Chlodnik, cold beetroot soup

Dear all,

Beetroot is an amazing vegetable: Its wonderful purple colour always amazes me when I touch it. Beetroots deliver a wealth of nutrition, taste sweet and can be cooked with ease. I love beetroot, but I generally stick to the easy way of turning it into a salad.

The other day, I watched a TV show about Polish food. The chef turned beetroots into a cold soup with the strange name chlodnik.

I thought this is a brillant idea, a kind of Polish gazpacho. So I set out to look for a recipe. Unfortunately, there are plenty of vastly diverging recipes. I decided to simplify and to restrain from strange ingredients like the brining liquid of pickles.

Unfortunately, for the original chlodnik horseradish seems to be a rather important ingredient. I could not find horseradish in my supermarket. They even were out of wasabi, the Japanese variety used for sushi. So I added some spice by ground chillie powder.

Although it is simple, it is amazing how refreshing it tastes. The beautiful pink colour of chlodnik makes it a great dish for a buffet. It is also a great starter for a dinner party because it tastes best after a night in the fridge.

Chlodnik, Polish Gazpacho

Ingredients (for 4 servings)
 

• 3 beetroots (about 500 grams)
• 1 medium potato
• 1 ½ cups stock
• 1 medium onion
• 1 cucumber
• 2 cups curd (yoghurt)
• 4 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
• salt
• chillie powder
• chives
• 4 tablespoons sour cream

Method:

Peel the beetroot and the potato and cut into small pieces to reduce the cooking time. Place them into a pressure cooker. Add the stock – vegetable or chicken stock will do – and ½ tablespoon salt and cook for 10 minutes after the first whistle. You can also cook the vegetables in a normal pot until tender. Let the vegetables cool down.

Peel the cucumber and the onion. Halve the cucumber and scoop out the seeds with a spoon.

Place the cucumber and the onion into a blender.

Add the cool beetroots and potato cubes and the cooking liquid. Blend until rather smooth.

Add the curd, the chillie powder and the lemon juice and blend again.  Adjust the seasoning according to your taste. You can replace the lemon juice with vinegar.

For serving, place the soup into bowls; add a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle with chives. Some people prefer dill instead of chives, but it is difficult to find here in India. You can replace the sour cream with thick curd or cream cheese.
 

Beetroot Salad

I cannot help but feel intimidated when I start browsing the web in search of healthy recipes. There is a tidal wave of information out there. When I read through articles, I cannot fend off the feeling I am doing something wrong or not enough. Somehow, I never seem to be able to eat enough vegetables and fruits. Somehow, my appetite does not conform to the never-ending lists of super foods you should consume. Somehow, I feel being torn between the urge to eat healthy and the need not to indulge in naughty pleasures.

Fundamentally, I believe in home cooking without spending the full day in the kitchen or doing shopping. Although I might slip and indulge in naughty stuff from the supermarket, I continuously enlarge my repertoire of dishes that put the right kind of food into our bodies.

One of them is this layered beetroot salad. It is loaded with nutritional goodness. Beetroot and walnuts regularly feature in the many lists of super foods. Sage is known for its benefits, and at this point most of us know the virtues of olive oil. Blue cheese may be an acquired taste for some. If you don’t like it, exchange it for any other cheese or simply skip it. However, I discovered a new study. According to its findings, you should make blue cheese a regular addition to your diet if you like the taste.

Thanks to the proteins of the cheese, this salad makes an excellent starter for a festive menu and is a complete light meal by itself. I present it in layers because it looks a lot nicer than mixing all the ingredients together.
 

Happy cooking always!

Kornelia Santoro with family

Ingredients (for 4 servings):

• 500 grams beetroot
• 200 grams blue cheese
• 100 grams walnuts
• 10 sage leaves
• 3 red chillies, preferably Thai
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 9 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 small cloves garlic
• Salt
• Pepper

Method:

Boil the beetroots until they are tender. I use a pressure cooker for this purpose. Place the beetroots into the pot, cover them with water, add salt and cook them for half an hour after the first whistle. In a normal pot they take about three times as long. Beetroots are cooked when the skin comes off easily. Let the beetroots cool down, then peel and slice them.

Carefully slice the blue cheese and keep aside. I used Gorgonzola made in Auroville, which I can recommend. However, any blue cheese will do. If you don’t like blue cheese, take any other cheese. I have to say, the contrast between the tender sweetness of the beetroots and the tangy, rich saltiness of the blue cheese combined with crunchy toasted walnuts makes this salad so attractive for me.

Take a small pan and roast the walnuts carefully over a small fire. When roasting nuts, you have to watch them. Roasting turns easily into burning when the process is left unattended. Place the roasted walnuts on a plate for later use.

Pour the vinegar into a vessel. Add about one teaspoon of salt and pepper according to your taste. Wash the chillies and chop them finely. The bright red adds a nice colour contrast to the purple beetroots. If you want your salad spicy, keep the seeds. For a milder zing remove the seeds.

