Sateh

Sateh is spicy meat on a stick that gets grilled and served with sateh sauce. This is not a quick fix dish, but it's lovely and worth the effort. For me it is part of my heritage. I cannot count the number of times I ate this during my childhood. It is probably the most iconic dish that the Dutch imported from Indonesia and made their own.

One of the aspects of cooking as a foreigner in different countries is that you must learn to find adequate replacements for your ingredients, you will see a lot of that below.

Materials:

* You can make this from almost any type of meat, I use chicken, pork, beef, lamb, veal and turkey for this. It is important that you select good quality non fatty meat which cooks fast for this. So you'd have chicken breast, pork loin or beef steak or similar quality other meat. It needs to be cubed into cubes that are roughly 2.5 by 2.5 cm. Since this is a laborious dish, I tend to buy a kilogram of meat and prepare it all and save some ready prepared in the freezer. Make sure you buy fresh meat and that you don't buy it far in advance due to the period the meat needs to marinade.
* 1.5 bottle of sweet soy sauce. This is hard to get outside the Netherlands where it is called ketjap manis. Teriyaki sauce is a decent replacement. Salty soy sauce is really better avoided for this.
* Half or a third of a jar of high quality crunchy peanut butter. I tend to go for organic stuff, it seems to produce a better quality sauce.
* Powdered or fresh ginger or both. You need quite a lot.
* Several cloves of garlic.
* Mashed red chili paste. This is known in the Netherlands as Sambal Oelek. Red thai curry sauce is a good replacement.
* Cumin powder.
* Sesame oil.
* 2/3 shallots.
* Vanilla essence, this is my (not so) secret ingredient for this.
* Brown cane sugar.
* Bamboo skewers.
* A sauce pan with a heavy bottom.
* Milk.

To prepare the meat:

* Find a dish you can cover airtight.
* Put the meat in the dish and pour the bottle of soy sauce over it.
* Put in a teaspoon of the chili paste.
* Put in a table spoon of ginger powder and some fresh mashed ginger if you have it.
* Put in one clove of garlic mashed.
* Mix the spices a little over the meat.
* Close the box and leave to marinade in the fridge for 24 - 48 hours.

To prepare the sauce:

* Mash the garlic.
* Cut the shallots finely.
* Put the sauce pan over a medium heat on the hob.
* Put in a spoon of sesame oil.
* Turn up the heat and wait for the oil to get hot.
* Put in a teaspoon of the chili paste, a tablespoon of powdered ginger and the other 2 cloves of mashed garlic and the shallots.
* Fry this for a few minutes whilst stirring.
* Get the meat out of the fridge and pour off the liquid into the sauce pan.
* Turn the heat down to medium low.
* Start adding the peanut butter from the jar.
* Keep adding more soy sauce to thin it.
* Add 1.5 table spoons of sugar.
* Add a teaspoon of vanilla essence.
* Add a teaspoon of the cumin powder.
* Add some fresh mashed ginger if you have it.
* Use some milk to gel the sauce.
* Leave the sauce on the hob for another 5 - 10 minutes.
* Add more milk to get it as thin or thick as you like.

In the meantime:

* Put your bamboo skewers to soak in some water for 20 minutes.
* Put some aluminium foil at the bottom of your grill and oil the grate you will put the skewers on to save on the cleaning up operation.
* Heat up your grill.
* Put about 3 or 4 pieces of meat on each skewer.
* Grill the skewers under a high heat to sear the meat and leave it tender inside. You should be able to do this in 10 - 20 minutes, depending on how well done you like your meat and what meat type it is. Turn the skewers half way.

Serve 3 - 4 skewers per person, ladle some sauce over the skewers. Sateh goes well with something like a cucumber salad and french baguette for mopping up the sauce.

Enjoy!

Evert's asparagus

Lots of people have special songs that remind them of special moments or people. For me sometimes a special dish is such a reminder. Whenever I make this dish I spend a few moments thinking of Evert. It is a beautifully simple summer recipe.

In central Oxford there is a pick your own farm near the river. I would cycle there sometimes in the right season to get asparagus that had been cut from the soil that morning. Then I would cycle to the other farm where you could get eggs and jam if you put money in an honesty jar.

Materials:

* One or two bunches of asparagus, depending how asparagus hungry you are.

* 2 slices of smoked ham per person (Parma or Serrano are both great).

* 100 gr unsalted butter.

* 1 egg per person.

