KitchenBaroness: hors d'oeuvres

Showing posts with label hors d'oeuvres. Show all posts

Sunday, 22 February 2015

Blini, Fluffy Buckwheat And Plain Flour Pancakes

Hi! I'm now working from Wordpress. I've spent a great deal of time editing and reorganising this post on Wordpress and it is so much friendlier to read & follow my recipe from there. Click on this link to take you directly to the recipe:

Blini, Fluffy Buckwheat And Plain Flour Pancakes

Link to my newest and old recipes, click:

https://kitchenbaroness.wordpress.com/

These addictive soft and spongy pancakes are associated with Russian cuisine.

They are often served topped with savoury items like smoked salmon, caviar, salmon roe and sour cream. More humble ingredients like chopped eggs and melted butter go on them too.

I like blini that have buckwheat flour added into its batter. The batter also has to be yeast risen. I appreciate how the yeast helps to develop the mix of buckwheat and plain flours into pancakes with a flavour that is certainly not like the all-purpose flour, eggs and milk pancakes that many of us are accustomed to.

How do these blini taste? A 100% buckwheat flour pancake will have a clearly earthy and almost metallic taste. The mixture of buckwheat and all-purpose flour that I use in a rough 1:3 ratio gives the blini a pleasant slight earthiness and the blini are light and spongy. Take a look at the depth of the blini in my cover photograph. No amount of quick acting baking power or bicarbonate of soda can replicate the taste and texture of the work yeast does to the batter.

Whilst reading up on blini, I found it interesting that whilst most of the world outside Russia (and possibly in parts of the Balkans) refer to blini almost definitively as small raised pancakes, children who grew up eating their grandmother's blini will say blini are in fact similar to crepes, those wide and thin pancakes.

They would say the recipe that I am providing are not actually for blini but for Oladushki/Oladyi, small thick pancakes. I am not Russian and I am certain my grandmother never even heard of the word blini, so I won't know right from wrong here. All I know is blini are a treat to eat and highly addictive!

Serve them as starters, as a light brunch, for tea, any time is a good time!

BLINI FLUFFY BUCKWHEAT PLAIN FLOUR PANCAKES

Prep:	10 minutes
Cook:	10 minutes
Inactive:	30 + 10 minutes for batter to rise and develop flavour
Level:	Easy
Makes:	20 circles of 2" (5cm) blini
Oven Temperature:	-
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Keeps well refrigerated up to 2 days.

Just the ingredients

For the batter
1/8 cup (0.70oz)(20g) buckwheat flour
1/4 +1/8 cup (1.76oz)(50g) all-purpose/plain flour
1 teaspoon vital wheat gluten
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon butter
1/3 cup + 2 Tablespoons (100ml) milk
3 Tablespoons (50ml) light sour cream
1 egg yolk
1 egg white

For the topping (a combination of any of the following)

Ingredients

For the batter

Dry ingredients

1/8 cup (0.70oz)(20g) buckwheat flour

You could increase the ratio of buckwheat to plain flour to your liking. Locally, you are likely to find buckwheat flour in the Health Food aisle of better stocked supermarkets.

1/4 +1/8 cup (1.76oz)(50g) all-purpose/plain flour

1 teaspoon vital wheat gluten

Vital wheat gluten is derived from the endosperm of the wheat berry and is often added to a bread dough mix to help bake a loaf with more volume. I add it to give the blini extra lightness.
Vital wheat gluten can be purchased at better stocked supermarkets. I use Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten. This does come in a 1 lb 6 oz (623g). It is a large bag so keep sealed and refrigerated. I use it often in my wholemeal loaves. Take a look at my recipe for Moroccan Inspired Wholemeal Round Loaves. It bakes beautiful, light wholemeal loaves with the addition of vital wheat gluten.

For the same reason, I add vital wheat gluten into my Braided Stollen With Three Logs Of Marzipan. It is a sweet loaf studded with fruits and threaded with marzipan. Delicious.

This recipe will work without the vital wheat gluten. The blini will taste the same but you might not get the same depth and softness.

3/4 teaspoon instant yeast

I use SAF-instant.

1 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients

1 Tablespoon butter

1/3 cup + 2 Tablespoons (100ml) milk

3 Tablespoons (50ml) light sour cream

1 egg yolk

1 egg white

Others

1 Tablespoon butter for buttering the skillet for frying

For the toppings

Light sour cream or creme fraiche

Salmon roe

Caviar

Ikura (Shoyu) Japanese salmon roe marinated in soy sauce & sake/mirin

Ebiko, Japanese prawn roe

Tobikko, Japanese flying fish roe

Lump fish roe

Hard boiled eggs, chopped up

Melted butter

Method

Mix the flours, vital wheat gluten, yeast, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Set aside the dry ingredients.

