Racaire's Embroidery & Needlework…

cooking – my favourite recipes – Zwetschkenröster & Marillenmarmelade :)

I think I suffered from a jam & compote madness this week

I turned about 10 kg “Zwetschken” (plums) and 5 kg French “Marillen” (apricots) into “Zwetschkenröster” (stewed plums) and “Marillenmarmelade” (apricot jam).

The plums were available for 0,99 Euros per kg and I got the 5 kg French apricots for about 6 Euro – prices where I really couldn’t resist not to buy them – unfortunately I got no Austrian apricots from the “Wachau” region – apricots from the Austrian “Wachau” region are the best ones – a friend told me that the complete harvest was ruined because most of the apricot blossoms where destroyed by very bad and stormy weather with hail during Spring… *sigh* …but I think French apricots aren’t bad for this reason and next year I will use Austrian ones…

I am sure I made enough “Zwetschkenröster” and “Marillenmarmelade” until the next plum and apricot season and now I have plenty preserving jars filled with compote and jam – great selfmade presents for christmas, birthdays,… …and my boyfriend loves my “Zwetschkenröster”

Marillenmarmelade / apricot jam

reife, entkernte Marillen / pitted apricots
per 1 kg Marillen 700 g Feinkristallzucker / per 1kg apricots about 700 g sugar
Abschmecken mit Zitronensaft / season to taste with lemon juice
etwas echte Vanille / some Vanilla

Cut the apricots in small cubes and put them into a big pot, mix it with the sugar and heat it up slowly, stir from time to time until it boils.

Add some Vanilla and season to taste with lemon juice.

Boil it slowly for about a half hour or longer until it has the right consistency.

I add some Rum before I fill the “Marillenmarmelade” into the preserving jars.

Zwetschkenröster / stewed plums

reife, entkernte Zwetschken / pitted plums
per 1 kg Zwetschken / per 1kg plums:
200 g Kristallzucker  about 200 g sugar
1 Zimtrinde / 1 piece of cinnamon
5 Gewürznelken / 5 cloves
1 halbierte Zitrone / 1 lemon cut in half

Cut the plums in half, remove the pit and put the plums into a big pot, add the sugar, the cinnamon, the cloves and the lemon cut in half and also a little bit of water and heat it up slowly – boil the plums at a low temperature and stir from time to time until the plum paring peels away from the fruit flesh and the paring startes to curl. Because it is a compote it can remain rather fluid

…and I added some nutmeg and some mace to the second bunch of “Zwetschkenröster”

…btw. “Zwetschkenröster” works very well with Austrian “Kaiserschmarrn”

Here my first preserving jars with “Zwetschkenröster”:

…and another 5 kg plums turned into “Zwetschkenröster” with some nutmeg and mace to spice it up a little

More sea salt with lemon zests :)

Ohhhhh nooooo…

…I ran out of my favourite “sea salt with lemon zests”
some days ago…

…but what’s easier than to make new one?

…and I did…

…now I have enough “sea salt with lemon zests”
for the next weeks

Addition:

You can use this salt for salads, cooking, your breakfast egg, cooked potatoes with butter,…
I use rather fine sea salt – the salt dries the lemon zests, therefore you don’t need to store it in the fridge – I have a small decorative jar with this salt at the dinning table and store the rest of it in the kitchen and use it while cooking
If you buy the lemons, take care to buy lemons of which you can use the peel and clean the lemons before use with some hot water and maybe also some alcohol on a kitchen paper…

cooking – my favourite recipes – Red Currant with Chilli & with small Apple Pieces + cinnamon

It’s red currant time here in Austria – we call them “Ribiseln” here – and I tried three new recipes which I like so much that I thought I should share them with you

The next recipe I would like to share with you is the basic recipe that you need to continue with the other recipes:

Ribiselsaft / red currant juice

Put the red currant into a big pot and boil it up with a little water – filter it with the help of a kitchen machine, a sifter or a “Flotte Lotte” / Profi-Passiergerät.

