America: my way of serving asparagus

I have been making asparagus with melted cheese and balsamic vinegar reduction sauce for so long that every week I don't even have to put the ingredients on my shopping list. It's simple as this: boil asparagus for 5 minutes, refresh with water put in thick reduction sauce (just boil balsamic vinegar until thick) and add cheese of your choice until it melts (mozzarella works really well). I have also found that the fun thing is that difrent brands of balsamic vinegar taste different and they have many flavors to choose from such as apple and orange honey blossom. So get experimenting!

Hungarian chestnut cake

Well I found this recipe online and it is much like the French queen of Sheba cake except that chestnuts have a different flavor. It had bittersweet chocolate and rum in it. It was also 100% flour free because of the beaten egg whites. It was also severed with chocolate covered chestnuts an run flavored whipped cream. I made this recipe my own by mixing the chocolate glaze into the cake because the cake is a bit dry.

French fruit desserts poached pears

when I hear poached me (as a kid) and the other millions of Americans think of poached eggs not chicken or fruit. Well the cool thing is that poaching means food submerged and cooked in a liquid that is barely simmering or shivering. The term can also be used poetically for things such as "chicken breasts poached in butter". Well I poached pears in port wine and the recipe was in "French classics made easy" (pg 284). It was an amazing experience because you never hear of a dessert that includes wine. It was as simple as this buy 6 Bosc or Comice pears, peel them and boil them in a mixture of port wine,red wine, lemon and orange juice and zest, and a small amount to sugar until the pears are soft and than chill for 2 hours. They were a bold burgundy in color and sauce had a sweet wine taste to it almost like sangria. It's a very colorful dessert that will impress any guest.

Cheeses of the world: Ireland

In addition to food I also love cheese and in this post I will be talking about Irish cheese and the one that I saw at shop rite around the time of St. Patrick's day was a type of white cheddar(my favorite cheese) in the shape of a shamrock it was dubliner cheese and it is a cheddar cheese that is hard in texture an is made from cow milk. The cheese is named after the city of Dublin, although it is made in County Cork. It combines the sharpness of mature cheddar, the nuttiness of Swiss cheese, and the bite of Parmesan. The cheese was developed by John Lucey and his secret recipe is exclusively held by the company Carbery. This cheese may also have small bits of white into it but don't worry it's just harmless calcium lactate. It's an amazing cheese of you love cheese or cheddar.

French vegtables

Well today I consulted mastering the art of French cooking for a recipe for cucumbers and found that you can bake them and to my surprise they need to be baked for 1 hour. While this may sound crazy because you probably think I ended up with a burnt mess I got a wonderfully seasoned and soft cucumber that had a taste of dill that made it seem like a classy dill pickle. I found it amazing that the way to remove there natural moisture was mentioned by julia child was not exactly to blanch them but to leave them in a bowl with salt,vinegar, and sugar. You can season the cucumbers with either dill or basil but I prefer dill it just seems like the spice for cucumbers. (recipe on pg 500 in mastering the art of French cooking.). The other side dish I made was creamed spinach in "french classics made easy" by Richard Grausman. And straight off the one thing I love about this French cool book is that it really does break things down and delivers authentic French food that a beginner cook can manage. The creamed spinach recipe I made (pg 191). Was simple because all I did was boil fresh spinach, right after I boiled it I refreshed it with cold water to stop the cooking and tossed it into a blender where I added white sauce to it and freshly grounded nutmeg to it. The dish was very edible and had a nice autumn spice to it from the nutmeg. My family thought it was pumpkin spice which made me laugh because some pumpkin spices do have but meg but maybe next time I'll add some pumpkin spice to it...

Hungarian food from a nice little old lady

Well today was her interesting since I have been reading a cook book called "Little old lady recipes" by Meg Favreau and what I found most interesting about this book in addition to the awesome and very funny "little old ladies who contributed there recipes was that this book is a melting pot of recipes from every where. I recommend it for cooks who like comfort food. Now onto the world food part lets talk Hungary. This is the first Hungarian dish I have made but I made a dish called goulash and it is a Hungarian stew that is made with steak in a sauce composed of sour cream, paprika, onions, salt, flour, butter, and red wine (I used burgundy). With only these minimal ingredients they sure made one amazing dish but here's my tips. When you have to brown the meat and onions I throw them in a big pot and cover until the onions soften and the meat brown than let it reduce leaving some liquid. Oh and also the recipe calls for 6 onions don't worry this may sound like a lot but onions shrink during cooking. Finally use a large casserole to cook it in (the recipe is on pg 94). The final results were amazing the steak was very tender and onions were soft, the sauce had a savory flavor with a hint of wine.

France

Well I am currently studying the art of French cooking by reading mastering the art of French cooking by Julia child. So far I have made a boeuf bourguignon (beef burgundy stew) and it is just an amazing recipie for a great fancy dinner and it dident cost much for my ingredents in addition to that I made turnips (witch I have never had) and queen of Sheba cake(a delicious almond chocolate cake witch it supposedly health because it was said to have no flour). The results were amazing and taught me how to brown meat and the boeuf bourguignon was a very heart stew in a thick sauce that that was a nice wine and spice flavor. It was also my very first time trying turnips and they have a very earthy flavor as I found out. I used the recipe for glazed turnips so they taste sweet but I recommend listening to the book and blanching them because they will have too strong a turnip flavor. The queen of Sheba cake taught me how to beat egg whites up and it was very easy but my rule f thumb for beating egg whites is to put them on a stand or use ad electric mixer and put a pinch of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tarter (it helps them hold there shape) than throw the mixer on the highest speed until soft peaks form than add 1 table spoon of auger to them and let it continue beating until stiff peaks form. Also when you do this cake do the egg whites last because they are delicate and if they get wrecked your cake won't be good because the egg whites make the cake almost like a lava cake and it has a delicious chocolate and almond flavor and it serves very well with coffee flavored whipped cream.

Intro

Hello guys I decided to make this blog about my love my love for cooking and baking. That said I also love world culture and when you put then together you get world foods :D so I study different countries and read world cook books so lets get cooking!