Melt the butter. Add the milk, sour cream and stir to mix. Add the egg yolk and mix well. With a whisk, gradually add into the dry ingredients, making sure there are no lumps and the batter is smooth.

Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for 30 minutes or until tiny bubbles appears on the surface of the mixture and it looks slightly frothy.

Once it reaches that stage, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form.

Transfer 1/3 of the whipped egg whites into the batter and mix in gently. Next, work in the remaining 2/3 of the egg whites by using a wide spatula or spoon to gently fold in the egg whites. Work with a light hand so that you keep as much air bubbles in the egg whites as possible.

Let the batter sit for 10 to 15 minutes while you prepare your skillet.

When you are ready to fry, heat the skillet on medium heat. Butter the skillet and dollop 1 Tablespoon (use less/more depending on the size of blini you want) into the heated skillet. Leave 1" (2.5cm) around each blini to allow room to flip the pancakes.

Once the circumference of the blini have dried up a little and tiny bubbles appear on the surface (takes about 90 seconds), flip the blini over.

It should take another 1 minute for the blini to cook through.

Transfer to cool before embellishing with your choice of toppings.

Tips

Prepare batter ahead

The batter can be made ahead the day before. This means you will end up with blini that are slightly sour as the yeast has been given more time to develop the batter. Some people prefer this taste and will deliberately set aside time for the batter to develop to achieve this flavour. Note that you only add the whipped egg whites 10 minutes before you are ready to fry.

Batter can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled, sextupled.

At my recent New Year Eve's party, I sextupled the recipe to cater to over 20 people and made 20 X 6 = 120 blini. Using a long double burner griddle (you can use 2 skillets), I fried the blini an hour before party time. You could fry them up to 2 days before. They cook really fast so you are actually bent over a stove for a shorter period than you expect.

I topped 2 trays of blini with my choice of toppings and served them to the first guests. Thereafter, I had these guests help me replenish the blini which was great as it gave me time to prepare the rest of dinner.

Other ways to serve

Making it informal or serving to a smaller group

If you want to make it less formal or if you are having a small group over, lay out the blini and toppings and have guests help themselves. That is how I set it up in my cover photograph. It might be less formal eating but it still manages to make a dramatic and indulgent presentation.

Top it with unconventional toppings

One of my favourite combinations is an easy mix of avocado and light sour cream as a base that I top with crisp bacon. Yummy.

WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT?
I am going to work on a series of Easter breads. Through the years, I have seen many delicious looking Easter breads and I have always wanted to try my hand at baking them. So this year, I am going to do just that as we move towards Easter.

To start my Easter bake off, I am going to post my recipe for a lovely loaf of Hot Cross Buns. I don't particularly care for traditionally Hot Cross Buns which I find rather bland and predictable, so look out for my next post where I show you how it can be baked to taste more interesting.

Friday, 10 October 2014

Labneh, Thick Creamy Yogurt Cheese

Labneh, Thick Creamy Yogurt Cheese

Link to my newest and old recipes, click:

https://kitchenbaroness.wordpress.com

Labneh is simply yogurt that has been drained over a cheesecloth draped colander. What you are left with after the whey is drained off is a dense and creamy yogurt that has a similar consistency to softened cream cheese.

Here I serve it with just good honey and extra virgin olive oil. You don't need to dress it up too much or it will lose the lush clean flavour. I often eat it as is but you may choose to serve it as part of a meze and have freshly baked bread on hand.

Labneh can be used in either sweet or savoury dishes. It is very much like a slightly sour, lighter version of cream cheese or a cross between creme fraiche and a light sour cream.

This recipe is one in a list of recipes that falls under my series on, Meze, A Selection of Wonderful Little Bites. With the festive season approaching, I thought it would be useful to post recipes on pre-dinner bites that could be used at one of your year-end parties.

A few easy, do ahead hors d'oeuvres is always a good thing to serve during the festive period when you usually have more elaborate menus and even more guests to cater to. Preparing some pre-dinner bites will preserve your sanity.

And, instead of bending over the stove looking disheveled and beading with sweat, you will look positively poised and relaxed as you mingle with your guests. After all, half the work is already done. Your guests' tummies will be comfortably filled with your tasty pre-made meze. Then, at your leisure, you can saunter into the kitchen to get the rest of the meal ready. That's pretty stress free entertaining.

This is a picture taken at my recent meze party - Meze, A Selection of Wonderful Little Bites. With such an array of tasty morsels to choose from, no one cared for a main course or had room for it!

Scroll down the bottom of the page to find out the names of the meze that I had prepared.

LABNEH, THICK CREAMY YOGURT CHEESE

Prep:	5 minutes
Cook:	-
Inactive:	6 hours to 24 hours
Level:	Easy
Makes:	About 3 cups
Oven Temperature:	-
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Up to a week. Keep covered and refrigerated.