With the red currant juice you can continue with one of the next recipes:

Ribiselgelee mit Chili / red currant jelly with chilli

You need:
1,2 kg red currant juice / Ribiselsaft
3 chillis / Chilischoten
40 ml lemon juice
500 g preserving sugar 3:1 / Gelierzucker 3:1
some alcohol 80% / etwas Alkohol 80%

Remove the seeds of the chillis and cut them very small. Put the red currant juice with the preserving sugar, the lemon juice and the chillis into a big pot. Boil it up slowly and stir from time to time – boil it ‘bubbling’ vor about 5 minutes. Try a little bit of the jelly at a small cold plate – if it doesn’t jelly well enough after cooling down, cook it for some additional minutes… Fill the jelly immediately into preserving jars – using a pipette put some small drops of alcohol on top, inflame it and close the jar.

Ribiselgelee mit Apfelstückchen und Zimt /
red currant with small apple pieces and cinnamon

You need:
1 l red currant juice / Ribiselsaft
300 g small apple pieces / kleine Apfelwürfel
500g preserving sugar 3:1 / Gelierzucker 3:1
10 ml lemon juice / Zitronensaft
some cinnamon / Zimt
some alcohol 80% / etwas Alkohol 80%

Put the red currant juice, the small apple pieces, the preserving sugar, some cinnamon (as much as you like) and the lemon juice into a pot and boil it up slowly – cook it ‘wavy’ for about 8 minutes and test if it jellys well (see the recipe for the red currant with chilli) if not, cook it for some additional minutes. Fill the jelly into preserving jars – using a pipette put some small drops of alcohol on top, inflame it and close the jar – put the jars upside down for about 30 minutes.

fyi: normally I put my preserving jars and their covers into some boiling water with some vinegar before I fill in the jelly or the jam – therefore the third big pot with the glasses…

Here are the jars after my first try of this recipes – left with chilli, in the middle with the small apple pieces and on the right side the “Ribisel auf Preiselbeerart” – now I have about twice as much – I think that should be enough until it’s again red currant time…

cooking – my favourite recipes – Red Currant “auf Preiselbeerart”

It’s red currant time here in Austria – we call them “Ribiseln” here – and I tried three new recipes which I like so much that I thought I should share them with you

The first recipe I would like to share with you is:

Ribiseln auf “Preiselbeerart”

I think the best translation is: red currant to the type of cranberry sauce – as far as I know and the online dictionary tells me, cranberries aren’t the same like “Preiselbeeren” but the taste and the texture shall be similar…

…ok, you need for 2 jars á 500 ml:
1 kg red currant / Ribiseln
700 g (fine crystal?) sugar / Feinkristallzucker

Put the red currant into the pot and heat it up until it boils – cook it for 15 minutes – don’t stir! From time to time you can carefully shake the pot a little bit.

After cooking the red currant for 15 minutes add the sugar and cook them for another 15 minutes. Fill it hot into the preserving jars and close them tightly.

…it tastes great to beef, meat, cheese,… mjam!!!
For example: take some slices of bread, put some ham on top, than some cheese (maybe camembert,…) put it into the hot oven at about 200 °C for about 8 – 10 minutes… and eat it with some of the “Ribiseln auf Preiselbeerart” – very tasty!

cooking – my favourite recipes – Palatschinken / Austrian Pancakes :)

We really love ‘Palatschinken’ – rather thin Austrian pancakes – at home we prefer to eat them with jam, Nutella, …

…and when we visit the “Palatschinkenpfandl” we order them with a filling with cheese, some kind of meat or maybe mushrooms or asparagus,…

“Palatschinken” are really very versatile and you can eat them for dinner or lunch or even for breakfast…

Ok, for Palatschinken for about 2 good eater you need:

- 120 g flour
- 4-5 eggs
- 0,25 liter milk
- pinch of salt
- oil for the pan (and a dash for the dough)

The recipe is rather easy – mix flour and milk together (mixing flour and milk first should help a little to prevent small flour crumbs), add the eggs, a pinch of salt and a dash of oil and put the dough aside for about 30 minutes…

After 30 minutes take a pan (I recommend a non-stick frying pan) and heat it up – for Palatschinken it’s important to get the pan to a rather high temperature – than I put a good dash of oil into the pan and with a kitchen paper I dispense the oil on the inside and at the same time I remove superplus oil. I put the kitchen paper with the surplus oil into a small ceramic bowl (because I use it after every pan cake and before I add dough into the pan for the next one… (you can see the small white bowl with the kitchen paper right behind the pan at the photo)

Caution! The pan and the oil is very hot – be careful and don’t hurt your yourself!

