Roasted Vegetable Minestrone

I am about to head off to England for a few days and wanted to use up some of the vegetables I have lying around before I go. Since I also had some good chicken stock (made in the slow cooker from bones leftover from Slow Cooker Basque Chicken), soup was a logical idea.

The result is one of those wonderful serendipitous soups that deserves a repeat! Sweet from the onions, roasted tomatoes, and sweet potato, nicely warmed by the green chile, with underlying depth from the stock, with a hint of smokiness from the roasted peppers. 

Roasted Vegetable Minestrone
These are the vegetables I had on hand, but if you have 2 bell peppers of different colours, use those. The stock and roasted tomatoes produced a broth that was so good that I didn't add any herbs, but I might do if I was using a lighter stock.

500 grams tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 green pepper (or other bell pepper)
2 yellow onions, sliced
3 fat cloves of garlic, minced
1 green serrano chili, seeded and finely sliced
1 sweet potato, diced in 1.5 cm cubes
4 cups homemade chicken stock (for example, from a roasted chicken)

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/450F.
2. Slice the tomatoes about 1 cm thick and lay the slices out on a baking sheet. Dribble half the olive oil over them, and season with salt and freshly-ground pepper. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile char the green pepper over an open flame. (Alternatively, you could put the tomatoes and pepper under the broiler until the pepper is charred and the tomatoes caramelized. I haven't tried this though. ) Cover and let cool, then remove the skin. It's OK if a few charred bits remain. Chop into about 1.5 cm pieces.
4. In a large heavy pot, heat the remaining olive oil, then sauté the onions, garlic, and chili for 2-3 minutes.  Added the roasted tomatoes and their juice, the chopped green pepper, and the sweet pepper. 
5. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-30 minutes. Adjust the seasonings, and serve with some crusty bread.

Basque Chicken (Slow Cooker)

I made this thinking it would be a good alternative to coq au vin and a way to use a small organic soup chicken that I had in the fridge.

Despite the small size of the chicken, it was too big for all the pieces to fit easily in the slow cooker. Not to worry, I made a light chicken broth with the back, neck, and other bits that wouldn't fit.

The result was tasty but next time I will make some changes:

• Use only chicken legs. This was a soup chicken, and with the long cooking it still remained fairly tough and stringy. And chicken breast always dries out.
• Remove the skin from the chicken after browning and before adding it to the pot. I always remove the skin before eating anyway and wonder how much extra flavour it imparts.

Basque Chicken

4 chicken pieces (breast and legs), bone-in with skin
1 yellow onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 bell peppers, yellow and red, cut into large pieces
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoon peanut oil
1/2 cup  wine (red or white)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teasoon thyme
1  bay leaf
300 grams mushrooms, halved, whole, or in thick slices, depending on the their size

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon oil

1 green onion, green and white parts, sliced

1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat the butter and peanut oil in a large heavy frying pan over a medium-high flame.
2. Brown the chicken, about 7 minutes per side, frying in batches to avoid overcrowding. Put the chicken pieces in the slow cooker.
3. Now turn the heat down to medium and sauté the onion and garlic for a minute or so. Deglaze with the wine, stir in the tomato paste, then add it all to the slow cooker. Add the herbs and bell pepper pieces. 
4. Cook on high for 6 hours.
5. About 15 minutes before serving, heat the butter and oil in a large heavy frying pan, until the foam of the butter subsides.
6. Add the mushrooms and stir and shake to get all of them  covered with the fat. All the fat will be absorbed, but as the mushrooms cook, they will release it again and start to brown.
7. While the mushrooms are browning, transfer the chicken to a serving dish., then add the browned mushrooms and garnish with green onions.
8. Serve over potatoes or noodles.

Baked Halibut with Mustard and Dill

There is a store in Amsterdam called Fishes which deals only in sustainably caught fish, usually with a MFC (Marine Stewardship Council) certificate. It's not in my neighbourhood, so I don't often get there, but this week I placed an order with Ruud Maaz and treated myself to a piece of halibut from Fishes. I had forgotten how good halibut tastes.