What to do:

Because this is such a simple dish, the quality of your ingredients is key. This dish deliberately has very few, to showcase taste and quality, but this means you can't hide bad quality. You want to select asparagus and eggs that are both very fresh. The asparagus should be firm. You should always cut or break off the ends of asparagus. Depending how thick the asparagus is you should peel it too.

* Steam the asparagus for about 8 - 10 minutes.

* After you have put the asparagus on, put the eggs on to boil. You want soft boiled eggs for this dish, of which the whites are firm, but the yolks are still slightly runny. Depending on size I boil the eggs for 6 - 6.5 minutes in water that has already come to the boil.

* While you do this take a thick bottomed pan and melt the butter on a low heat.

* You spread 2 slices of ham on each plate.

* Put the asparagus in a little bunch on each plate on top of the ham.

* Peel and slice the eggs in half and put 2 halves on each plate near the tips of the asparagus.

* Pour melted butter over the eggs, the asparagus tips and some of the exposed ham.

Serve with a chilled dry white wine such as Alvarinho and some fresh bread.

Enjoy!

avocado salad for Bryan

I love avocados! Sadly supermarkets these days either sell ones that are so bruised they are mostly black inside or hard enough to knock a hole in someones head. When I shop with this dish in mind I feel homesick of the weekly market in the local town in the Charente in France, where the avocados were beautifully ripe if they had them.

However, if you do find some avocados that are nice and ripe, this is a good recipee for them:

This recipee will do a starter salad for about 6 people or if you have some bread with it a meal for 2:

Materials:

* 2 avocados

* a coarse lettuce

* 2 ripe tomatoes that can be sliced

* a 100 gram of smoked streaky bacon cut in pieces (the French call these lardons)

* a clove of garlic

* provencale herbs

* seasalt grinder

* pepper grinder

* a table spoon of coarse dijon mustard

* white wine vinager

* extra virgin olive oil

What to do:

* peel and slice the avocados
* wash and dry the lettuce
* peel the clove of garlic and rub the inside of your salad bowl with it, or rub the plates if you are serving straight out onto plates
* put the lardons in a frying pan that has been heating up on the hob and fry them on a moderate heat for 4 - 5 minutes
* lift the lardons out with a spoon with holes so that the fat stays in the pan
* mix the mustard with the fat in the pan and add a small drizzle of olive oil and white wine vinager, use some lukewarm water (start with a teaspoon) to allow the dressing to mix properly
* slice the tomatoes
* build the salad by putting the lettuce first, then the tomatoes, then the avocado, then the lardons. Do not mix!
* pour over the dressing, sprinkle some herbs on top and some freshly ground salt and pepper

This salad is meant to be served lukewarm as far as the lardons and the dressing go, so you can serve it straight after putting it together.

Bon apetit

purple bubbles

I can't bake and am not a very sweet person. However desert is nice sometimes, this is a very easy recipe and looks very spectacular for not very much effort. As part of the preparation I'm describing below how to make a fruit coulis.

Materials:

* Blueberries frozen or fresh, quantities described below are based on about 300 gram of berries.
* Powdered sugar.
* Vanilla essence.
* A glass of ruby port. If you are using a different fruit you may want to vary the alcohol you use. I mostly use port or cognac, but for example whiskey is a good option too. If you can get hold of it, creme de cassis is a very useful alcohol for your kitchen cupboard.
* A tub of italian sorbet which should have a slightly tart taste to marry the sweet berry sauce. It can be blackberry/cassis sorbet, blueberry or raspberry or lemon for example. A red pink is better for looks than pale yellow lemon.
* A bottle of brut champagne or something similar, like Freixenet.
* A heavy bottomed saucepan.

garlic bread for Miss Mara

Lydia's yummy yummy garlic bread

Materials:

* A white bread that stales well such as an Italian loaf.
* 2 cloves of garlic.
* Half a tablespoon of sea salt crystals.
* A handful of Italian parsley.
* Pestle and mortar.
* Pastry brush.
* About 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

Steps:

* Preheat the oven to about 220 Celsius.
* Put the bread on a board and cut diagonal grooves in it about 1.5 cm deep.
* Chop the parsley.
* Chop the garlic fine or use a garlic press.
* Put the garlic, oil, salt and parsley into the mortar and crush it into a gloopy substance, thicker than oil, thinner than paste. If it is too thick, add a bit of oil.
* Use the brush to brush it onto the bread and into the grooves you have cut.
* When the oven is preheated, stick the bread in for 5 minutes.

For additional flavor you can marinade the bread wrapped in aluminium foil to 24 - 48 in the fridge before heating it in the oven. The bread should keep well wrapped into aluminium foil for up to 2 days after heating it.