Take a dipper/ladle (?) and stir the dough before you put some of the dough into the pan – I am a right hander and take the pan into my left hand and add the dough with the dipper in my right hand – I start with holding the pan at an angle of ca. 45° when I put the dough into the pan and than I start to turn the pan to get an even thin pancake before I put it back on the stove… I am sure, as soon as you try to make your first ‘Palatschinken you will know what I mean

…as a rule of thumb I flip the pancake as soon as the border gets a nice brown color (or when I can move the pancake inside the pan by just shaking the pan – a spatula is a very useful item for flipping the pancakes …after flipping the pancake it just needs little time until it’s finished – I just let the pancake slip from the pan to the plate besides the pan and again start with the oil and kitchen paper for the next one…

In my opinion any kind of jam can be used to get rid of the Palatschinken again

…and my boyfriend loves to eat them with some “Wiener Staubzucker” (Viennese powdered sugar) on top…

…btw. there are normally no leftover “Palatschinken” when we finish dinner or lunch – they don’t survive very long…

btw. if you add a little bit more salt to the dough and cut the pancakes intos stripes of about 5mm, you can use them as a inlay for beef broth,… in this form we call them “Frittaten”

cooking – my favourite recipes – beef broth :)

Ok, some of my friends wanted to know my beef broth recipe and here it is

boiling beef
soup vegetables (carrots, celery – the more the merrier -, yellow carrots, parsley root, …)
onion, garlic, …
salt, pepper, bay leaves, …

Normally I buy about 0.5 – 0.75 kg boiling beef (depending on the beef parcels I get). I use my biggest pot and fill about 1/2 to 2/3 of it with water, depending on the size of the bought beef – my old ‘Katharina Prato – Süddeutsche Küche’ cooking book recommends about 2-3liter water for every kg of meet. Then I slice the beef and because I want to have a good soup I put the beef slices into a pot with cold water (if you want to get good beef, you put the beef into hot water). I use the smallest possible flame of my stove (there are three different sizes available at my stove – I take the smallest flame of the middle size) and heat up the water with the beef slowly – after some time you’ll see some foam with small beef particulates – if you like, you can siphon it off but I wouldn’t recommend it because it provides some of the good beef broth taste…

After some time the foam vanishes and the particulates fall – than I add salt (about a soup spoon – depending how much soup you are cooking), clean and cut the soup vegetables and add them – because I will use the carrots as a ‘decorative’ part of the soup I peel the carrots and cut them into similar big pieces and put the carrot pieces and the peels into the cooking soup… …I also cut a big onion into about 4 pieces and add it, also some peeled and chopped garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, mace,… You can also use asparagus peels, mushroom parts, or other vegetable leftovers for the soup – this time for example I added a tomato which provided a very nice color and a good taste… and with closed lid you cook the soup again on the smallest flame for some additional hours – my old cooking book recommends about 2 hours for thin beef slices and more for bigger ones – normally my soup cookes for about 3 to 3.5 hours.

After cooking I let the soup cool down over night… and at the next day I heat it up a little bit to melt the grease drops (we call them “Fettaugen” – fat eyes *lol*), if you want a good soup, grease drops are a very good sign -> fat is a flavour enhancer! …and when you heat up the soup you won’t loose the fat in the sifter with the other remains! I decant the warm soup through a sifter into a big bowl and clean the pot with some water – I put the liquid part of the soup back into the pot and sort out the carrots and the beef from the other remains – I pick the beef to small pieces and put it with the carrots back into the soup – finally I take the sifter and a big wooden spoon and press the remains out as good as possible and add this liquid to the soup and throw away the remains…

In the end I add about a half tea spoon of sugar and season to taste with some additional salt like my “sea salt with lemon zests” – the sugar is important to give a taste counterpart (sometimes the vegetables provide enough sweet taste that you don’t need additional sugar).