It can also handle somewhat stronger flavours. I had some leftover curried spinach (saag without the paneer) that I planned to eat with it, so I decided to bake it with a bit of Dijon mustard and dill, and topped with some tomato slices. Sprinkled a bit of lemon juice and olive oil over top, baked for 10-12 minutes. It was wonderful!

Oatmeal Bread

I can sometimes get very discouraged about bread in Holland. There are a couple of good bakers in Amsterdam, such as Hartog and Vlaamsche Broodhuis, but most bread in supermarkets and even ordinary bakers is soft and squishy, no matter what the colour, grain, or the number of seeds in it.

So today I decided to make my own bread again. I dug into one of my new cookbooks and came up with Oatmeal Sandwich Bread. This recipe produces a very soft, sticky dough so it is not well suited to hand kneading. Instead, I put the apple-green machine to work.

The recipe calls for the mixed ingredients, except the salt, to rest for half an hour to autolyse. It lets the flour absorb more moisture and produce a moister loaf. It certainly seems to work, producing a large, flavourful loaf with a good crumb. It slices easily and does indeed work well for sandwiches.

The loaf is very large, rising well over the pan. I think I might split the dough into two smaller pans next time.

Oatmeal Sandwich Bread
Adapted from Good to the Grain

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
3 tablespoons molasses (I used Zeeuwse stroop, which is as near as I can get here)
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose four
1 cup rolled oats (I had a mixture of fine and large rolled oats)
2 ounces butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt

1. Combine the warm water and molasses in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir until most of the molasses is dissolved, then mix in the yeast. Let sit to proof the yeast for about 5 minutes, until the yeast has bloomed.
2. Add the melted butter, flour, and oats (but not the salt) to the yeast mixture and stir together with a wooden spoon. Let rest for half an hour.
3. Add the salt and using the dough hook, mix the dough for 6 minutes on medium. The dough is moist and will slap around the sides without sticking too much. If it does stick, add a tablespoon of flour until the dought comes away from the sides. at the end, to quote: "The dough should be s0ft and supple, slightly tacky,with a beautiful sheeting effect."
4. Butter a bread loaf pan.
5. Scrape the dough onto a floured surface and knead it a few times. Butter a large bowl (I just did a cursary rinse and oil of the mixing bowl), cover, and let rise in a warm place for an hour, until doubled in size.
6. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, shaping it into an oblong form about the size of the loaf pan,  squeezing out the air. Shape it into a loaf by folding it over and pinching the edges together to form a seam. Fold under the ends, roll it around a bit, then put it into the buttered pan with seam side down. Let rise for another hour. During that time, preheat the oven to 400 F. 
7. Bake for 40 minutes until the top is dark and it sounds hollow when thumped. (I baked it for closer to 50 minutes, and even then it did not turn as dark brown as the picture in the cookbook).

Cake!

I'm not much of a baker, mainly because I like to eat the stuff that I bake and that's not good for me. But every once in a while comes an occasion that really needs a celebratory cake. My mother recently turned 85 and she is still game enough to travel, so when she came to visit me here in Holland a couple of weeks after her birthday I organized a little get-together for her. And the cake I made is an old family favourite—Black Forest Cake.

Fish from Landmarkt

Yesterday I decided to check out a newly opened market/supermarket in North Amsterdam. They call it a covered market, but it is more like a supermarket that tries to concentrate on local produce, fish, and meat. At this time of year there is not that much local  produce yet, but the fish and meat counters were very well stocked and attractive, the bakery had great bread, and the service was super friendly.

I bought an ugly fish (zeeduivel a.k.a. sea devil, monkfish, angler fish) and had them clean it and give me the head and bones so I could make some fish stock (a.k.a. fumet). They asked if I wanted some more fish carcases, so I came away with a couple of small turbots at no extra cost. Like I said, nice service.

