Old Czech Chicken on Sauerkraut

It is quite hard to say when I prepare this recipe for the first time. But I think it is couple of years – that is for sure. Anyway – probably because the cold weather, or winter generally generates craving for Vitamin C or just my craving for sauerkraut in these days – but try this simple and tasty recipe and review.

Ingredients:

1 chicken (divided into four) or 4 chicken legs or 4 chicken breasts
1 jar sauerkraut 
10 balls allspice
4 bay leaves
some strips of bacon

Directions:

1. Put sauerkraut to the frying pan (incl. liquid), add allspice and bay leaves.

2. Put the pieces of chicken on the top of sauerkraut.

4. Cover with strips of bacon and bake at least an hour or until chicken is done.

5. Serve with potato or regular dumplings (same as Chicken a la Duck) or with boiled potatoes – according to taste.

Quick Apple Strudel for Sunday’s Dessert

Sunday’s lunch usually ends with a nice piece of dessert and coffee. One of my favourite dessert is traditional Apple Strudel. It is very easy and tasty dessert and doesn’t necessary mean that has to be done for Sunday’s dinner only. Do you know the situation: sometimes sweet-tooth craving comes in the middle of night and nothing is ready in the cabinet? No worries – this kind of strudel is ready in 20 minutes!

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 cup of shredded butter (best is frozen one)

2 tbsp plain yoghurt or kefir

3 apples (peeled and shredded)

handful fine bread crumbs

handful sugar

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

handful raisins (optional)

handful shredded coconut

1 egg for smear

 

Directions:

1. Mix in a bow flour, butter and yoghurt.

2. Knead a nice dough.

3. Divide into two equal portions and roll into two rectangles. On the first third sprinkle crumbs, shredded apples, raisins, coconut, cinnamon and sugar. 

4. Roll, slightly form press, smear with beaten egg. Bake until golden colour at 180°C/350°C.

5. Cut into 2in pieces and serve with vanilla ice cream, hot vanilla sauce or just with a little bit of sprinkle of icing sugar.

Home made bread II.

I got this recipe from my friend Iveta from Vancouver and I have to say it is the simplest and best European style of bread I got and tested.
Iveta’s recipe is based on Jim Laheye book “My Bread” and this bread taste evokes my memories of Brno – my favourite one was made in a bakery in Zabrdovice (Brno city borough) since 1922.
I would like to present you today my modified variation of this recipe and would be pleased – as usual - to hear your experience and comments.

Ingredients:

4.5 cup All Purpose flour
1.5 cup Light Rye flour
2.5 tsp salt 
1 tsp dry bakers yeast
2 2/3 cups of lukewarm water
1/2 tsp caraway seeds

Directions:

1. Dissolve yeast in water and let rise for a while.
2. Mix all ingredients in a bigger bowl or in a KitchenAid.
 
3. Place dough into a big pot (approx. 7-10l) and cover. Place pot into the oven and turn the light on. Let rise for 12-24 hours (depends on your daily schedule).

4. Prepare deeper frying pan, bowl or wicker scuttle. Personally I’m using a special dish for baking fish – the loaf seems like to have a great “microclimate” and shape as well. Place the dough into the form, pot or scuttle and cover with cloth. Let rise for another 1.5-3 hours again in a oven with light turned on.

5. Heat oven approx. 30 minutes before baking for 250°C/490-500°F. If you are using cast-iron pot – pre-heat this one as well and then place the loaf on a parchment paper. Cover the pot and turn the temperature back to 200°C/425°F and bake for 30minutes, then uncover and bake for another 30 minutes.

6. Take out of the oven and smear with salt-water. Let cool down.

Biscuits and gravy

Biscuits and gravy is a popular breakfast meal in the United States, especially in the South.
It consists of soft dough biscuits covered in thick "country" or "white" gravy, made from the drippings of cooked pork sausage, white flour, milk, and often (but not always) bits of sausage, bacon, ground beef, or other meat. The gravy is often flavoured with black pepper. In some parts of the southern United States this is also called sawmill gravy.
My friend and colleague Steven introduced me this great American breakfast and I think the story from Nelson’s Safe-On-Food á la: “Do you guys have any biscuits?” … “You mean crackers?” we will never forget and will always reminds me to Steven.
The Steven’s recipe based on recipes of famous American cook Paula Deen.

Ingredients I. (biscuits):

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter, frozen, shredded
3/4 cup milk

Directions I. (biscuits):

1. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Cut butter into mixture until it begins to look like cornmeal.
2. Make a well with flour mixture and slowly add milk into the middle. Knead dough with your fingers and add milk when necessary.
3. Roll out dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to desired thickness. Cut into 1 inch thick biscuits and place on backing pan.

4. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown at 200°C/400°F.

Ingredients II. (gravy):

1 pound bulk breakfast sausage
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
Salt and pepper

Directions II. (gravy):

1. Cook sausage in a frying pan.

2. When done, sprinkle over flour and fry for about 5minutes and stir constantly.

3. Add milk and stir occasionally while the gravy comes to a simmer and thickens. (Be sure to scrape up any brown bits that might be stuck to the bottom of the pan, that's where the flavour is.)

