Sorbet and Granita

Sorbet is a frozen dessert made from a syrup flavoured with fruits, juice or fruit puree, wine, tea, coffee, liqueurs or strong alcohol. Any type of fruit can be turned into a puree for sorbet, and can be sweetened with honey, syrups or sugar. I like to play with the texture and flavors in sorbets by making combinations such as lavender or green tea or chili vodka with chocolate pieces. As a chef I like to make my sorbets to complement the meal, so many times I use rosemary, tomato, beets or basil to make savoury sorbets. I serve sorbet between courses as a way to cleanse the palate before the main course or as a refreshing dessert in the summer. The good sorbets must have a soft, melt-in-the-mouth texture that comes from tiny ice crystals. The tiny crystals are achieved by getting just the right balance of sugar syrup to fruit juice or fruit puree and then constantly turning the mixture as it freezes. For these sorbets that I present you today you don't need an ice cream maker, for that I will use alcohol in these recipes (alcohol lowers the freezing temperature, resulting a soft texture). You need about 3-4 tablespoons of alcohol to 500ml of liquid sorbet for a soft-set style. Sugar and alcohol lower the freezing point, keeping the mixture from freezing into a rock-hard block of ice. For regular sorbets with no alcohol I recommend to use an ice cream machine. If you don't have one, mix the sorbet regularly with a fork as it freezes, or process it in a food processor once frozen. Many recipes suggest beating in egg whites to improve the texture of sorbet, but then you need to be sure of the eggs quality or to use pasteurised eggs (raw eggs may contain salmonella). My sorbets are made with no animal products, so are lower in fat and is suitable for vegetarians. Because sorbet are dense and intensely flavored, serve them in small scoops, so that it does not overwhelm the dinner. If the sorbet is too hard, a small amount of alcohol may be added to the mixture to soften it. Here I share with you some pictures of the sorbets I made this summer and the recipe for Margarita Granita, by far the best seller sorbet cocktail in the restaurant. Please fell free to experiment with your favorites flavor.

Margarita Granita

Ingredients for 20 nice portions

500ml water

250gr sugar

3-4 lime juice and zest

600ml fresh orange juice

2,5kg fresh or frozen strawberry

600ml gold tequila

450 ml brandy

Preparation

Bring the water and sugar to a boil in a saucepan, stirring mixture constantly until dissolved. Pour into a large bowl; add lime juice and zest, orange juice, strawberries, tequila and brandy. Blend until smooth puree with an hand blender or in a liquidizer.

Pour the mixture into a plastic container, and freeze until slushy, about 3 hours, then break up the mixture by running a fork through it several times.

Repeat every 2 hours or so, until the Granita is icy throughout, about 8 hours. It will not freeze hard, as alcohol has a very low freezing temperature.

To serve, scoop the Granita into martini glasses and garnish with a fruit slice, or mint leaves if desired. Serve quickly - its melts fast!

Or try this:

Mango Sorbet with pasion fruit.



Trio Sorbets; Mango and pasion fruit, raspberry and lemon.

Mellon sorbet with summer fruits.

Mojito Sorbet with white rum, lime and mint.

Gin Tonic and cucumber sorbet.

Water melon and Tequila Sorbet. Enjoy!

Pin It Now!

Modern Romanian cuisine (2)

