Pizza

YAY. Second dish, which reaches the level of perfection.

Unfortunately, the pizzas are made by my boyfriend, so I cannot take any credit. All I am doing is slicing the potatoes, and eating the lovely pizzas while enjoying some bubbles. Since the pizzas are to be eaten right away, and only one is made at a time, this meal always call for a traditional Italian life style. Hanging around in the kitchen, eating standing up, and as already mentioned, having some bubbles of some kind. I just love when we do this.

The important part in the pizzas are the dough, a good pizza stone (in our case we invested in a lava stone, which really does the job) and in my opinion carefully picked toppings. Do not throw a million toppings onto it, it is much better in its simplicity.

This time, we had a salami, basil type and my favorite, white pizza with potatoes, rosemary and goat cheese.

Since the post is a simple in desription as the pizzas themselves, I have added my first ever try at "Flødeboller". Bottoms are made out of baked marcipan, stuffing is sugar and egg whites, and finally dipping in chocolate.

I was surprised that it actually was possible to make this stuffing in the right texture, and that the results actually looked like the real deal.

The final result. Unfortunately, the taste was not as good as expected, the stuffing was a bit too heavy, and the chocolate was not correctly tempered, but they look okay, I think  :)

Jerusalem artichoke soup

So finally I made a dish which both tasted great as well as it presented perfect. Therefore it deserves the 5 star excellence. Besides the taste and presentation, it is a dish which is also very easy to make, and almost impossible to mess up. As long as your vegetable is in season, so that it carries plenty of taste, I will almost promise that you will not go wrong.

I decided to challenge my newly developed creative skills with this dish (I will at a later point update with some - non food related stuff showing another creative project of mine). If you read my The what and the why you will see that one of my goals with this blog is to develop my creative mind, as this was practically non existing just some months ago.

Therefore I will also start by presenting the final result.

What a beauty

Below is shown thinly sliced jerusalem artichokes (or sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple). This was prepared at first, and was just kept in cold water until I needed them.

Preparation for chips

For the actual soup, I sauteed a chopped small onion and one glove of garlic. Then I added the sunchokes in rough pieces together with some thyme. This fried a coupe of minutes, before adding vegetable stock. Approximately one liter to 500 grams of sunchokes. But remember to remove some of the liquid before blending - keep in a container, so that you can add to desired texture.

The soup cooking

Cook for around 10-15 minutes, until the sunchokes are tender. While cooking, fry your bacon, or other desired crispy, salty meat. Could be chorizo or pancetta as well.

Crispy bacon

The chips did not add that much flavor but they add to the presentation, and are fun to make. Another time I will make the chips a bit thicker - they were almost transparent, and I would use one of the larger ones. This would make sure the chips were not blackened and fried away. I just used the leftover bacon grease to fry them in.

Sunchoke chips

When the soup is done cooking, add a little cream and cook for a couple of minutes, then move out some of the liquid and blend the soup. Add liquid to desired texture, and season with salt, pepper and a little vinegar.

When plating, add the hot soup, then drizzle some olive oil on top, and add the bacon pieces together with chips and a little thyme. Finish off with some freshly ground pepper.

Jerusalem artichoke is one of my favorite vegetables. It is kind of magical. This dish is my masterpiece so far. I am very much looking forward to my future creations :)

Pasta bolognese

Time for pasta bolognese!

Everybody should know to make a bolognese. It is definitely not difficult to fry some minced beef, mix in tomatoes and spices and serve with cooked pasta and maybe some grated parmesan.

But, I actually find it a bit difficult to get the bolognese to taste of real meat, and not just pasta with sauce and cheese. Luckily I have found out that adding some vegetables like celeriac and carrots, can make the sauce taste richer. I know that vegetables might not belong in this dish if you ask an Italian mama, but she must have a secret recipe, because I cannot get the very meaty taste just by using some good minced beef, and as a bonus to my version, you get some of those nasty vegetables disguised in the sauce. The celeriac has the advantage of mixing very well with the sauce and adding the rich flavor. You cannot taste the celeriac or carrots if you use a food processor for chopping the vegetables to a very fine texture before adding to the beef.

Only concern is, watch out, and do not add to much of this secret ingredient. It can actually be much, as I experienced with it this time. It can be difficult to hold back, since it is very cheap groceries, but please do so.

In this version I also added some bacon, to get a smokey flavor, but I wish I had bought some higher quality bacon than what you get at the supermarket. The budget should be able to handle it, since every other ingredient is not very expensive.

Pasta bolognese

Remember to cook the pasta a little less than what it says on the package. At least taste them while cooking, so you can get them al dente (it should make some resistance, but without getting caught in your teeth).

Also, I actually think that by adding the vegetables in the dish, I do not need the parmesan to give it its final touch - it tastes good by itself. So a win win, more vegetables and less fat. I am actually quite satisfied with the outcome.

Finally, remember to cook enough so you have leftovers for another day. Such an easy dish to prepare when all you have to do it warm up the sauce and cook the pasta. And somehow it tastes better second time around - maybe the sauce cooks to a more concentrated flavor, or maybe it is just the fact that you have to do less the second time, so it is more value for effort.