4. Check seasoning and serve over biscuits.

Guacamole

Is a traditional Mexican avocado-based dip. According to the information guacamole was made by the Aztecs as early as the 16th century and after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, guacamole became popular in Spain and the whole world. Thank to my friend and colleague Rolando who made it for me and thought me the recipe I can presented to you the excellent taste of Summer in the middle of Winter. Have fun and enjoy!

Ingredients

3 ripe avocados
2 cloves garlic
1 jalapeño
1 tomato
1 small onion
lime juice
handful fresh cilantro
salt

Directions

1. Smash garlic with some salt.

2. Clean jalapeño and cut into small cubes.

3. Mix jalapeño and garlic with salt and lime juice in a bowl. Use fork to press and mix.

4. Add tomato and onion cut into a small cubes.

5. Mix and add cilantro.

6. In the end add avocados and smash with potato smasher or mortar and pestle.

7. Serve with corn chips.

Christmas Sauerkraut Cream

Sauerkraut Cream was, is and always will be serve as a Christmas Eve lunch at 12:00. Of course it is no dogma to be serve anytime during the year – it is very simple and very tasty lunch. Just for explanation of my own nomenclature – I do differentiate two different kind of soup containing sauerkraut: 1) Sauerkraut Cream (today’s recipe) – is white, creamy consistency, very simple to make and very tasty and 2) Wallachia Style of Sauerkraut Soup – is red, contains paprika, smoked pork and sausage – very tasty as well and my recipe will be published soon on my blog too.
I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas and thank you for all your nice e-mails, wishes and comments. Have a great Holiday!

Ingredients:

2 cups sauerkraut (with juice)
1 hard boiled small potato
2 cups cream
1 tbsp flour
1 hard boiled egg

Directions:

1. Bring sauerkraut to boil. I do usually use the one in jar. The raw one will need some more time – depending on your preferences of crunchiness.

2. Add hard boiled potato (cut into cubes) and mix four with cream and pour over. Cook for couple of minutes.

3. Serve with hard boiled egg, add some salt and event. black pepper (but it is not necessary).

Home made Head Cheese

The time before Christmas was, is and always will remind me holidays and time spent with my grandparents. My grandma is celebrating today her 80th birthday and though we can’t be physically together right now, we are very close each other. My grandpa was butcher and with grandma they taught me lot of tricks and cooking and baking skills.
My grandpa taught me slaughtering and how to process meat from beginning till end with lot of interesting home made specialities. I’m very thankful for this skills. Unfortunately I do not have enough time and space to create all his recipes but some of them I can present with simple kitchen stuff too.
In the honour of them both I would like to present my grandpa Mojmír his classical Head Cheese. The taste and smell going from basement to the roof of my Canadian house totally remind me the time of my childhood in small village of Lukavice, The Czech Republic.

Ingredients:

1 pork head
1kg pork shoulder
1 pork knuckle
1/2kg pork side
1 pork tongue
10 bigger garlic cloves
10l water
1/2 cup salt
1 handful ground black pepper
1 handful marjoram

Directions:

1. Clean head and other meat put into a large pot with cold water with salt and cook for at least 4 hours until all meat is soft.

2. Take all meat out of broth and let partially cool down, then cut the lean pieces into cubes.

3. All other remaining parts and shapeless meat (incl. fat, skin and garlic) pass through meat grinder direct to the broth. Add some salt, pepper and marjoram. Make sure the taste of the broth is slightly over salted (meat will take the salt by cooling and the taste will be optimal. I kept just about a half of the broth to make white pudding “jitrnicový prejt” (see next recipe).

4. In this stage I needed to make an experiment. In Czech you would go to the store and buy a special sleeve to fill head cheese into, but I didn’t find a source here. So the improvisation went ok with empty 2l PET bottles from soda water. Fill about the half of the bottle volume with meat cubes, fill the remaining of volume with the broth, apply closures and let cool down (best outside or in the fridge) over night. Turn the bottles regularly so the content won’t sediment.

5. Serve with bread or with onion rings and sprinkle of vinegar.

Lutika from Mikulov

Mikulov is beautiful small town in the south of Moravia (founded in 12.century – check this: http://www.mikulov.cz/photogallery/photo-album/?contentId=84387) on the border with Austria where live part of my family and which I always love to visit on my ways to Europe. Thanks to my relatives Jarka and Vasek taste Mikulov for me as well like “Lutika”.
To describe Lutika is quite easy – it taste like Mexican salsa with touch of Czech. Uncle Vasek always used to say: “… it is so good you can eat it by its own – because it taste so mild, or like a side-dish as mustard or on your fresh made toast – because the end is piquant”.
I would like to present you today the recipe for Lutika. It is very easy and the result is great! It is quite seasonal recipe of late summer or fall, but you can make couple of jars anytime during the year – as I did too on my birthday…

Ingredients:

2kg tomatoes
5 hot peppers
1kg red mild peppers (can be green or yellow too)
1/2kg onion
8 cloves garlic
120g sugar
300ml vegetable oil
200ml vinegar
2 tbsp salt

Directions:

1. Prepare all vegetables, clean, cut in pieces.

2. Ground everything on a meat grinder.
 
3. Put vegetable into deeper pan and cook for about 30 minutes. Then add sugar, oil, vinegar and salt and cook for another 90 minutes until the volume shrink on about half.

4. Let cool over night and serve or put into small jars. You can eat it immediately or sterile.