Peel the garlic cloves. Spread about three tablespoons olive oil into the pan you used for toasting the walnuts. Add the garlic cloves to infuse the oil. Turn on the heat. When the oil is hot, add the sage leaves and fry them until crispy. Spread them on a kitchen towel to drain excess oil. These crispy sage leaves add another texture and layer of taste to the salad. However, they don’t stay crispy long so you need to do this shortly before serving the salad. If you don’t want go to this trouble, skip it. The salad is nice also without crispy fried leaves.
 
Finally, it is time to assemble the salad. Add the remaining olive oil and the garlic infused oil from the pan to the vinegar and stir well. Layer the beetroots and the blue cheese on the plates. Sprinkle the toasted walnuts, the chillies and the crispy sage leaves over the vegetables and the cheese. Spread the vinaigrette over all the ingredients. There should be enough dressing on the plates to coat every beetroot slice. Enjoy!

Parsley and Mint

Go green with herbs

Green herbs are packed with nutrients. They do not only add taste to any dish, they also bless us with many health benefits. The humble parsley is as widely used in Europe as coriander is in Asia. The word parsley has it roots in the Greek word petroselīnon meaning rock celery. Native to Mediterranean Europe, it was first used as a medicine.

During the middle Ages, cooks started to season dishes with parsley. This herb contains vast amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A and folic acid. Parsley’s volatile oils help neutralise particular types of carcinogens (like the ben­zopyrenes that are part of cigarette smoke and charcoal grill smoke). According to scientific research, eating a lot of parsley helps keep your heart and cardiovascular system healthy and can prevent rheumatic arthritis.

Mint is actually named after a nymph called Minthe. This delightful creature appeared in the Greek mythology as a female that attracted Pluto’s attention. His jealous wife Persephone changed Minthe into a plant. Sorrowful Pluto could not reverse the magic spell, but he gave her a sweet smell. From ancient times, mint is used all over the world. There are more than 25 different species of mint with slightly different aromas.

Mint relieves cramps of the belly because it is able to relax muscles. It is a useful herb in case of indigestion, dyspepsia and irritable bowel syndrome. Animal studies have shown that the phytonutrient monoterpene in mint stops the growth of pancreatic, mammary and liver tumors and protects against caner in the colon, skin and lungs. However, there are no proper human studies yet.

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Rucola

Spicy treasure

Rucola, Arugula, Rocket salad: The Mediterranean plant with the scientific name eruca sativa is known under many names. Already the Romans enjoyed rucola, like I call it. They considered it an aphrodisiac. However, it was not cultivated on a large scale or scientifically explored before the 1990s.

Nowadays, rucola is widely used all over the world. Italians love it as a pizza topping which is added after baking to avoid wilting. On the Italian island Ischia people make a digestive liqueur called rucolino from the plant.

There is no other green edible leaf which carries such a rich, peppery taste. This taste indicates the hidden treasures of rucola. It is stuffed with phyto-nutrients which help prevent cancer, strengthen the immune system and have anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties.

Rucola is a good source for folate which is especially important for pregnant women. It provides a lot of vitamin A, B vitamins and vitamin C.  It also contains a lot of vitamin K making it an excellent choice for the elderly. Only 100 grams of rucola deliver 90 % of the recommended daily dose of vitamin K which is crucial for bone formation and healthy brain cells. Vitamin K is used to treat patients with Alzheimer’s disease. This plant also contains many minerals, especially iron, copper and potassium.

Some years ago media in Europe wrote about big amounts of pesticide residue in rucola and issued warnings not to consume it frequently. My research on the internet did not give me any conclusive information. Anyway, in India it is difficult to estimate how much pollution is in the food we consume. Occasionally there are horror stories in the media. Some time ago I read that practically all Indian honey is contaminated with pesticide and antibiotic residues.

Rucola is not a common vegetable in India yet. I praise myself lucky when I find it in the market. It is more commonly sold in Goan supermarkets which cater to a foreign clientele. In North Goa, some supermarket owners grow their own rucola. Honestly, I don’t think we should worry too much about pesticides in this vegetable. I wash it well and hope the health benefits more than compensate the damages caused by pollution.

Rocket Burgers

For many years I have desperately tried to make my son eat salad and other green, leafy vegetables. I added his favourite fried bacon and tuna to the greens. I tried convincing him by explaining how good green vegetables are for his body; I tried promises and threats before finally giving up.

Some time ago, I got inspired to a new effort.  I watched Rachael Ray on TV showing how you can hide vegetables in minced meat dishes. So I started another attempt to get the healthy greens into my son.

My first experiment failed miserably. I had mixed boiled sweet potatoes, carrots, spring onions and leeks with minced chicken and fried these burgers in a pan. Unfortunately they turned dark outside before they cooked through. I did not mind the sweet potatoes, but my men flatly refused to eat these burgers. Luckily our dogs are not so discerning when it comes to food.