Ingredients

4 cups (1 litre) full fat Greek style yogurt

1 teaspoon salt

Method

Line a colander with cheesecloth, handkerchief or draining filters as I did. Have the colander sit over a bowl to catch the whey.

Open the carton of yogurt. Stir in 1 teaspoon of salt. Transfer into the colander. Cover it and let it drain in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours but ideally 24 hours. I forgot about it once and let it drained for 48 hours. No problem.

Remember to pour off the whey that has collected at the end of the day so that it does not come back into contact with the bottom of the draining yogurt. When the yogurt has drained off, transfer it into a clean vessel, cover and refrigerate.

Don't waste the whey, use it to make bread. I have a recipe, Hamburger Buns, Savoury Buns. Replace the milk called for in that recipe with whey. The bread will be soft and taste a little like a sour dough bread. You might want to reduce the salt called for in the bread recipe as the whey has salt in it.

See my honey bear? It comes in handy when I serve the labneh with just honey. Doesn't the labneh look wonderfully creamy?

There it is served with a sprinkling of zaatar (a spice mix that has dried thyme, sumac, sesame seeds, etc.) and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. All you need is some warm, home baked bread to go with it. I do have a recipe for a Moroccan Round Loaf. I just have to get round to posting that recipe. You can see the loaf that I baked on the meze table pictured above.

Tips

Here are two other ways to use Labneh, one savoury and one sweet. The list will get too long if I write down more suggestions so I will save my other suggestions for a separate post.

Roll them into ping pong size balls. (You can only roll them into balls when the whey has completed drained off - 24 hours). Pour extra virgin olive oil to cover. Add dried herbs of your choice, pepper and salt. Cover to seal. Refrigerate for a few days to let the flavours develop. Serve as part of a meze with bread, spread over bread...
Divide the labneh into little 1/4 sized cups. Sprinkle with soft dark brown sugar to cover completely. My favourite is raw organic coconut sugar. Cover and let the sugar soak into the labneh overnight and up to three days. It turns into like a treacle soaked pudding. Yum.

WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT?

Greek inspired Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta!

After eating several clean tasting vegetables based meze, a savoury protein based dish is always welcome! I use frozen raw shrimp that have been cleaned and shelled so it saves me a lot of work! Any short cuts that won't take any flavour away from my food or add any unnecessary preservative is always welcome!

Friday, 3 October 2014

Zaalouk, Moroccan Grilled Eggplants And Tomatoes

Zaalouk, Moroccan Grilled Eggplants And Tomatoes

Link to my newest and old recipes, click:

https://kitchenbaroness.wordpress.com/

Zaalouk has become a staple whenever I serve a spread of meze (little bites). The way to enjoy it is to dip a piece of bread torn off from a freshly baked loaf into the Zaalouk.

It tastes tangy (from the tomatoes) and slightly smoky as the eggplants (aubergines) are grilled until the skins are well charred. The softened eggplant is then scraped off its blackened skin and simmered with tomatoes, onion, garlic, parsley, coriander and a mix of cumin, allspice and paprika.

If you have not had this before, you can imagine with the combination of herbs and spices, it will and it does taste wonderfully different from conventional dips. You should know that Zaalouk is often referred to as a 'cooked salad' and not a dip. Actually, you just need to know it is delicious.

In the blog post preceding this one, I introduced the idea of serving a selection of 'small bites' before your main course as a sensible way of entertaining during year-end parties when you are more likely to cater to a larger group.

Putting out a plate or two of small bites also serves as a means to buy you time to finish preparing the rest of your courses and to just free yourself somewhat from the kitchen. Read more on that in my introductory post, Meze, A Selection Of Wonderful Little Bites.

This post then marks the start of my series on meze, little bites, finger foods, appetisers, hors d'oeuvres... whatever you like to call them.

First row:

Zaalouk - Moroccan Roasted Eggplants and Tomatoes; Kabis - Lebanese Pickled Turnips & Beets; Moroccan inspired Radish, Bell Peppers and Mint Salad; Flash Fried Sweet Mini Bell Peppers.

Second row:

Greek inspired Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta; Hummus with Spiced Angus Beef Slices; Beef Kafta - Lebanese inspired Meatballs.

Third row:

Labneh - Lebanese Drained Yogurt Drizzled With Extra Virgin Olive Oil And Clover Honey; Moroccan inspired Roasted Green Bell Peppers and Tomatoes With Olives; Fresh Figs With Peppered Ricotta.

ZAALOUK, MOROCCAN GRILLED EGGPLANTS AND TOMATOES

Prep:	5 minutes
Cook:	30 to 40 minutes
Inactive:	-
Level:	Easy
Makes:	3 cups
Oven Temperature:	-
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Up to 3 days. Keep covered and refrigerated.

