always glad to lend a hand for my blogging endeavours.

I got out my props, made everything pretty, chopped away and shot and stirred. After a morning full of cooking and styling, we finally sat down to lunch (at 4 p.m. This is Spain, folks) and I earnestly raised the first spoonful of bright orange belly warming concoction to my mouth with a smile of jovial anticipation. The moment it passed through my lips I knew something was off, and joy turned dissapointment as it went down my throat.

I inmediately knew what was amiss: we added about half a zucchini that didn’t belong there. This really brought me down. The puree tasted fine, and it had a nice texture and was perfectly alright, but it was not what was in my mind; not what I wanted to share. I know that, in the big scheme of things, this was a rather meaningless glitch, but it felt like a really stupid mistake that would send all the work down the drain (and I’m a real newbie in this field, so it takes me forever to make up my mind about how to style stuff in order to make it look blog worthy and decide on what props to use and then take acceptable pictures of it and so on and so forth).

So my first reaction was obviously to throw everything away and start from scratch. But then I decided it would really be a shame to not use what I already had just because there was a quiet inoffensive zucchini taking up some room in the pictures. I guess a lot of the time we tend to be too hard on ourselves so I decided to cut myself some slack; we just made another batch of puree, this time without the zucchini, to make sure that it turned out the way it should (it did), and I’m just using the pictures I had of the first batch, although of course giving you the actual directions to the original unaltered version (sans zucchini), hoping that it might help warm you up some chilly December night or brighten up your day with its festive luminous shade and pure pleasing taste.

Winter vegetable puree:

• 3 carrots
• 2 medium/smallish potatoes
• one big yellow onion
• half green bell pepper
• 400g (14 oz can) of crushed tomatoes
• 1 l (about 4 cups) water
• olive oil
• 1/2 ts sugar
• salt, garlic and parsley (you can make it as the link suggests or just mince garlic and parsley separately)

Pour some olive oil into a big, tall pot (enough to lightly cover the bottom, maybe 2 Tb or so) and set it over high heat.

While the oil is heating up, slice the onion (it doesn’t need to be too thin).

When the oil is hot, but not yet smoking, dump the sliced onion into the pot and stir around to distribute oil evenly.

Slice the green bell pepper and add it to the pot; stir some more. If it begins to smoke a lot and/or the vegetables start to brown, lower the heat, as we don’t want this to happen.

Peel and slice the carrots, add them to the pot and keep stirring for a bit.

Peel and dice the potatoes (not too small, maybe roughly 1.5 cm (1/2 to 3/4 inch) cubes).

Keep stirring the other vegetables and, when the onion and pepper feel rather soft, add the potatoes and season with the salt, garlic and parsley to your liking (I guess I added about 1 loosely packed Tb).

Keep cooking, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes or so. Then add the crushed tomatoes and a big pinch of sugar (about 1/2 ts), stir to combine, and add the water, which I measure with the can of crushed tomatoes so I get all of the tomato into the pot. If you want to do it this way, use 2 and 1/2 cans of water. If not, just add about 4 cups.

Bring to a boil, turn the heat to low and let cook until the potatoes are very, very tender, falling apart if you pierce them, maybe 1 hour and a half or more.

Use an inmersion blender to turn into a puree (or whatever kind of blender you have. I like inmersion blenders because they are inexpensive, take up very little space and do the job for an incredible variety of uses).

Serve and dive right in. It’s also very good with some grated cheese sprinkled on top.

Since there’s only vegetables in it (no cream or other more quickly perishable ingredients) it will keep for several days in the fridge. It also freezes nicely, in case you want to save up some for later use.

“Ten ton hammer” chocolate birthday cake

Last Saturday my dear gent turned 24. It might not seem like a big number, but I can vividly remember wishing him a happy eighteenth birthday and suddenly whoa! 24!, which not so long ago sounded like a totally grown up age to be. Turns out it’s not.

(Special mention to also last week birthday gals my mom and my sister-in-law!)

