Cannellette

My mother in law brought me a seriously spicy piri piri spice blend. Even pointing at it made my eyes water. It tastes delicious, however, when you mix just a pinch of it through your ground beef or sprinkle it over some baked chicken. Spice blends are wonderful to spike up a relatively simple (or easy) dish. This made me remember a conversation I recently had with a colleague, she told me her (Greek) boyfriend never really liked spicy dishes, but when she made gyros and only sprinkled some cumin and coriander over the meat, it rocked his world. It is that easy to perk up a dish!

In the Middle East a herb called za’atar is used to perk up a common pita bread: the bread is dipped in olive oil and za’atar mixed with sumac, salt and sesame. This herb was already known and used in ancient Egypt as remains of one of the varieties of the herb was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. And who can ever doubt a pharaoh?

As za’atar is probably not readily available everywhere, I’ll give you some other well-known spice blends you can easily make at home.

Ras el hanout is a well-known spice blend commonly used in Moroccan dishes. Many different versions exist, as the name already reveals: “best of the shop”. This is a streamlined version:

Ras el hanout

Ingredients
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Method
Combine the spices in a pestle and mortar and start grinding. Sieve your mix into a seperate bowl now and then and put the coarse pieces back into the mortar until you have a fine powder. 

The Indian spice blend Garam Masala is also very easy to make, as with Ras el Hanout many different versions exist. It is merely a matter of taste. This recipe by Camelia Punjabi is a wonderful basic blend.

Garam Masala

Ingredients
6 grams of cinnamon sticks
6 grams of cloves
6 grams of black peppercorns
the seeds from 1 black cardamom seed or from 4 green cardamom seeds
1 teaspoon of fennel seed
1 bay leaf or 1 curry leaf

Method
Heat a frying pan on high heat and toast the spices for 30 seconds or until fragrant (it will smell heavenly, believe me!). Put everything into a pestle and mortar and grind until powdered. You can store the garam masala for 3-6 months in a tightly closed jar.

Finally Summer arrived! I am happy about it, but since I am terrible with heat, I have not been very inspired when it comes to food. Luckily I have some nice standby dishes that will perk up any easy meal, go great as side dishes with a barbecue or just make you feel comfortable. 

One of my favourite sandwich fillings is egg salad. It is very easy, healthy and satisfying. This weekend I made the extremely easy version. 

Easy Egg Salad

Ingredients
4 hardboiled eggs
5 tbsp of mayonaise (I use yoghurt mayonaise, if you don’t have that, add 2 tbsp of low fat yoghurt to 3 tbsp of mayonaise)
1 tsp of Dijon mustard (or any other mustard you like)
2 tsp of curry powder (or to taste, depending on the spiciness of your curry powder)
1 tsp of paprika powder
1 pinch of onion powder
1 pinch of cayenne pepper for a kick 
freshly ground black pepper
ground salt to taste
lots of chopped chives 

Boiling the eggs
I would say: boil the eggs the way you usually boil them.
Personally I have 2 methods, one before my Perfect Egg Timer and one since.

At first I boiled my eggs the way I learned from my mother, which is how she learned it from her mother, etc etc: bring the water to the boil, carefully put in the eggs and let them boil for 8 minutes. I let them boil for 5 minutes for still slightly runny eggs - not recommended for this recipe, but just to be complete. Run cold water over them (in the Netherlands we call that “scaring the eggs :-)) and let them cool down before peeling them.

The method with the Perfect Egg Timer is: fill a pan with water, put in your eggs and the Perfect Egg Timer and wait until the egg-timer says they are in between medium and hard. Take the eggs out of the pan, scare your eggs and let them cool down. 

Method
1. Peel your eggs and cut them into cubes, do not mash them finely - we like to have some texture. Put the cubed eggs aside in a bow.
2. In another bowl mix the 3 tbsp of mayonnaise with 2 tbsp of low fat yoghurt. 
3. Add the curry powder, paprika powder, onion powder, salt en pepper and mix well. 
4. Sprinkle in  the chives and give it all a good stir. 
5. Add your cubed eggs and mix carefully. Taste to adjust the seasoning. 

— You can of course build upon this recipe. I usually also add chopped cherry tomatoes, some slices or cubes of boiled potato and chopped spring onions, you could add finely diced cucumber or really anything else you like. You can also vary with the seasoning, add some dill or celery. 

For extra nice sandwiches I also fried a chicken breast with my Norwegian shish kebab spice mix, which has coriander, paprika, chilli, cinnamon, cumin and garlic. Very nice with some salad and a tiny bit of Thai Sriracha sauce.

Another one of my easy favourites is tuna salad. This, again, is the very easy version. Feel free to build upon it and add whatever you like!

Easy Tuna Salad

Ingredients
1 tin of tuna (I usually use tuna in water, but you could use the one in oil)
2,5 tbsp of yoghurt mayonnaise (or 1tbsp of low fat yoghurt mixed with 1,5 tbsp of mayonnaise)
a squeeze of lemon juice
1 small tbsp of ketchup
1 onion, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
some salt

Method
1. Drain the tuna and squeeze a little lemon juice on top. 
2. Mix the yoghurt mayonnaise, the ketchup, the freshly ground pepper, a pinch of salt and the chopped onions. Combine this with the drained tuna

— To spike this up, add some Italian herbs and 2 sun dried tomatoes, soaked in boiling water for 3 minutes and finely sliced. In the Netherlands they actually have ready-made packets of tuna mixed with Italian herbs and sun dried tomatoes, you could use those and mix them with the onion, ketchup and mayo. You can also replace the “normal onion” with a spring onion and add some pickled capers for a zesty tang.

Enjoy!

Sunday needs barbecueing and therefore I bring you a recipe! A vegetarian one today, just for the fun of it, and with a slightly unusual ingredient to spice things up: Halloumi. 

Halloumi is a small, elastical and crustless white cheese from the Middle East. It hardly melts and is therefore wonderful to prepare on the barbecue.

Grilled Halloumi with a lemon-coriander-almond pesto.

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Ingredients

A block of Halloumi 

For the pesto

A large handful of coriander stalks with leaves
1 clove of garlic
1 red chilipepper
2 tablespoons of white almonds
half a teaspoon cumin seeds
half -1 salted lemon
1-2 tablespoons of moisture from the jar

Method

1. Slice the halloumi in thick slices and grill the slices.
2. Mix the ingredients for the pesto in a blender to form a puree. Cautiously add 125 ml of olive oil or enough to make a smooth sauce.
3. Serve the grilled halloumi with the pesto (I never said this was a difficult dish).

Halloumi tastes quite salty, quite like feta, so it nicely combines with the slightly sour taste of the pesto.

Enjoy!