At the Greek

Last week we went to a Greek restaurant in our hometown. We've been here many times before and always were satisfied. This time it wasn't as good as we're used to. Service was slow and they didn't pay a lot of attention.
As an entree I had mushrooms in cream sauce with baguette.

Mushroom in cream sauce

This was the only dish that was good this evening. Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures but the lighting in the restaurant was bad also and I couldn't use my flashlight because it lighted the plates up too much.
Next was the main course. The gyros on my plate wasn't warm, one of my daughters ordered chips and got rice instead, we had to ask three times for the tzatziki we ordered, they left empty glases and bottles standing on our table, the calamari one of my daughters ordered was tough and the cutlery wasn't replaced after the entree.

My main dish (gyros, lamb chop, steak, souvlaki, tzatziki, rice and bean salad)

All in all it was a disappointment. When we wanted to leave (we weren't in the mood for a dessert anymore) the waiters were to busy to look at our table, so we got up to the bar to pay. Next time we're gonna try a different Greek!

Have a nice meal!

Petra

Panna Cotta at Aria

As I wrote earlier I made a strawberry panna cotta.

 Imagine my surprise when I saw this picture of a pre-dessert at Aria restaurant in Sidney:

Source: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/139525-a-week-in-sydney-two-restaurants-per-day-plus-cake/

Maybe I should write to Chef Matt Moran and ask him for a job :)


One of the dishes I tried lately was Glazed carrots and onions. The glaze was way to sticky and now I'm looking for a better recipe. It looked good though.

Have a nice meal!

Petra

Quick nasi goreng

When I don't have much time to cook I like to make a pasta or a quick nasi goreng. Today was one of these days. I was busy sending job applications, go grocery shopping, clean some things and took the dogs for a long walk. I didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen so I made nasi goreng, the quick way.


Ingredients


Oil (I used peanut oil)
1 Onion, finely chopped
1 Garlic clove, finely chopped
1 Leek, sliced as you like it
1 Can of sliced mushrooms
200 gram chicken breast, cut into strips
"Boemboe voor nasi goreng" from Conimex
400 gram Rice


Recipe


- Cook the rice as you normally do
- Put the oil in the pan
- Put the onion and the garlic in the pan 'til there glazed
- Add the chicken breast and fry until done
- Put the leek and the mushrooms in the pan and fry them
- Add 50 ml water and the boemboe
- Add the rice when it's done
- Serve with satay sauce, prawn crackers and fried onions (sos sate,
  keropok udang dan bawang goreng)

Have a nice meal!


Petra

Tagliatelle with salmon and mushroom

Today on the menu:


Tagliatelle with salmon and chestnut mushrooms.


It's a variation on a dish I found on the WWW a long time ago (I think it was on Smulweb.nl). Everybody in our house loves this dish!

Recipe:


Ingredients:


Olive oil
400 gram chestnut mushrooms, sliced
400 gram smoked salmon, cut into small pieces
500 gram tagliatelle
250 ml whipping cream (not whipped of course :) )
2 tbsp white wine
2 shallots, finely chopped


- Cook the tagliatelle
- Put oil in a pan, put the shallots and white wine in and let it boil down
- Put the whipping cream in the pan with the shallots and wine and
   let it boil softly
- Put oil in another pan and fry the mushrooms
- When the mushrooms are done, take them out of the pan and keep
   them warm
- Put the salmon in the "mushroompan" and fry it
- When the salmon is ready, put the mushrooms back in the pan with
   the salmon and take it of the heat
- Pour the shallots mixture over the tagliatelle when it's cooked.
- Serve the mushroom salmon mixture seperately and put a little
   parsley on top


Have a nice meal!


Petra

Tomato consomme and Panna Cotta with strawberries

As I look on the internet for recipes and other foody things I stumble upon some great works of art. I use Twitter a lot to be updated about different chefs and that's where I found this picture by Tom Kitchin. It really looks great and I wish I could take a bite.

Tomato and local mozzarella, chilled tomato consomme and tomato toast



Dishes like this inspire me to make things like a tomato consomme, so now I'm looking for a good recipe.

Another thing I found on the net was this recipe for Panna Cotta with strawberries. I never made a dessert like this before and thought I would give it a try. Boy, that was a big succes! One of my daughters called it one of the best desserts she had ever eaten!

It inspired me to make more desserts and I have already thought about variations on this Panna Cotta.

The next new thing I want to try is make macarons. I'm still looking for a good recipe so any suggestions are welcome!

Have a nice meal!

Petra

Pangasusfilet curry

One of the things I tried lately was a curry based upon a Masterchef Australia recipe "Blue Eye Trevalla and Mussel curry" Instead of Blue Eye Trevalla, because I don't live in Australia ;), and mussels I used Pangasusfilet.

All the ingredients needed for the curry.

I was very lucky to be able to buy curry leaves. They are not in the toko that often so I was glad to get my hands on them. The lady in the toko told me to put them in the freezer, so I could use them for a long time.

A very important part of cooking, the mise-en-place

Before I learned more about cooking I was doing all things at once, causing myself to be completly stressed out and never enjoying what I was doing. Now I take the time to prepare myself. I organise the kitchen, cut and dice everything I need, put all of the spices on the kitchen counter and then I start cooking. And these days I never forget to taste and use my palate to judge if a dish has enough flavour! And you know what? You can taste it in the food, because now I cook with one more ingredient: Love!

This is what looked like with al ingredients in the pan.

With the curry I served Paratha bread, I also made. I forgot to take a picture of the bread, but I was very proud! It was the first time I made something with dough that didn't fail.

Everybody enjoyed the curry and they really loved the Paratha bread! When a dish is well received it makes you want to cook more dishes :)

Have a nice meal!

Petra