Soups (ciorba or zeama - argot). In fact, in Romania, soup (supă) means something else; it's a homemade clear vegetable and meat broth where we add very thin homemade pasta (more like noodles) or semolina dumplings. But we can not translate ''ciorba'' in English, other then soup.''Zeama'' or ''ciorba'' is the way we call the soup In Romania and we use to eat a lot of them. We have a wide range of soups( zeama or ciorba) that are made with or without meat, or made with fish and they are offered on all menus in Romanian restaurants.Fresh ingredients are the basics to really tasty Romanian soups. As the climate and landscape changes thoughout Romania, regional favourites depend on what is available around the seasons.These can be made from meat and vegetable, beef tripe, pork foot or fish soups and all this can be soured with traditionally borş (fermented wheat bran), lemon juice, sauerkraut juice or vinegar.
Many of this traditional soups recipes use a lot of pork fat and the cooking time for this recipes are long...way to long. By cooking the vegetables to long we destroy not only the bad bacteria but we destroy the good things too. So here in my new modern Romanian recipes I will try to aproach them a bit different and try to save some vitamins beside a new presentation.
Recipes don't always have to be exact, try improvising to make traditional dishes not too traditional...try to make them in the way you like and try to use the fresh ingredients that you already have.
With the wide range of fabulous organic ingredients that exist in Romania today, you can be inspired to make fantastic soups. Organic ingredients enhance taste, and make recipes healthier for you and your family. Number one secret for a good soup is to make a good stock.Stock is most important in making soups because it has flavor, and it carries flavor in soups. Stock is the thin liquid produced by simmering raw ingredients. Then solids are removed, leaving a thin, highly-flavoured liquid. The stock can be made from any meat like... beef, veal, chicken, fish or vegetables. Soup stocks are best made with bone-in meat to slowly release the flavor carrier (collagen) from the bones. By slowly heating it, the collagen dissolves and brings out the flavor from the bones, and picks up the flavors of the aromatic vegetables. In this way stocks have flavours.
''Collagen - a flavor carrier is a substance, generally in liquid form, that can absorb organic molecules. That's because everything with flavor, with the exception of salt, is made up of organic molecules. Water alone cannot not do the trick. Water cannot dissolve organic molecules, which is why oil and water do not mix. Collagen is a substance that comes from bones, tendons, and other tissues of animals. And because it comes from these animal sources, it also brings along with it the flavors that reside within the tissues.''Here I show you how I made duck and goose broth that I used to the duck meat balls soup(ciorba de perisoare).A stock pot should be tall and narrow. The reason for this is that a narrow pot will have less evaporation than a wider pot, and this is a good thing for stocks. Stocks are not made with lids on, as this tends to increase the cooking temperature, which decreases the amount of collagen that is extracted from the bones.

Make sure you don't boil the stock rapidly. Keep it at a very very low simmer, with just a few bubbles coming up. When you remove the solid ingredients at the end of cooking, do it gently, removing large chunks with a slotted spoon or skimmer and then pouring it through a fine strainer. Then, don't mash the ingredients in the strainer to remove more liquid, as you will add little parts of the solid items too.

Once chilled - refrigerate your finished stock, the fats will separate and harden and form a layer on the top of the liquid that you can then easily remove. After you've removed all the chunks of fat from the top, freeze the stock gel (either from naturally occurring gelatin or by adding more gelatin), and then let the gel melt-defrost very slowly in a fine strainer that the clear liquid separates from the gelatin which holds the impurities.
The freezing technique leave you with a nice clear bulion '''consommé'' and takes almost no effort. But the process of chilling the stock, freezing it, and letting it thaw at refrigerator temperatures takes a minimum of 48 hours.

The soup that I liked the most in my childhood (only thinking of it I have mouth-watering) and I want to talk about today, is meat balls soup. There are many types of soups which I hope we're going to talk about in next posts.Duck meat balls soup (Ciorba de Perisoare din Carne de Rata)
Twisted with gold leaf stock is a delicious soup that's both healthy and low in fat!

I made the meat balls with minced meat from the duck legs mixed with thyme, uncooked rice, egg, garlic, one chopped onions cooked in duck fat and some choped parsley.

I serve the duck consommé very hot on the side with a gold leaf mixed in and the meat balls on top of some uncooked julienne vegetables made from carrots, zuckini and red pepper.

It's a great way to get some vitamins and it's beautiful to serve when entertaining during the Holidays with the beautiful red and green uncooked juliennes vegetables in the soup.
To be continued.... Pin It Now!

Water + !

It is very important to drink enough water to stay hydrated in the hot summer days, so here I share with you some great flavored water recipe ideas, to add a twist to your water. Dropping a lemon wedge in water is a common way to add flavor, but you should try another kind of citrus mixed up with a few mint leaves. You can also get creative and mix together some fresh fruits cubes with herbs and ice cubes. Or add a few fresh slices of cucumber to mineral water for a refreshing drink. Or try some slices of fresh ginger in a glass of water to make a drink that’s not only invigorating, but it's also a natural cure for an upset stomach.

This home made flavoured water is the version of what might be poured at a spa or a fine restaurant, where slices of cucumber or citrus are added to the water cans. The fruit and herbs flavors will permeate the water to offer you a special taste experience. This drinks are pure refreshment with flavor of the fruits and herbs but with no sugar or heaviness.
If you don’t like the taste of plain flavoured water from your supermarket, these are a nice alternative. It’s very easy, healthy, inexpensive, and looks beautiful.
Here are few ideas, but basically you can use any fruit you love in any combination.

