Kocsonya - aspic

Not even sure if this food is still eaten nowadays that often, but it was typical winter food back in my childhood. It was something made by grandparents, I don't remember even my parents ever making it when I was a kid, but they are doing it now :).

The reason why it is only prepared during the coldest months of the winter is the cold that makes it jelly without a fridge, and because it was the season when the pigs reached their full size and were butchered to provide the families with meat just in time before the holidays.

I wanted to make it as a surprise appetizer for New Year's Eve, but not just some appetizer... a real, traditional, Hungarian appetizer. And.. I spiced up the presentation a bit by serving it in transparent plastic cups, adding small stripes of carrot, parsnip and parsley leaves.

And here it comes.. 

I bought beef shanks instead of the traditionally used pork feet, and the reason was kinda pathetic: I visited a mainly Arabic store instead of an Asian..

It actually turned out to be a really good choice, the smell was significantly better while cooking, imho, and the end result did not suffer a bit, in contrary.
You might find all sorts of recipes using gelatin.. While I believe that is perfectly acceptable way to spice up one's appetizer offering, don't be fooled: it has nothing to do with the traditional aspic, which definitely didn't have any other gelatin than the one from the boiled bones.

Ingredients (2.5 - 3 quarts including the bones)

3 pounds, 1.5 kg beef shanks

1 whole garlic head

whole black pepper

salt 

optional: small pinch of caraway seeds

3 carrots

1 small celery root

1 parsnip

1/2 bunch of Italian parsley
4-5 pink peppers

Serving
soup plates
powder paprika

lemon

Prepare a 6 quart pot, to make sure it comfortable fits your bones and veggies.

Add the bones, add enough water to fully cover the bones and bit extra, and turn on the heat at higher power at the beginning, but as it bubbles reduce it to low-medium, it was the power 4 out of 9 on my induction cook.

Add a humpy tsp of salt, add about 25 pieces of whole black pepper, and add the cleaned garlic cloves.

Let it boil for about 15-20 minutes, and remove any foam that forms on top. Repeat as many time needed, and make sure you remove the foam carefully enough not to mix it back in the juice.

The patience game starts, and you'll have the juice boil for 5-6 hours. 

Even at its very low boiling point the aspic needs to be checked regularly, any foam removed, and evaporated water refilled. I always add boiling water not cold, just 'cause I was told it make a meat soup clearer :).

Mine boiled for about 7 before I added the veggies, and boiled it again for 30-35 minutes until the veggies cooked. 

Remove the veggies as soon as they are soft, but still crunchy. For a traditional aspic leave the veggies out from your serving, but if you like them just put them in the plates.

I discarded all the bones and almost all the cartilage except small bites. Doggie was rather happy about my decision :).

Normally you'd place the skin and whatever falls off from the bones in plates and poor the juice over.

If you wanted a "high en" aspic, you'd also add some beef tail with its soft meat, and place the meat in the plates.

Pour the juice over the meat, let it cool overnight at room, or some colder temperature. 

By the time is cooled to room temperature it should have already a softish, but jelly consistency.

When fully cooled place them in the fridge, and let it for about 4 hours.

Serve with fresh toast, lemon and powder paprika.

Bonn appétit!

Orange - coconut cake

Smelly problem arose in the house. I picked the oranges from one of our trees to let the new harvest enjoy the nutrients, but I had too many.

One full bag, and not so many enthusiasts to eat it. Luckily I stumbled upon this recipe on one of the Finnish blogs I check every now and then, and it looked like it should become a family favorite as hubby likes coconut and everybody likes a savory orange kick.

Ingredients

1 cup, (2 ½ dl) pastry or all purpose flour (NOT bread flower)
1 cup (2 ½ dl) grits
1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup sugar

1 cup oil (any oil that is tasteless, and light)

1 cup orange juice

10 gr, 2 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
orange zest, from 2 oranges
1 tsp vanilla extract
coconut for decoration

Juice for moisturizing 
1 cup apple juice 

1 tbsp lemon juice 
130 gr sugar (1/2 cup). I tried. If you ask me CUT the sugar at least in half, and I might not add any sugar if it is served without the unsweetened whipped cream. If you plan to serve it with the whipped cream, try with the full amount of sugar. You decide. There will be a second try, trust me :).

Serving

unsweetened whipped cream (optional), decorated with few mint or basil leaves

Line the bread pans with baking sheets. In my case the old fashioned brean pan worked better than the silicon, the cake came out higher and less burned on the surface.

Preheat the oven to 350 F, 180 C.