While heating up the soup another time, I prepare some big preservation glasses – I put some vinegar into the glasses and the lids and pour some boiling water into the glasses and into the lids to disinfect them… I take a kitchen towel and water it (it shall protect the glasses from breaking) and put it on my working surface – carfully I pour out the hot water and put the glasses up side down that they can dry and that nothing can fall into the glasses… shortly before I fill in the soup I turn the glasses and after filling the glasses I immediately close the lids carefully and let them cool down slowly…

I store the soup in my fridge – it’s cold and most of the time dark inside – this way I can store the soup for about 3-4 weeks without problems.
…as soon as I want to eat the soup, I heat up the soup in a small pot, adding some water with which I also wash out all remains inside the glass… I love to eat it with some glass noodles and my boyfriend loves to eat it with thin soup noodles or “Backerbsen” (soup pearls?) …he loves my beef broth!

cooking – my favourite recipes – sea salt with lemon zests :)

Some weeks ago I got “Bio” lemons for nearly the same price as ‘normal’ ones and decided to buy the “bio” lemons… I always wanted to make sea salt with lemon zests and thought this is a great chance – therefore I also bought sea salt.

I put the sea salt into a big preserving glass and with the help of a rasp I grated the lemon skin (before I grated the lemon skin, I cleaned the lemons with hot water and some alcohol on a kitchen paper) and put the lemon zests into the preserving glass to the sea salt, closed the lid and shaked it, to mix the lemon zests with the sea salt… after about one week I divided the sea salt into smaller preserving glasses for an easier handling.

I really love the fresh lemon taste of my sea salt with lemon zests and use it on top of grilled beef, for salad, for my tsaziki, couscous,… *mjam!*

…btw. I also have a favourite salmon recipe now:
I recently bought my very first fresh salmon – two nice filets (with skin) – at home I washed the filets under cold water, dryed them with paper towels, controlled if the filets have any fishbones (if yes, I removed them) and put the filets aside. In a big pan I melted some butter and added some good olive oil to raise the heat resistance of the butter. I put some salt on the skin side of the filets and put the filets with the skin side first into the pan and let it roast for some time – you can see the color change of the salmon at the side and when it reaches about 1/2 to 2/3 of the side, I turn it to the other side and let it roast… as soon as the color of the side part has completly reached a even color I take the pan from the stove and put it aside – take two plates and put the salmon on the plates, with some butter/olive oil from the pan and a good pinch of my sea salt with lemon zests…

cooking – my favourite recipes – caramelized Peach Marmalade

Since I tried the “caramelized apple marmalade” I am a great fan of caramelized marmalade/jam – you can find the basic recipe here: cooking… caramelized apple & kiwi marmalade .

The caramelized apple marmalade with some cinnamon and vanilla tastes like “Apfelstrudel” (apple strudel) – I really love that taste! – but our great favourite so far is the caramelized kiwi marmalade.

I still try this recipe with new fruits and now I tried it with peaches (+ some cardamom + some cinnamon + some lemon juice + vanilla + calvados) – I don’t use any gelling agents for this marmalade therefore it’s still rather liquid, but I am sure, after some time at a dark and cold place it will thicken… I am very looking forward to try this marmalade soon…

I think the best dish that goes with marmalade is “Palatschinken” – you can also call them thin Austrian Pancakes – I suppose “Palatschinken” are as popular as “Schnitzel” or our famous “Torten” here in Autria – I’ll post some photos and my recipe for them soon

cooking – my favourite recipes – “Frischkäse-Torte” – it’s Strawberry time! :)

Maybe some of you remember my “cooking – my favourite recipes – “Frischkäse-Torte” with fruits” posting – you can find the basic recipe for this “Frischkäse-Torte” there.

I think I found my favourite combination:
I added vanilla and lemon zests to the cream cheese filling and some Cointreau to the “Torten-Gelee” and I really love this combination!

Needless to mention that I already ate this “Frischkäse-Torte” and that I can’t wait to make another one as soon as I get some nice and tasty strawberries.

cooking – again… caramelized kiwi marmalade :)

Maybe some of you remember my “cooking… caramelized apple & kiwi marmalade ” posting (including the recipe for caramelized apple marmalade) – recently I tried some of the kiwi marmalade and it tastes so great that I decided to make more of it before I finish the very first jam jar of selfmace caramelized kiwi marmalade, especially because Kiwis are available and rather cheap at one shop (Hofer/Aldi süd?) now…

It’s nearly the same recipe like for the caramelized apple marmalade – you need:
ca. 1kg Kiwis, 0,5kg Sugar, vanilla and ca. 2tablespoons calvados
You need no lemon – the Kiwis should be sour enough and they don’t turn into brown without lemon juice like apple pieces…
Instead the part with the plastic sifter you just need a masher (‘Pürierstab’)