Every year I bake the most chocolaty cake I can come up with to celebrate, but we had kind of a busy schedule for the weekend,  since on Saturday we were going to Bilbao to see these guys live (by the way, we were at the show on that video too, and it was one of the most amazing ever) and Friday night we were going out to a movie at the Gijón International Film Festival (of which I’ll talk in my next post), so I decided to keep it relatively simple, which didn’t mean that almost a pound of chocolate was not involved in the making, for it absolutely was.

We enjoyed the first slice after coming back from our movie on Friday night (since it was after 12 am so Saturday already), and then another one for breakfast the following morning before hitting the road. There was a piece left that we gave to my parents-in-law, so I’d say the cake yields 5 very nice portions, but I guess more moderate people could easily get 8 or 10.

It’s a dense cake, not too dry and not too moist with a soft texture and a pronounced chocolate flavor, topped with a thick layer of silky ganache that melts in your mouth embracing each bite of cake, just like 1000 thread count sheets would embrace your body and lull you into sweet chocolate dreamland. And in honor of the guys who would later make us sweat off the last drop of butter in the cake (and share said sweat with about every other assistant, which is the not so pretty side of musical events held indoors), I’m naming it after one of the night’s hits, for both of them were pretty powerful and shared the ability of putting you in a state of blissful elation.

Ten ton hammer cake

• 250 g (9 oz) dark chocolate
• 150 g (5.3 oz or 1 stick plus 3 Tb) butter
• 150 g (5.3 oz or 3/4 cup) white sugar
• 6 eggs
• 50 g (1.8 oz or 6 Tb) all purpose flour

Preheat your oven to 175ºC (350º F) and grease a 24 cm (9-inch) cake pan.

Separate the eggs. You’ll be whipping the whites later, so put them in the bowl of your mixer or in a big bowl if you’re doing it with a whisk, like I did. Look at the pretty shiny yolks.

I know you can only see five of them, but I added another one later.

Put the chopped chocolate (or unchopped if you’re using chips or the like) and the butter in a medium saucepan/pot (keep in mind you’ll have to fit the whipped egg whites later in it) and set over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the butter and chocolate are melted and smooth.

If you’re unsure about putting chocolate in direct contact with heat, you can melt the butter first, and then add the chocolate. I use cookware that is appropriate for melting chocolate and have never had a problem with it.

Remove the pot from the heat. Add the egg yolks, two at a time, stirring well after each addition until no orange traces remain. Next dump in the sugar and stirr it in too, and last, add the flour, and stir energetically for a bit.

Whip the egg whites until they form peaks that hold their shape.

Fold the whites into the batter, in several additions, until you get a mostly homogeneous mixture, and scrape into the prepared pan.

I was starting to lose light at the time, hence the reach-for-the-sun pile of books, which didn’t really help much.

Put the pan into the oven and bake for about 25 min, until a skewer or knife inserted in the middle comes out almost clean, but the cake still feels quite tender in the middle.

Mine was slightly overbaked, becuase I was busy with the ganache and let it bake for 30 min.

While the cake is baking, prepare the chocolate ganache:

Chocolate ganache (adapted from Chocolate Desserts by Pièrre Hermé, by Dorie Greenspan):

• 50 g (1,8 oz or 3 Tb plus 1 ts) butter, at room temperature.
• 180 g (6,3 oz) dark chocolate
• 180 ml (3/4 cup) heavy cream

Place the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips in a bowl that can hold all ingredients.

Put the heavy cream in a heavy bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil.

While the cream is heating up, work the butter with a rubber spatula until it’s very creamy.

When the crem reaches a full boil, pour over the chocolate, and stir with the rubber spatula in widening circles.

Be patient since it will take a while, but eventually all the chocolate will be melted.

Add the butter in two additions, stirring in the same fashion as before both times, until you get a glossy, smooth ganache.

When the cake pan is cool enough to handle, run a knife around the cake edge and invert it onto a plate (or, if you didn’t plan ahead and suddenly realise that you didn’t bring any of your serving plates from your parents’ house, use a big chopping board instead. That’s the route I took).

