baking bread

My original plan was to eat one whole day like a real Irish woman, but when I started looking up traditional recipes, there wasn't a single vegetarian one among them. Already breakfast seemed like a feast of meat to me, so I cancelled my plans and started looking for Irish pastries, but after my roommate is on a diet, I didn't dare to fill the air with the sweet smell of temptation. And decided to bake bread. Old fashioned, Irish soda bread.

  After some research I found a quite easy, delicious sounding recipe. I needed some googeling to find out what bicarbonate of soda is and where I can get it, and didn't know anything about self-rising flour either (just took the one we had at home). The rest of the instructions were pretty clear. Next challenge was the measuring. I wasn't able to make use of the measuring unit 'ounce', but what a luck I have google... Anyway, I couldn't find a kitchen balance nor a beaker, so I just made 8 ounces one cup. The rest was a piece of cake- some yoghurt, honey and olive oil, salt, bicarbonate and baking powder (although I don't get what's the difference) and voila! 

I was supposed to mix everything with a wooden spoon and knead it lightly -20 turns max! Of course I got dough all over the kitchen but it was surprisingly un-sticky. I put my little dough ball onto a baking sheet (couldn't find a cake tin as recommended in the recipe) into the oven and watched the dough rise and the bread crust getting crispy for about 45 minutes (our flat is pretty cold and the oven was emitting heat, so I curled up in front of it and literally watched my bread getting ready). Finally when it had baked long enough I took it out and burned myself trying to eat it immediately- it just looked so jummy! Impatiently I watched it cooling down and finally, it was already midnight, I took the first bite. I was a little dissapointed-it tasted strange. My roommate, who I was sharing with wasn't too stoked eithter. She said 'It tastes a little bit like corn'. And only than I realized that the one flour we had had at home, was cornmeal. May I present, the first corn-soda-bread. An Austrian-Irish recipe!

 

And that's what you need: two cups of flour, one cup of yoghurt, a little bicarbonate of soda, some baking soda, a spoon of honey and one of olive oil. And a pinch of salt.

yoghurt, honey and olive oil

 

delicious with butter ;)

I speak food- Easter edition!

Hi guys!  The Easter holidays turned out to be my inspiration for this blog post: I had to explain what we eat on Easter Sunday to a friend of mine, who is from the UK. Without knowing I killed two birds with one stone: I spoke food and had an idea for my blogpost.

My family loves self-introduced traditions, so our Easter rite starts a couple of days before Easter Sunday. We all get in our car and drive about an hour to visit my relatives in lower Carinthia. They produce and sell the very best pork at their little farm (covered advertising alarm!) and are our most valuable source when it comes to buying meat. Here’s what we bought this year for our delicious meal:

What we call “Osterschinken” is boiled ham or hammon. As you can see we buy it as a whole and store it in the basement. On Easter Sunday my grandmother slices it, which is not the easiest work to do. 

We also have Ox tongue, which we buy at a farmer near us. (My parents, my grandmother and my brother think it's tasty, me and my sister are perfectly happy without it)

Moreish, self-made bread is the greatest way to enjoy all this meat.

Horseradish with eggs, “’Eierkren” in German, is a mixture of freshly grated horseradish, vinegar, oil and boiled eggs that are cut in pieces.

This dish is very Carinthian. I guess most of you don’t really know it so I decided to give you some introductions on how “Reindling” is made. Try out this recipe - you won’t need much time, but be able to serve a tasty side dish at your Easter meal.

Ingredients:

500g flour

80g butter

¼ l milk

2 eggs

20g yeast

20g sugar

Filling:

100g raisins

100g sugar

50g nuts

80g butter

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:

Make yeast dough out of the ingredients. Roll it out. Melt the butter. Butter the yeast dough. Put all ingredients that are listed under filling on it, coil it up. Put it in a greased baking pan.  Bake in the preheated oven at 180 degrees for 45 minutes.

After this we enjoy a delightful sweet: “Osterlamm”, easterlamb.  I don’t know if you know what this is, so I will share my recipe with you. You can use for simple cakes too, because it is easy, timesaving and very tasty.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

200g sugar

a packet Vanilla sugar

A pinch of salt

lacing of lemon flour

100 ml oil

100 ml water

350 g flour

a packet Baking powder

Instructions:

Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy. Add all the other ingredients and put in a greased baking pan, formed like a lamb. (If you use this recipe to make a cake base, put the batter in another baking pan.) Bake in the preheated oven at 180 degrees for 45 minutes.

You see, it is really simple. Because the Holy Week has just begun and Easter Sunday is still some days away at the moment, I couldn’t take photos of our Easter meal and had to take some pictures from the internet. We never took a picture of our meal- we think you eat with your eyes, but not with your camera, so there is no need to take some.