Mix eggs with the sugar, and add the oil, orange zest, orange juice, until well combined. Add the tsp of vanilla, and pinch of salt (optional, but whenever I add vanilla to a batter, especially with grits, salt comes automatically).

Mix in the dry ingredients lightly, aiming for an even batter. No need to overmix.

Place the batter in two bread forms,  and bake for 40-50 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. I turned the heat a bit higher at the beginning, hence the little bit burned top, and in my oven 40 minutes would have been enough, so keep an eye on it.

While the cake is baking, bring the orange juice with the sugar to boiling point, and boil it for couple of minutes until sugar is properly dissolved. Let it cool slightly.

When the cake is ready pour the juice on top of the cake as it comes out of the oven.

Let it cool slightly, then cool for at least 2 hour in the fridge before serving.

Enjoy by itself or with whipped cream if desired.

Bon appétit!

Piparkakku, latest variation

It is the time of the year, again, and I couldn't help but start to bake piparkakku, of course.
Every evening my dearest family is munching loads of Finnish gingerbread, even though I tried hard to save some from being eaten and have a chance to decorate first.. I suppose I will just have to make larger batches.
It all starts by "which shape can we eat?", but then they'll take them all. *Sigh*..
Apologies for the image quality, I'll try to shoot a better with areal camera later, but at least I got the recipe up early, and there is plenty of time to bake them before December.

Ingredients
250 g butter
1.5 dl dark maple syrup (a bit more than a 1/2 cups)
2 dl sugar (a bit less than a cup)
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger (I always add a bit less as it is a very strong taste, so play with it as you wish)
2 tsp cloves, ground
1 tsp cardamom (powder)
2 small eggs
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking soda (kinda humpy) 
500g all purpose flour

Melt the butter with the sugar, syrup and spices until just starts to bubble and is smooth, with both the sugar and butter melted. Remove from heat.
Start beating the two eggs, lightly until foamy, and add the butter-syrup-sugar mixture until well combined.
Fold in the flour, first about one third, mix until homogeneous, and slowly mix in the rest.
Put aside in the fridge for a night.

You can keep them in the fridge for up to 3 days, or freeze and bake at your own convenience.
If you freeze them, remember to remove it from the freezer about 3 hours before you want to use it, it takes minimum 2 hours to soften at room temperature.

Lightly flour the surface of the batter both beneath and on top, and roll it out thin, about 3-4 mm. As you roll add some more flour beneath, it is quite inconvenient to have the shapes stick to the bottom and come up in weird forms.
If you cut more than you can bake, put them in the fridge even for just minutes before they get baked, they will hold their shapes better.
Bake them at 400 F, 200 C, for 6-8 minutes in the middle rack.

I baked little Xmas trees from the cookies seen above on the right, and some Advent candle holders.
Not that we would be religious, but they just look so good as table decoration, don't they?
Place them in airtight containers, and they will be just as good even after 6 weeks. 
Happy baking!

Cream cheese - cranberry muffin

Muffins are new to the Hungarian/Finnish culinary scene.
Some of them are horrible, and I mist say to me is till a mystery how can people eat those full of butter frosting monsters one can encounter basically everywhere here.
There are a few exceptions, though, especially the home made ones. Our first success was a triple chocolate, recipe lost, but desperately looking for it..
To soothe the pain meanwhile, faith sent us  cranberry muffins made by a friend, and they were so good that they were gone in no time, so I obviously begged for the recipe.
I made slight changes to it, khhhhmmm... of course. The main reason is that the amount of sugar looked faaar to big for my European stomach. Second, because I had some shredded coconut I didn't know what to do with, so I had to make a good use for it in these muffins..
For me the cranberry is somehow associated with Xmas, but I had no kitchen back then, so here you go, cranberry dessert that's going to fill our NEXT Xmas table, but meanwhile our pockets on these beatiful and cool spring days :)

Ingredients (makes 24 normal size, 48 mini muffins)
1 cup butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese
1 cup sugar (original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups)
1 1 /2 tsp vanilla
4 large eggs
2 cups all purpose flour (whole wheat flour would work great, too, if not better)
1 1 /2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups fresh (or frozen) cranberries
1/2 cup shredded coconut (original recipe called for chopped cashew nuts, to be tried next)

Preheat oven to 350F. Place 24 baking  cups in a tray and lightly spray them with oil.
Mix butter with sugar, mix in the cream cheese, and at the end mix in the eggs, one by one, mixing each well in before adding the next one.
Mix flour with salt and baking powder, lightly mix in the dry ingredients in the butter-cram cheese mixture. Don't overmix, just to have it kinda evened.
Fold in the fresh or frozen cranberries and coconut.
Scoop batter in the baking cups. I had some mini cups, so I got about 36 of them 3/4th full of batter.
Bake for 20/25 minutes. Let them cool a tiny bit, at least 5 minutes, than remove them to a serving plate.
They are a yummi and healthy-ish snack/dessert for the kids for school, or for you to enjoy.
Bon appetite!