After checking out some recipes and advice on the internet, this is the fumet I made. It turned out very flavourful, perfect for a lovely Italian fish soup that I plan to make soon. And that fish pie recipe I still need to perfect.

Fish Fumet

• 1.5 - 2 kilos fish heads and bones of white-fleshed fish, such as founder, turbot, halibut, or cod
• 1 large onion
• 1 leek
• 1 stalk celery
• 1/2 fennel bulb
• 3-4 mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 2 bay leaves
• 12 white pepper corns
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cup white wine
• 6 cups water

1. Remove the eyes from the fish heads (I know, not one the nicer tasks). Apparently, they can cause the stock to become bitter if they burst. I also removed the rather slimy, dark skin from the angler fish, as one bit of advice said that fish skin can also make the stock dark and cloudy. So can blood left in large veins in the heads, so soak the fish carcases in cold water for some hours, and then discard the water.
2. Finely dice the onions, celery, leek, fennel, and mushrooms.
3. Heat the oil and butter over medium high heat and when the foam from the butter subsides, add the vegetables,bay leaf, parsley, salt and pepper and give a stir.
4. Add the fish carcases and cover for 5-7 minutes, until the flesh on on fish flakes. Basically the fish steams in its own moisture, along with the vegetable aromatics.
5. Now add the wine a cook for a few minutes to allow the alcohol to evaporate.
6. Then add the water. Bring to a gentle simmer and simmer for 20-30 minutes, skimming off the foam that rises to the surface.
7. Place some muslin or several layers of cheese cloth in a sieve and strain the stock into another pot. Press down on the fish an vegetables to extract all the moisture and flavour.
8. At this point, you can adjust the seasonings and use the stock in a fish soup or sauce, or freeze it. I decided to reduce it further to concentrate the flavour more (and reduce the amount I'd have to store in the freezer!)

Kitchen Gadgets

You would think I have everything my little heart desires in the way of kitchen paraphernalia but I have found room for 2 new acquisitions that I have sort of been wanting—a mandolin and a small slow cooker.

I think the mandolin is my favourite of the two. Instead of being a full-fledged job with multiple blades and a box, and something to protect your fingers, and that costs almost a hundred euros (like the OXO deluxe mandolin), and which claims more space that I don't have in a kitchen cupboard, this is a simple hand-held plastic number with a ceramic blade that cost under 10 euros. And it just hangs on a rack when not in use. Since its acquisition I have been making thinly shaved salads almost everyday. My favourite is a fennel-cucumber salad.

As for the slow cooker, I have been sort of wanting one because they are great for cooking beans and stews unattended overnight or during the day while I am at work. The disadvantage seems to be that most of them are enormous. So when I recently saw a small one, I snapped it up. It was quite inexpensive, probably because it is missing the more sophisticated controls that you let set how many hours it should go for before going into keep-warm mode. Of course I only realized this when I got home. Nevertheless, I am finding it useful. In the photo, it has just finished cooking chickpeas (without soaking), which is pretty well my favourite legume.

Back to the fennel-cucumber salad, it's my own invention, inspired by Japanese sunomono salad. It is light and fresh, sweet and sour, and I eat for lunch several days a week. Anyone coming to dinner in the next couple of months is likely to be eating it. It may even win over people who don't like fennel!

Fennel-Cucumber Salad

• 1 small fennel
• 1/2 English (seedless) cucumber
• 2 teaspoons fresh dill, finely chopped
• 1-2 tablespoons fresh coriander, chopped
• 1-2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 cup apple vinegar

Thinly slice the fennel and cucumber. (I think having the vegetables thinly shaved, which is easiest to do with a mandolin, is really important in this salad.)
Toss together, add the herbs, sugar, and apple vinegar. (I am using a light apple vinegar, but apple cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar would also be suitable)