Writing about what I am going to eat on Sunday makes me both, peckish and curious: What do you eat on Easter Sunday? Do you have a decent meal? Leave a comment and tell me J

Enjoy the break! 

Join Us For Dinner - Portugal Style

Since both of us, Nora and Magdalena, are probably two of  the worst cooks you will ever meet, we were kind of worried about this blog post. Finding something that we both like and are able to prepare caused us quite a headache. It was during one of our countless discussions about football that we suddenly had a brainwave! In honour of our favourite football player, Cristiano Ronaldo, who was going to play an international match for his country Portugal the next Sunday, we decided to cook his favourite dish and then watch the game together.
Rumour has it that Ronaldo's favourite dish Bacalhau à Bras has its origins in Bairro Alto, an old district of Portugal's capital, Lisbon. Bacalhau stands for the type of fish used for the dish, whereas Bras is allegedly the surname of the creator. As for the dessert, we decided to prepare a traditional Portuguese caramelised vanilla pudding.

Quite frankly...in the beginning we were both a little sceptical about the fish meal. However, once we were halfway through the recipe our worried facial expressions quickly faded to a smile. Considering the fact that our cooking skills are quite limited, we still managed to do a pretty good job...but see for yourselves! ;)


Ingredients (2 servings)


Main Course: 

• 250 g salt cod
• 1 onion (150 g)
• 250 g potatoes
• 2 eggs
• 2 garlic cloves
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil
• 15 g black olives
• parsley (to taste)

Dessert: 

Caramel

• 20 g sugar
• 3 tablespoons water

Vanilla pudding

• 37 g custard powder (Vanilla)
• 40 g sugar
• 500 ml milk

Preparation

- Bacalhau à Bras

• Place salt cod in water and soak for at least 12 hours. Drain and cover with fresh water every few hours. 

• Cut salt cod into small pieces.

• Grate potatoes into fine matchsticks and cut onions into fine rings.
  
  

• Beat eggs, then add salt and pepper and mix well. 

• Fry potatoes in a pan and set them to one side. 

• Place onion rings in a deep pan and sweat until golden. 

 
• Add potatoes and mashed garlic and stir whilst adding the lightly beaten eggs with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat before eggs solidify!

• Garnish with parsely and black olives and serve with red wine (or mango juice if non-alcoholic drinks are preferred).

- Caramelised Vanilla Pudding

• Mix custard powder, sugar and 6 teaspoons of milk in a small bowl 

• Bring remaining milk to a simmer 

• Add custard mixture and mix well

• For the caramel, warm sugar and water over low heat and stir until it turns caramel-coloured

• Pour caramel over pudding and garnish with chocolate sprinkles 

BOM PROVEITO!

Although it took us quite a while to prepare this special meal - three hours to be exact - and the result was not perfect, it was definitely worth it in the end. After we had finished cooking and had taken all the pictures for our blog post, we sat down in front of the TV, watched Cristiano play with his national team and enjoyed our delicious meal. To our great joy Portugal won the game. The perfect ending to a really fun evening! ;)

"Salzburger Muas"

"Muas" is a traditional recipe from Salzburg, our home. In the past, it was mainly eaten by poor people living in the countryside. You only need a few ingredients, it is simple and cheap. Consisting of wheat meal, water and milk this dish gives you energy and is filling. It was traditionally eaten with melted butter poured over the top. Today, seasonal fruits are added. We personally love adding raspberries or any other kind of berries. This recipe is easy to prepare and so delicious!

 

Ingredients: (for 2 persons)

·         250 g flour

·         300 ml water

·         100 ml milk

·         1 teaspoon butter (to grease the pan)

·         125 g fruits

·         sugar

Directions:

1.      First of all, boil water in an electric kettle and heat the milk in a small stove pot. Make sure that the milk doesn´t get too hot and starts boiling as this destroys the nutrients and gives a bad taste. Use a low heat and keep your eye on it! In the meanwhile put the flour into a big bowl. Then pour boiling water over it and mix these two ingredients together. Make sure that there aren´t any clumps. Now you can add the hot (but not too hot) milk. Stir until the batter is smooth. If you have a sweet tooth like us you can also add some sugar right now.

2.     In a large pan, heat some butter and pour in the batter. First, brown on the stove for about

       to 8 minutes, then turn it over. Both sides should be golden brown.

 

 

3.     Using two forks, break the mass into small pieces. Mix in the fruits and sprinkle with sugar.

       You can use any kind of fruits depending on your taste. We decided to use berries as they

       have a distinctive sweet flavour. Leave the "Muas" for another few minutes and wait until

       the sugar is caramelized. Sprinkle some icing sugar and cinnamon over the top. Yummy!