Obs. Minimuffins need to be baked at 380F, and for shorter, like 15-18 min time. I managed to overbake them, slightly, so leave them lighter in color for a tiny bit more moist texture.

Foszlós kalács - challah

This is not the Jewish challah. This is an egg-free, much more white, more fluffy version my Grandma used to bake for every Xmas and New Year. I wasn't sure whether I really liked it so much, or was it just the memories that made it so good.
Anyway, in our region this kalács, and not the "bejgli", is the typical Xmas treat, and I was looking for that particular taste..
In our village everybody makes "kalács" kinda the same way I cook: "I had this much milk for the purpose, so I added the required amount of yeast, and added as much flour as it took to make a soft dough".. But DON't ask for the recipe.. *Sigh*...
Noh, yeah, but my fingers are trained for the bread, "pulla" and "aranygaluska", so I was quite skeptic I'm gonna make any good kalács without some guidelines.
And I found some at Szellem a fazékban blog. Not so useful ones, after all, but it gave me courage to start :). In the recipe says 200 ml milk, but there is no way you can work that amount of flour together in a soft dough with that little amount of milk.. You can of course try, but when I saw that about 1/3 of my flour didn't even cling together with the rest, I just added another 100 ml milk, and a bit later another 50 ml, 'cause I didn't find the dough very soft. At the end of the day, it was still my fingers I used for measurement :) and forgot about the recipe, but I made it at least the same shape as in the recipe because it looked soooo great (isn't it?), regardless that this is not the traditional shape for a "kalács".

Ingredients
600 g flour (~1 liter or ~4 cups)
30 g fresh yeast, or 10 g dry yeast, about 2 heaped tsp
1/2 tsp salt
100 g icing sugar (3.5 ounce)
125 g butter (1cup)
350-400 ml hand warm milk, (1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups) depends how much the flour takes in to make an easy to work with dough, not sticky but not to hard either. 

I used a bit more then 350 ml milk, and though it looked OK, it was hard to roll it out after 45 minutes raising. So, next time I will for sure use 400ml to make a bit softer dough.

Work it together in a smooth, easy to kneed dough (needs quite a bit of kneading to get enough air in it), and let it rise for 30-45 minutes, until the dough grows to about double size.
Divide the dough into 3 parts, roll it out in about 20x40 cm sheet, spread the filling, roll it on the longer edge and try to keep the length. If it shortens just roll it a bit thinner and longer.
Do the same with all three portions and make a nice braid to fit your tray.
Let it rise for another 20 minutes, spread some egg on top, or if you want to leave the eggs out completely then just a bit of water. Let it dry for a minute, or two.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 190 C (375 F) and bake it for 30 minutes on the upper racks. When ready wrap it into kitchen towels and let it cool for about 1 hour. Ready to be served with chocolate milk in the morning.

For the original shape just divide the dough into two, roll it out in a 20x25 cm rectangle, roll it up on the longer edge and place them in two 10x25 cm (preferably 10cm high) trays. Bake for 30 (20? I shell try) min.

Filling
100 g icing sugar (3.5 ounce)
100 g ground poppy seeds or walnut (3.5 ounce)
milk, enough to boil it in a soft cream

The filling is for 1 roll, you will need 3, adjust the amount based on whether you want 2 nut and 1 poppy seed, or 2 poppy seed and 1 nut, or all of them the same.
Boil them together for couple of minutes until they blend nicely in an easy to spread, creamy texture.
 
And one last thing!! If you have leftovers that are dry and you don't feel like eating them as such, beat one egg, (add two tablespoons of milk), dip the kalács slices in the egg and fry them in hot oil, for just couple of minutes, ~1/2 min a side. It is a sort of french toast. Sprinkle it with icing sugar, and tadam, you have a new, fresh breakfast/dessert reusing the leftovers.. It is yumi.

