Yesterday’s Spaghetti “Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino” (following my old recipe) with a side of garlicky, buttery oven roasted green asparagus. This is easy:
Smoked Char
We got two beautiful chars from our favourite fishmonger and brined (see below) them over night. Then they were “hot smoked” – a fast and delicious cooking method, but not suitable for long-term preservation.
Hot smoke for about 30++ minutes (depending on the size of your fish) at up to 90°C/195 °F and until golden on the outside. Add your favourite smoking wood after 10 minutes for a nice aroma. They’re done when you can pull out the back fin very easily and can be served for example with toasted bread, salad and horseradish. They’ll keep in the fridge for max. 2-3 days.
Pickles Taste Test
After 4½ days in the fridge I went to try the pickles I made last week. Summary: Really not bad at all, but of course improvements are possible.
Asparagus and onions are perfectly ok; Crunchy, fresh and bright. A great addition to “Brotzeit”! I won’t do it again with green onions though, they became rather mushy and even got a little brown. Absolutely edible but not very appealing.
Also, I’ll try some more sugar next time since that distilled white vinegar is very acidic and needs to be balanced out a little more.
Cream of Green Asparagus Soup Recipe
I tried making pickles for the first time lately, among else using asparagus as a vegetable. Since I didn’t want to throw away the trimmings I made cream of asparagus soup. Not complicated, not time consuming and tasty.
Basic Vegetable Pickling Recipe
I wanted to try pickling, so I decided to give it a try on the weekend, but starting with only small batches. My beloved aunt Inge would vividly oppose to the term “pickling” (she’s an institution on home grown greens as well as food-preservation and she’s some kind of an old-style, longtime proficient german homesteader, not the american style 🙂 ). But I’ll try anyway.
Roasted Garlic Recipe
There’s a sh*tload of videos online from people making oven roasted garlic and using it for garlic bread, etc. I wanted to try that too eventually – and boy, is that amazing! The whole house smelled of garlic and I don’t want to know how *I* smelled afterwards 🙂 This is luscious, delicious and by the way absolutely easy to make. Do try this if you haven’t already.
Oven Baked Chicken with Marsala Sauce Recipe
I found a bottle of Marsala wine in the basement, long forgotten and once used for cooking that I just had to make use of. Marsala is an italian special origin type of sweet wine that I mostly know for it’s use in cooking – and it makes for a very pleasant and delicious flavour.
Since I was finally (st)able enough again – *sigh* – to be somewhat productive and contribute something for the family, here’s yesterday’s dinner. The ingredients list makes it look far more complicated than it actually is.
Pan-fried Cod with Shallot Sherry Sauce Recipe
We’ve got a very good fishmonger literally “around the corner”, in not even five minutes walking distance. So we eat more fish when we’re here 🙂 This time it was fresh cod with a very delicious sauce and here is the recipe:
