Pickled red onion

Home-made pickled red onion are easier than you think.

As I had authentic Mexican dinner for my friends, of course, I had to serve pickled red onion with tortillas.

2 red onion
0,5 dl vinegar
1 dl sugar
1,5 dl water
5 slices of unpeeled ginger

Cook quickly vinegar, sugar, water and ginger and then pour it on the sliced red onion. Let the onion to pickle over night.

Serve on top of a tortilla.

Achiote marinated pork

Authentic Mexican tacos, so good :)

This recipe I got from a friend of mine who also loves Mexican food. First I had a problem if I could find achiote paste in stores but luckily I found a little shop selling Mexican ingredients for cooking. They even had stuff for tamales which I am gonna try in future.

I had dinner for 4 people and there for I only had 1,2 kg of pork shoulder:

1,2 kg pork shoulder
3 tbsp achiote paste
2 tbsp chili powder or chili flakes
1 tbsp minced garlic or garlic powder
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
2 dl vinegar
2,5 dl pineapple juice

Slice the pork shoulder. Mix all the ingredients well together and pour on the meat. Marinate minimum of 2 hours. I had the meat in marinate over night.

Pile the meat on top of each other and place pineapple rings on top. Cook in the oven for about 2 hours in 150 ºC.

Cook in low temperature for about 2 hours.

Cut the meat in small pieces so it fits your tacos or tortillas.

Hot sauce from Aji Mirasol

I wanted to make New Mexican red chili sauce but found only Aji Mirasol from the local store. Here I have combined a New Mexican chili sauce recipe with a Aji Mirasol sauce recipe I found on Internet. The fresh chili is calledd Aji Amarillo and they come from Peru.

Ingredients for the sauce.

This recipe will give you 0,5 l of chili sauce:

20 dried pods of Aji Mirasol
3 cloves of garlic
half large onion
7 dl water or vegetable buillon
1 tsp dried oregano
0,5 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp vinegar

Remove the stems and the seeds from chili pods. Pour the water in a casserole and add the chilis, garlic, onion and oregano. Boil the mix on low fire for 15 minutes. Let it sit for 10 more minutes.

When the chilis look like this you can put them into a mixer.

Put everyhing into a mixer with cumin and vinegar and mix it to a smooth chili sauce. Season with salt.

Wonderful chili sauce for instance to use in tortillas.

Lamb shank

Ingredients could not be easier.

We are in the half of October and during fall and closer to winter food is getting heavier and richer in taste. Today I have tried something I have never tried before - lamb shack. I had this many years ago in England and I just love the long cooking time for the meat.

For 2 persons you need:

3 tbsp flour

a small bunch of chilantro

salt

pepper

2 lamb shanks

2 carrots

1/4 of celery root (one big slice)

1 red onion

1 dl apple juice

0,5 dl balsamico

400 g mashed tomatoes

2 tsp coriander seeds

thyme

4-5 cloves garlic

Mix the flour, chilantro, salt and pepper and roll the lamb shanks in the flour mix. Cook on a frying until golden brown. Take the meat from the an and place it in an oven pot.

After rolling the lamb shanks in flour mix cook them on
a frying pan until golden brown.

Dice the carrots, celery root and red onion. Cook the vegetables for 5 minutes with oil. Pour the apple juice and balsamico and cook until it is almost like syrupy. Add the mashed tomatoes, thyme and coriander seeds.

Pour the sauce on the lamb shanks and finally add the whole garlic cloves.

Cook in 130-140 °C for about 6 hours. Make sure you add a bit water if it starts looking dry. Once a while you can also pour the sauce from the oven pot on top of the meat.

Serve with mashed potates and salad.

After bout 6 hours you may enjoy your dinner.

Plum pie

Serve well cooled.

Summer went amazingly quickly and so did August. I have been busy with work and cooking. Now when the fall is here and it is plum season I wanted to try this amazing plum pie recipe.

This recipe is for a pie casserole of a 30 cm in diameter:

Pie dough:

140 g butter

1,5 dl sugar

1-2 eggs

3 dl flour

4 tbsp oat flakes

1,5 tsp baking powder

Filling:

150 g plums (sliced)

2-3 dl vanilla flavored quark

2-3 dl sour cream

1 egg

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

Set the oven for 175 ºC.

Mix the butter and sugar well together. Then mix the egg. Mix the flour, oat flakes and baking powder in a separate bowl. Mix the flour mix with the butter and sugar mix.

Spread the dough on a pie casserole that has been oiled.

Spread the dough on an oiled pie casserole.

Pour the vanilla flavored quark on the dough and spread evenly. Place the sliced plums on the quark. Mix the egg, sugar and vanilla sugar with sour cream. Pour the sour cream mix on plums

Slice the plums and place on the quark. After this pour the
sour cream mix on the plums.

Bake the pie in the oven for about 40 minutes. Serve cooled.

Bake the pie in the oven for 40 minutes or so.

Sweet cherry pie

Sweet and juicy cherry pie is good with ice cream.

This summer I tried something wonderful - a sweet cherry pie. The pie is really soft and juicy but I think it would be interesting to try the pie with a harder pie base.

Here is the recipe:

Pie base:
75 g butter
0,5 dl sugar
1 egg
1,5 dl flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Filling:
0,5 l cherries (remove the stones)
2-3 dl sour cream (this depends on how moist you want the pie to be because there is a lot of juice in the cherries themselves)
2 eggs
0,5 dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

Set the oven to 175 °C.

Mix the butter and sugar well together. Add the egg and mix again. Mix the flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar and finally mix it together with the egg-sugar mix. Spread the dough to a pie casserole. If you have a bigger pie casserole than 24 cm in diameter you might need a bit more dough than in this recipe.

After you have removed the stones from the cherries add them on the pie dough.

After removing the stones place the cherries on the pie dough.

Mix eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar and lemon juice with sour cream. Pour the mix on the pie.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes in 175 °C.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Red currant jelly

Perfect for cheese!

I got red currants from my mother-in-law without any idea what to do with them. Finally I found a recipe for red currant jelly and it was really easy to make.

For 1 jar of jelly you will need

1 kg red currants
2-3 dl water per kilo of berries
800 g sugar for a liter of juice

Add the water and red currants in a casserole and let them to boil under a lid on a low fire for half an hour.

Boil the berries in 2-3 dl water on a low fire for 30 minutes
under a lid.

Strain the juice from the cooked berries.

Let the juice to boil for couple of more minutes. I had about 0,5l juice so I only had about 300-400 g of sugar. Add the sugar slowly to the juice stiring it all the time until the sugar has dissolved.

Slowly add the sugar to the boiling juice.

Let the juice to boil for another 15 minutes and remove the white foam that appears on top.

Take some juice with a tea spoon and pour it on a cold plate. Draw with the spoon in the middle of the juice drop and if it gathers on the spoon the jelly is ready. If not, then add some more sugar and let it boil a bit more.

Boil the jelly jar before using it. Pour the ready jelly in a jar and close the jar immediately. Cool down before placing it in a fridge.

Red currant jelly is perfect with meat, cheese plate etc.