PS. In the pic you see the "kalács" with cocoa powder and cinnamon filling, something you can try as well.
And one secret :). To make the nice cocoa swirl like in the pic don't add cocoa powder straight to the whole amount of dough you want to be with cocoa. Take a large pinch of dough, add a tsp cocoa, work it together well. When the small pinch of dough is smooth, add it to the whole amount of though you wanna be dark, and kneed it together.

White glögi - white Finnish spicy Xmas drink

The white version of the glögi is not so common, but delicious, and I like it very much as a diversity, especially served with tähtitorttu, the Finnish puff pastry, baked preferably with apricot jam and vanilla cream instead of plum marmalade. Tonight I had only piparkakku, but it was great nevertheless..

Ingredients
1 l (4 cups) apple juice
500 ml water
~30 cloves
1 star anise (if you don't have, or like, anise, you can just leave it out or replace it with cloves)
small piece of raw ginger (can be replaced with additional pinch of cloves, or left out)
2 tsp whole cardamom seeds
1 lemon peel, grated
300 ml white grape juice
for ADULTS replace the grape juice with 300 ml white wine (or just add it) and add 50 ml sugar if needed
If you like life spicy, you can add one small chilly as well :) - I added a small pinch of black pepper to my glass

Serving tips
yellow raisins
sliced almond


First of all, the kitchen is not the pharmacy. Use your eye and taste buds to be your guide when measuring the ingredients. If you have small leftovers when mixing the juices don't let them orphaned in the fridge, add them to the mix. :)
Boil on very low heat the water with the spices for 15 min. Add the non-alcoholic ingredients and bring to boil. Add the white wine and chilly.
Serve with raisins and almond. Great accompaniment for puff pastry or ginger bread.

Piparkakku - Finnish gingerbread houses

Our family's all time favorite is the Finnish gingerbread.
We usually make small gingerbread houses, (one per capita ends up to grow in a whole village), churches and small cookies for Xmas. The cookies taste best undecorated, IMHO.
The houses get eaten during the New Year Eve party when the house is full of curious children, and the kids had been sharing it with love and pride so far.. Something to plan for this year as well.
In Finland there is no need to look for gingerbread recipe, there are plenty of choices (and quantities) to buy.  Here we don't have that luxury, so I was in heavy search for recipes.
This is the best I've got, from a friend :). I replaced 1/4th of the maple syrup with molasses, for a stronger taste. You can try it both ways..

Ingredients:
250 g butter
1.5 dl dark maple syrup (a bit more than a 1/2 cups)
2 dl sugar (a bit less than a cup)
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger (I always add a bit less as it is a very strong taste, so play with it as you wish)
2 tsp cloves, ground
2 tsp orange peel (I replaced it with about one small lemon's grated peel)
2 small eggs
pinch of salt
2 tsp baking soda (flat), next time I'm going to try them with baking powder
8 dl wheat flour,  450 - 500g depending on your flour (a bit more than 3 cups)

In a pot add the butter, syrup, sugar and spices. Heat it up, mixing all the time, let it just start to boil and remove from heat. Let it cool down a bit and mix in the eggs. Add the flour & baking soda + salt. Let it stand in the fridge over night. If the pastry is soft, no worries, just add a bit of flour next day to make it workable.
With some flour below and on top roll it into thin sheets (~3 mm) and with a cookie cutter cut out some nice cookies. Bake them in 200 C (400F) for about 10 minutes, so that they get a bit of color. Makes about 60-70 cookies.
You can decorate them with icing if you like. We decorated about 60 of them for classmates, I'm gonna post a pic tomorrow..

House:
If you decide to make houses and not cookies, design your house, cut it out from paper, cut the dough, bake the pieces. If it bakes in more irregular shapes than you like, and it looks like it is going to be hard to put together, adjust them with a knife until warm. Melt some sugar (~60 g, 1/2 cup)  until golden, dip the wall edges into the sugar and use it as glue. It dries VERY quickly, but be careful, this is not something to do with kids. It burns your skin really badly..
Quick instructions about size if you don't want anything special: cut four 6x12 cm rectangles for side walls and roof, two 6x6 cm squares for back and front, cut a 2x4 cm piece out of the front wall as door, and bake an irregular ~20x35 cm oval(ish) base. One portion of dough makes 3 houses with some additional pine trees and angels :).
Decorate as you like, (icing recipe) and sift some icing sugar on top.

Vanilla/almond crescent shaped cookies or Vaníliás-mandulás kifli

I have a favorite Xmas and New Year coffee cookie, a kinda linzer if you want to give them some names.
They are VERY easy to make, trust me, don't bother with the ones in the shop which are full of E-s :).

