Spanish Food - 9/9/2023

 

September 2023 Supper Club - Spanish Food

Anali hosted a Spanish Food Dinner.

 She made a Spanish chicken and seafood Paella, and some red wine Sangria

Kim brought a Coca (flatbread) with sweet onions, piquillo peppers, olives and Manchego cheese

Susanna made a Vegetable Pisto with Eggs

Katarina made individual cheese flan

Christiane make a Basque burnt cheese cake

Christiane also brought some Madeira Wine, which paired nicely with the cheese cake

It was a fun evening with friends and tasty food. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the next Supper Club!

Street Food - June 24, 2023

For our June 2023 dinner, Kim hosted a Steet Food themed dinner

She made a grilled version of Chicken Shwarma

a quick cucumber, tomato and parsley salad to go with the shwarma

and Whole Grain Sourdough Pita

Susannah made a chickpea dish and brought naan to eat with it

(also pictured harissa tahini sauce and quick pickled onions)

Sarah made Tortilla Española

Christiane made Currywurst and Rye Bread

It was a wonderful celebration of the many delicious street foods that the world has to offer!  

Pizza on the Grill (May 2022)

Kim hosted a Pizza on the Grill garden party.

Here is Kim's pizza dough, ready to be shaped into pizzas and topped with various toppings.

We had different toppings that we ended up combining creatively and to our hearts' delight. Below are a few of our creations.

  

Katharina had made a delicious salad that complemented the pizzas well.

For dessert, we had Lauren's cookie pizza topped with a caramelized and fresh fruit.

 

Coca topping (Christiane)

• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 onions
• 1 garlic cloves
• 200 g (7 oz) spinach leaves
• 4 TL (4 tbsp) olive oil
• salt

1. Clean and deseed the bell peppers, cut them into stripes. Peel and halve the onion, then cut it into stripes. Peel and slice the garlic cloves. Wash and dry the spinach leaves.
2. In a skillet, heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil. Add the onion and garlic, saute until soft and translucent (do not brown them), then take them out and set them aside.
3. Add 1 tbsp olive oil, briefly saute and salt the spinach, then take it out and set it aside.
4. Add 2 tbsp olive oil, saute the red and yellow bell pepper for about 2 minutes, salt and remove from the skillet.

Use the prepared vegetables to top your pizza.

Flammkuchen topping with smoked salmon and goats cheese (Christiane)

While not a pizza topping, it worked pretty well.

• 3 Tl (3 tsp) green peppercorns (in marinade)
• 300 g (10.5 oz) mild goats cheese
• 100 g (3.5 oz) creme fraiche
• 200 g (7 oz) smoked salmon (thinly sliced is preferrable)
• 2 red apples
• 2 EL (2 tbsp) lemon juice
• 1 bunch of dill
• 4 TL (4 tsp) honey

1. Drain the green peppercorns, chop finely and mix with goats cheese and creme fraiche.
2. Cut salmon into reasonably sized bits that will look nice on the pizza.
3. Wash the apples, slice thinly and immediately mix with the lemon juice.
4. Chop the dill (I didn't because I like the decorative look of the dill fronds)

To top your pizza, spread some of the cheese mix and then add apple slices, salmon strips and dill.

 April 2023 Supper Club - Harry Potter Foods

Katharina hosted a Harry Potter Foods dinner. 

For starters, we had Sorting Hat appetizers (Lauren):

We also had Bezoars (Susanna):

For the main course, we had Shepherd's Pie (Katharina):

For a side dish, we had sauteed bok choi (Sara):

And we had two types of pumpkin pasties (savoury and sweet) (Kim).  

When I was reading the books, I always imagined the pumpkin pasties to be a savoury treat.  It wasn't until I started looking for a recipe online that I realized that nearly everyone had sweet versions, like American-style pumpkin pie but as a hand pie.  I decided to make both versions for our dinner, the kind I imagined and the kind almost everyone else had.  While both version were good, my personal favourite was the savoury version.

For the savoury version, I made Erin Jeanne McDowell's Rough Puff Pastry (posted on Food52.com)

(makes 1 1/2 lbs pastry)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups (302g) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon (2g) fine sea salt

8 ounces (226g) cold unsalted butter, cut into 3/4-inch (19mm) cubes

1/3 cup (75g) ice water, plus more as needed

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, stir the flour and salt together to combine. Add the cubes of butter, tossing them through the flour until each individual piece is well coated. Cut the butter into the flour by pressing the pieces between your fingers, flattening them into big shards. As you work, continue to toss the butter through the flour, recoating the shingled pieces. The goal is to flatten each piece of butter only once, leaving the pieces very large (they will get smaller/more dispersed through the process of folding the dough).
2. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add the ice water to the well and, using your hands, toss the flour with the water to start to mix the two together (this begins to combine them without creating too much gluten). As the flour begins to hydrate, you can switch to more of a kneading motion—but don’t overdo it, or the dough will be tough. Then add more water, about 1 tablespoon (15 grams) at a time, until the dough is properly hydrated. It should be uniformly combined and hold together easily, but it shouldn’t look totally smooth. Divide the dough in half and form each piece into a disk. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
3. On a lightly floured surface, working with one piece of dough at a time, roll out the dough to about 1/2-inch thick (the exact size/shape of the dough doesn’t matter here, just the thickness). Brush off any excess flour with a dry pastry brush, then fold the dough in half. Fold the dough in half again into quarters. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and chill for 15 to 30 minutes, until firm.
4. Repeat the previous step three more times: rolling out the dough, folding it, and chilling it each time before continuing. If you work quickly, you can sometimes do two rounds of folds back to back, but if the dough is soft or sticky, don’t rush it.
5. Once the final fold is completed, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, and preferably 1 to 2 hours before using.

For the filling for the savoury version, I liked the flavors in the recipe on this website https://www.lovemysalad.com/recipes/savoury-pumpkin-pie-red-onion-and-feta-cheese

Ingredients:

1 pumpkin, peeled and cut into small cubes

Olive oil

1 red onion, sliced into rings

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons thyme, chopped (I used dried so cut the amount by 2/3)

75g crumbled feta cheese

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place onion and cubed pumpkin (or any winter squash) on a sheet pan, drizzle with oil, salt and pepper.

3. Roast in oven for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, until squash is softened and onion is starting to brown.  When you remove the sheet pan from the oven, stir in the minced garlic and thyme.  As long as the sheet pan is still hot while you do this, the garlic will cook, but not burn.  

Assembly:

Roll out puff pastry, cut into rectangular shapes with a sharp knife.  Fill with 1 tablespoon of filling, moisten edges of puff pastry and crimp edges.  Beat 1 egg with a splash of water, brush tops of pastry with egg wash.  Slash top (or poke holes) to give pies a place for steam to escape.

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove from oven when pastry is nicely golden brown.  Allow to cool a bit before enjoying.

Sweet Pumpkin Pasties:

I used store bought Israeli puff pastry, cutting small circles into the dough.

I used canned pumpkin and mixed pumpkin pie spice + a little cardamom & vanilla sugar into the pumpkin pie mix (no measurements, just estimating and tasting as I went).

Assembled by filling the circles with about 1 tbsp of pumpkin pie filling, moistening the edges with water, and crimping.  Used remaining egg wash from the savoury pasties, and slashed the tops to allow steam to escape.  Baked for 20-30 minutes in 400 degree oven.

For dessert, we had tea and rock cakes (Christiane):

We also had butter beer (Lauren):