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil for some light sauteing and a little more oil, 1 to 2 Tablespoons to drizzle over the Zaalouk before serving.

1/3 cup onion, diced small

610g (1.3 lbs) eggplant/aubergine

I use the long slender purple coloured ones so that I don't have to worry about bitterness or any extra large seeds.

411g 14.5 oz canned diced tomatoes

Most other recipes for Zaalouk will call for fresh tomatoes. Unfortunately, good fresh tomatoes are hard to come by locally. Unless you have access to premium tomatoes, buy premium canned tomatoes instead and you will get better results from those canned ones than the often 'flavourless' fresh ones.

4 garlic, minced

3 Tablespoon Italian parsley, cut finely

3 Tablespoon coriander, cut finely

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon paprika powder

Start with 1/4 teaspoon and adjust according to your preference.

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon allspice powder (or you can substitute with cinnamon powder)

Start with 1/4 teaspoon and adjust according to your preference.

Allspice is also referred to as Jamaican Pepper and I have seen it labelled as Pimento Berries. The berries look like dried juniper berries and are slightly larger than a black pepper seed (without the wrinkles). It taste like a mixture of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

Conventional Zaalouk recipes do not ask for allspice powder but I like the extra flavour that it adds to my Zaalouk.

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

Directions

Cut off the stalks from the eggplants.

Grill the eggplants until the insides are soft and the skins are charred all round.

Cool and peel back the blackened skins and use a spoon to scrape off all the bits of flesh from under the skins. Those slightly charred bits stuck there have the smokey flavour that you want. Cut the inner flesh into small chunks. Set aside.

Do use both coriander, the one on the left with the more delicate leaves and the Italian parsley, the one on the right. They do not taste quite the same and there is a nice balance of flavours when you use both coriander and Italian parsley. Cut finely and set aside.

Add the 1 Tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil into a deep saucepan or pot. Saute the diced onions lightly to soften. Now add everything else in. Yes, everything. Easy isn't it? Stir occasionally and break up the tomatoes and eggplants against the sides of the pot with a wooden spoon. Simmer on medium for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, the Zaalouk should look like the one I cooked pictured below. Taste to adjust the seasoning and to check that all the vegetables and herbs have softened. If it needs more cooking time, simmer for a further 5 to 10 minutes. Cool before serving.

To serve, pour into a serving dish with a 1" (2.5 cm) depth. Create a little well with the back of a spoon. Pour the reserved 1 to 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil into the well. Garnish if you like with coriander or parsley leaves.

Serve with bread or be naughty and bring out the tortilla chips.

Tips

This is one of those dishes that taste just as well on the first day, the second day and even into the third day. So certainly consider making this in advance to lighten your cooking load.
To encourage you to use canned tomatoes (but they do have to be of a premium quality), I had cooked two separate lots of Zaalouk, one with fresh tomatoes and the other with canned tomatoes. That top photograph of Zaalouk was cooked using canned tomatoes. It has a lovely fresh look to it and it taste as lovely as it looks. The Zaalouk that is featured in the photograph of meze was cooked with the best fresh tomatoes I could find locally (sadly they often fall short on flavour), the colour is not as vibrant and I much prefer the taste made with canned tomatoes. You compare and decide for yourself.
When I am not serving Zaalouk as part of a meze, I usually serve it with tortilla chips and don't bother about the flat bread or pita. Tortilla chips and salsa has become a rather predictable pairing, try replacing it with Zaalouk instead.
Leftover Zaalouk tastes very, very good toss with spaghetti.
Any other leftover Zaalouk can be used as a sauce to simmer away with any leftover beef kefta (they are meatballs - take a look at the picture of meze above), a recipe that I will be posting fairly soon.

WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT?

Flashed Fried Sweet Mini Bell Peppers. I call them 'flashed fried' because the peppers are literally fried over super high heat for one to two minutes! How quick and simple is that? And, they are good!

To recap, this post is part of my series on Meze, A Selection of Small Bites. It kicks off my start on possible appetisers that you could serve at your year-end parties.

Here are the recipes I have posted:

Zaalouk, Roasted Eggplants and Peppers
Flash Fried Sweet Mini Bell Peppers
Labneh - Lebanese Drained Yogurt Drizzled With Extra Virgin Olive Oil And Clover Honey
Greek inspired Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta
Fresh Figs With Peppered Ricotta
Kabis - Lebanese Pickled Turnips and Beets
Hummus with Spiced Angus Beef Slices
Moroccan inspired Radish, Bell Peppers and Mint Salad
Beef Kafta - Lebanese inspired Meatballs
Moroccan inspired Roasted Green Bell Peppers With Tomatoes and Olives
Moroccan inspired Wholemeal Round Loaf.