Give both the cake and the ganache some time to come down to room temperature and just go about your business. When the cake doesn’t feel warm to the touch anymore, it’s frosting time. Or ganache-ing time. It was already pitch-dark so artificial light was in order, which was obviously not ideal for the picture taking.

You’ll have about 1 and 1/2 cups of ganache, which is just the perfect amount to cover the cake and eat a couple spoonfulls yourself. So don’t be afraid, just pour the whole thing on top of the cake, and then spread it around with a tool of your choice (I just used the back of a spoon, but I guess it’d make more sense to use a knife or spatula). The spoon worked fine for me, however, since I was not going for a polished finish, but more like swirly messy fun.

As for the finished product:

I kept it in the fridge so the ganache would get some consistence, and then just pulled it out a few minutes before serving. I don’t have any experience freezing it, but I’m pretty sure it would be alright frozen in plastic containers.

Hope you enjoy!

Xatinos and Russian Steaks

Asturian veal. Pride and glory of our prairies. The most extensively consumed kind of meat around these lands. Just look at’em cutie pies.

They’re not grass fed. They’re grass-eating freaking machines.

Graze graze graze all day long. Unless, of course, they’re still getting their nutrients from their mommy:

Which, just like mommies all over the world, will always see them as babies, and take care of them accordingly (even when they’re probably nearing 1000kg):

This one was kind enough to stop grazing and pose for the camera:

 

And how’s this for an overdose of uber cuteness? Just look at those itsy-bitsy tiny perfect feet!

Xatín. That’s what we call a little calf in Asturian.

So yeah. Enough with that. I’m actually giving you a recipe, not only a bunch of relatively random pictures.

Today’s concoction is what we call, for whatever reason, “Filetes rusos” (which means Russian steaks). They’re easy as pie, except actually waay easier that pie (unless you use a premade pie crust and pie filling); you can whip them up in about 10 minutes and they’ll make a great weeknight dinner. They’re one of those meals that have “kid-friendly” written all over their faces, but I don’t know of any grown-up who doesn’t enjoy them just as much. Oh, and although I’ve listed veal as the meat of choice, they turn out great also with a mix of ground veal and pork. I’ve never tried them with beef but I guess they’d be fine too.

Filetes rusos:

• About 450 g (1 lb) of ground veal or other meat
• 10 Tb finely chopped onion
• 1 Tb minced garlic
• 1 sprig of parsley, chopped very finely
• 1 egg
• Breadcrumbs
• Olive oil
• Salt

Put the meat into a big bowl. Chop the onion, garlic and parsley very finely (I use the food processor) and add them to the meat, along with about 1/2 ts salt, about 2 Tb breadcrumbs and the whole egg. Stir everything together with your hands (à la Jaimie Oliver) or using a fork if you don’t want to dirty your hands. At this point, you could put this mixture in a sealed container and store in the fridge for later use (and it will last for a few days, since it’s already seasoned).

Form patties with the mixture (make a ball and flatten it using the palm of your hand). I think I got about 8 patties with this amount, but the size is totally up to you. Sometimes I even make a big one that takes up the whole frying pan.

Sprinkle some more breadcrumbs on a dish or paper towel and coat each side of the patties in them. Tap off any excess, as you don’t want a thick layer of breadcrumbs. At this point yo could also wrap your patties in film and keep them in the fridge for a few days or in the freezer for quite a long time.

When you’re ready to eat them, heat a little olive oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. You’ll want enough oil so that when it gets hot there’ll be a thin film all over the bottom of the pan.

When the oil is hot, put some patties into the pan. Just fry as many as you’re eating, and keep the rest in the fridge. When the bottom looks golden brown and done, flip and cook on the other side till it looks the same.

Take out to a dish and serve. If you need to fry them in several batches, and a little more oil as needed if the pan gets dry.

And don’t let them get cold as I did! (Although they’re still super tasty and juicy, I’d know after taking like a hundred pictures before finally sitting down to lunch…).