Ingredients:
250 g pastry flour (you can use half whole grain as well)
200 g butter
80 g icing sugar
100 g almond flour (ground almond)
1 tsp vanilla aroma (optional)
Vanilla sugar for rolling the croissants

Mix the butter with sugar until creamy (and vanilla, if you add any), add the almond and the normal flour and work it well together in a soft dough. Form small, about 5-6 cm long and 1 cm thick croissants. Not too big ones, though the dough doesn't have baking powder it will grow pretty big, and don't make them very pointed at the ends either, it will burn too early.
Place them on trays covered with parchment paper. Bake them for 10-15 minutes at 175 C - 350 F(my oven is not heating up very well, so I baked them at 180 C), depends how golden you want them.
While still hot roll them in the vanilla sugar if you like them sweet, if you prefer them moderately sweet is enough if you just sprinkle them a little bit.
Be careful, for the first half a minute/minute they are the most fragile cookies I've ever baked, but eventually they harden enough to be able to manipulate them.

If you want to play with the shapes, you can also roll the dough, about 3-4 mm thick, and cut it with your cookie cutters, and even glue two of them together with jam, like raspberry or blueberry jam.
The dough is not easy to work with in this case, so better use two sheets of baking paper, one below and one on top when rolling, and you'll need some spatula to place the cookies in the trays.

PS. If you live in the US, like I do at the moment, and are struggling finding vanilla sugar, don't panic. Buy a small bottle with two vanilla beans like Simply Organic, cut them, take the small black seeds out and mix it with sugar, kinda filling the original bottle back till almost full, about 100g sugar. You can squeeze even the whole leftover of the beans in the bottle, it will intensify the flavor.
Close the cork and let it soak in the aroma for a week at least for best results. 

Mézeskalács - Hungarian gingerbread

Today I was inspired by the Hungarian gingerbread making at the House of Hungary in Balboa park, so I decorated our home made gingerbread cookie after our arrival home with a different technique then I usually do...
It is easy to be made with kids for Xmas.
The recipe came from a Hungarian site as I didn't find my cook book yet.. Messy me :).
You can find the original at A büfé, for those who read Hungarian it might be more enjoyable.
For those who don't, here is the English version.

Ingredients 
300 g pastry flour
50 g whole wheat flour
150 g acacia honey, I actually used ginger honey, but use any type of not so thick honey
100 g icing (castor) sugar
1 tsp cocoa powder – optional, only for color, you can make different shades of gingerbread
1 tsp baking soda (flat)
60 g butter
1 egg + 1 egg yolk (save the white for the icing/decoration on top)
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon (depends how spicy you like the gingerbread)
1/2 - 1 tsp clove, minced (depends how spicy you like the gingerbread) 
pinch of minced ginger – optional

Icing
1 egg white
200 g icing sugar
1 small tsp vinegar - optional, makes the icing more shiny
food coloring
2 tbsp of food starch - needed only if you want more professional looking cookies, of course healthier without

Preheat the oven to 180 C, 355 F. Mix the dry ingredients like flour, icing sugar, spices, baking soda.
Add the room temperature butter and crumble it in the flour mix.
Heat the honey to a bit higher temperature then the body temperature (approx 50-60 C, 120-140 F) and add it to the mixture.
Last, but not least, add the egg and the egg yolk, mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.
Wrap it with cling wrap and let it cool for at least 15 minutes in the fridge. I forgot it for about 4 hours and it was still good :), so I suppose you can leave it for overnight if time is tight.
Divide it into three 3 parts (roughly, it is only for convenience) and roll it out 2-3 mm thick. You can add a little flour at the bottom and top if the dough is too sticky.
Cut it with your favorite shapes and place them onto trays covered with baking paper. Put approximately same size cookies in the same tray as the smaller ones need less, the bigger ones more baking.
Bake it for 8-10 minutes (8 min softer texture, 10 min easier to handle), and let them cool on a flat surface.
You can store them in airtight containers for weeks, with the honey they will only get softer :).
Enjoy.

PS. My suggestion would be NOT to add any cocoa powder at the beginning but rather mix all the other ingredients, divide the dough into three parts, leave one part as it is, add one half a teaspoon of cocoa powder to the second, and one teaspoon of cocoa powder to the third part.
You will right away have a nice variety of shades, and they look great on the plate.

Tomorrow we will bake the Finnish style Xmas gingerbread called Piparkakku, which has a bit different spices, more butter, and maple sirup instead of honey. If interested come back a bit later for the recipe, I can't promise though that it will come right tomorrow :).