Sassy Water is a popular drink that reduce your cravings for sweet food and stimulates your digestive system in healthy ways. The recipe is quick, easy and simple. Other web sites say Sassy Water has an energizing effect somewhat similar to caffeine. The ginger is the key; it has natural energy enhancers.
Ingredients:
- 2 liter of water
- 20 mint leaves
- 1/2 cucumber thinly sliced
- 1 spoon of sliced ginger
- 2 lemon thinly sliced
- 2-3 spoons of honey ( I use agave sirup)- optional
Add all the ingredients to the water.
Put the water in the refrigerator and let it get cold. Overnight is recommended.

Water made with dry goji berries and lime.
              
Frozen fruits water.

Lemon, basil and honey.

Orange, tarragon and pine sirup.
Let's drink! Pin It Now!

Modern Romanian cuisine - (1)

What is Modern Romanian cuisine? I want to believe that there are a few chefs out there who do actually have a meaning of that and they will try to improve with passion the classic Romanian cuisine. For me modern cuisine must use high-quality local ingredients, preparing them in ways which combine traditional Romanian recipes with modern innovations. Also, modern approaches for me mean using cooking implements like food processors and maybe reducing the amount of fat, salt or sugar in dishes. I love as well to add extra ingredients for a final touch, to bring the dish to a different level. Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been greatly influenced by Ottoman cuisine while it also includes influences from the other cuisines such as Germans, Russians, Serbians and Hungarians. I love this cuisine that I grew up with.
Today, if you visit any Romanian supermarket you will see the multicultural influence in Romanian food. Today, the cuisine of Romania blends two types of cooking styles: a traditional one, which is used for everyday living in all Romanians houses and the Romanian cuisine that gathers influences from the Western civilizations and is used mainly in restaurants. .
The fast-food industry is developing quickly as well. The fast-food that is consumed in Romania has bad effects on people’s health. Romania is now among the first countries, in the heart disease top, and obesity also becomes a common health problem. Another factor that leads to bad health is represented by the high use of pork fat and pork meat in the preparation of the traditional dishes. In order to remediate these problems, we need to develop new preparation methods, based on the same ingredients with a healthy twist. Pork is the preferred meat, but chicken, beef, lamb, and fish are also popular.
There are many ways to categorize the style of Romanian cuisine but the most important I think is a classification based on regions of the country. Every region has its own fantastic distinct culinary traditions.
I will not speak here about the food from these regions but I'll try to share with you the most popular recipes that I think they deserve to be mentioned in my little story. The one of the most popular dish in Romanian cuisine is Sarmale.
Sarmale is a dish of cabbage, vine leaves or rhubarb leaves ( thanks to PENE, a friend of us, I just found out these are toxic, so I woudn't recommend anyone using them, even if I ate them when I was a child and I'm still here. I haven't eaten them in a very long time, but I remembered them and so I mentioned them in the post) rolled around a filling usually based on minced meat. Minced meat, rice, onions and salt, pepper and fresh thyme are mixed together and then rolled into large plant leaves, which may be cabbage (fresh or pickled), vine leaf (fresh or pickled) or rhubarbs leaves.

The combination is then boiled or cooked in the oven for several hours. While specific recipes vary across the regions, it is uniformly recognized that the best cooking method is slow cooking in large clay pots. Sarmale is one of the staple meals for festive occasions like Christmas, New Year, Easter, birthdays, etc. Also, I remember that my grandmother was making Sarmale without meat, where the meat was substituted with mushrooms and mince vegetables.

Unlike other European cultures, in Romania we use sour cabbage as opposed to fresh cabbage. At the end of the autumn, families traditionally prepare their own sour cabbage by pickling in salted water with thyme and horseradish (as whole cabbage, or as individual leaves, but not shredded) for sarmale-making.
Another kind of Sarmale are those rolled in (grape) vine leaves. Sarmale is normally a heavy dish and is usually eaten during winter. Traditionally, they are served along with mamaliga (polenta) or potatoes, sour cream and fresh chili. Here I will present you some of my Sarmale in new modern way that I made here in Estonia for different occasions and it has been a success every time.

Here I made ''Sarmale'' with  minced wild board, served with polenta cooked in goat milk, red pepper caviar and sour cream.

 Oven baked ''Sarmale'' with tomato sauce and sour cream served on soft polenta.

 Sarmale with deer meat served with white truffle polenta, chili hair and spicy fillo pastry. 

No meat - Sarmale with mushroom and brown rice, served with polenta, piri-piri chili and beetroot sour cream. 

Traditional Sarmale made in wine leaves served with polenta, smoked home made tomato sauce and parmesan. 
To be continued.... Pin It Now!