I kept on thinking which vegetables would make a nice mix and had the idea of testing rucola or rocket salad, like the English call it. I love rucola in salads or just plain with a fried piece of fish. When we are in Italy, many times our dinner is simply a lovely steak with rucola and cherry tomatoes on the side. Nowadays you can find rucola quite frequently in the market.

I had never heard of cooking rucola but decided to give it a try – and it worked. My son ate them without complaining - although my husband kept on asking me about the strangely green colour of the burgers. I avoided answering this questions until dinner was over.

It seems, at long last I have found a way to get some green leafy vegetables into my darling’s belly – without a fight.

Wishing you happy cooking, always!

Kornelia Santoro with family

Rocket Burgers

 

Ingredients (for 12 burgers):

• 1 packet (450 grams) chicken mince
• 2 cups oats
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 bundles rucola
• 1 bundle basil
• 1 bundle spring onions
• 1 big carrot
• 3 cloves garlic
• 50 grams sesame seeds
• 5 tablespoons olive oil extra vergine
• Salt
• Pepper

Method:

 

Wash the rucola and the basil. Cut the end of the stems of the rucola and sort out all yellow or damaged leaves. Remove unblemished basil leaves from the stems. Clean the spring onions. Peel and cut the carrots into pieces. Chop the vegetables and the basil finely in a blender. Put them into a big bowl. Add the chicken mince, the oats, the flour, the eggs, the crushed garlic and salt and pepper according to taste. Combine all the ingredients well. You should have dough which you can form into burgers. If it is too soft, add some more oats.

Spread the olive oil over a cookie sheet. Put the sesame seeds into a plate. Form the dough into flat, round burgers and roll them in the sesame seeds so they are covered well on all sides. Place them onto the oiled cookie sheet. Bake the burgers in the oven at 190 degrees for 40 minutes. After 20 minutes flip them over so they cook through evenly. The sesame seeds should show a lovely, golden shade. Enjoy!

 

 

Tabbouleh, big vitamin bomb from the Middle East

Dear all, I start my new blog with a super healthy recipe: Tabbouleh. This dish comes from the Middle East where it is one of the most common salads. In recent years, Tabbouleh has conquered the world with other Mediterranean delights like hummus, Baba Ganoush and falafel. During this voyage it has seen many transformations, similar to pizza that exists now in versions that have little to do with the original. I like to prepare Tabbouleh in a way that resembles the original. That means my main ingredient is flat leaf parsley, followed by mint. You take about double the amount of parsley to mint. What I use sparingly (though more than in the Middle East) is the wheat. For the original Tabbouleh Lebanese and Syrian housewives use bulgur wheat. Although you can find this in India, where we live, it is quite expensive and not as fresh as the local cracked wheat that is called daliya. In some western countries Tabbouleh has morphed into a salad whose main ingredient is bulgur. Although this can make quite a pleasant meal, it has little to do with the original. The seasoning of the salad differs widely. Please use anything you fancy. I like it with plenty of black pepper and Zatar powder, but people also add cinnamon or other spice mixtures. Tabbouleh makes an excellent side dish for meat or fish. The downside of this dish is that you have to eat it preferably on the same day it is made. It is not a salad, which you can keep in the fridge for any length of time. I actually like Tabbouleh as a main course with a bit of bread and a piece of cheese. It makes a perfect light lunch on a hot day. Wishing you happy cooking, always! Kornelia Santoro with family Tabbouleh Ingredients (for 4 big servings): 2 big bundles flat leaf parsley (about 200 grams or around 3 cups of uncut leaves) 1 big bundle mint (about 100 grams) ½ cup bulgur wheat (daliya) 2 big spring onions or several tiny ones 3 tomatoes 2 – 3 lime 8 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil Salt Pepper Zatar powder Method: Wash the tomatoes and dice them. Place them into a bowl and add the daliya. Some people recommend soaking the wheat in hot water, but I don’t think that is necessary. The moisture from the tomatoes and the herbs is enough to soften the cracked wheat when you let the tabbouleh sit for a bit before serving it. If you want to serve the salad immediately, you might want to mix the wheat with three tablespoons hot water. Wash the herbs and drain them. Pluck the parsley leaves from the stems and cut them. You should not use the food processor for this job because it is damaging the structure of the leaves too much. For tabbouleh you have to cut the parsley by hand with a sharp knife. Take a handful of leaves, bundle them with one hand and cut them as finely as possible. Do the same with the mint leaves. Wash and clean the spring onions and slice them finely. Add them to the bowl. Squeeze the lime over the salad; add the olive oil and season with salt, pepper and other spices. I like Zatar powder because it adds a bit of zest to the salad. Zatar is made from ground thyme, salt, sumac and sesame seeds. View more recipes at Kornelia's Kitchen Sign up for my monthly newsletter