White asparagus with Béchamel sauce, salted cashew nuts and bread with fried onion – the power of white

Again a plate from the Vintage Bazaar, this time with white asparagus, white sauce and white cheese.

White asparagus with Béchamel sauce, salted cashew nuts and bread with fried onion

- 500 g white asparagus

- salted, roasted cashew nuts

- mold-ripened goat’s milk cheese (e.g. Picodon)

For the Béchamel sauce (based on The Cook’s Book):

- 1 small onion (cut into halves)

- 4 cloves

- 600 ml milk

- 1 bay-leaf

- 45 g butter

- 45 g flour

- nutmeg (freshly ground)

For the bread with fried onion (based on the blog “Nem vagyok mesterszakács” – I am no professional chef – of course her version is the authentic one):

- 500 g bread flour

- half-a-day old “sourdough” (2 tbsp. fresh yoghurt, 4 tbsp. flour, 3 ½ tbsp. cold water – leave at room temperature for half a day)

- 10 g yeast

- 350 ml lukewarm water

- 1 onion (cut into rings and separated)

- oil (for frying)

Preparation:

1. Grill the asparagus spears for a few minutes in a ribbed bottom grill pan.

2. Boil the milk with the cloves, bay-leaf and onion halves for 5 minutes for the Béchamel sauce.

3. Melt the butter, add the flour and toast it to a golden brown colour stirring continuously. Pour the strained milk to the mixture and whisk it vigorously with a balloon whisk until the sauce thickens.

4. Fry the onion rings to a golden brown colour in the oil. Add the other ingredients of the bread, knead the dough, let it rise, form, sprinkle with flour, twist, let rise again, and then bake the bread in the hot oven to a golden brown colour.

5. Serve the asparagus with the sauce, with roughly chopped cashew nuts, crumbled goat’s milk cheese and bread.

Wild garlic tagliatelle with roasted garlic cream and spring onions

The dish was inspired by the pasta topped with various types of cheese. First I wanted to add both garlics and the onion to the sauce, but then I thought that it might be more interesting if we can taste them in various roles and textures: spicy in the pasta, creamy in the sauce and crunchy on the top.

Wild garlic tagliatelle with roasted garlic cream and spring onions

Ingredients:

For the wild garlic tagliatelle:

- 250 g flour for pasta

- 1 egg

- 50 g wild garlic (puréed with 80 ml water)

- salt

For the roasted garlic cream:

- 3 bulbs garlic (baked in the skin)

- 30 ml heavy cream

- 15 ml dry white wine

- salt, pepper

Topping:

- 8 spring onions (chopped)

- freshly ground pepper

Preparation:

1. Knead the dough for the pasta. Using a pasta maker, form and cut the tagliatelle. Cook the pasta in salted water for a few minutes (cc. 2 minutes).
2. Boil the white wine until the alcohol evaporates (cc. 2 minutes). Then purée the ingredients of the roasted garlic sauce with an immersion blender until smooth and creamy.
3. Mix the pasta with the sauce, and sprinkle it with lots of pepper and spring onion on the top.

Spinach fatayer with beer and sour cream dip – or I haven’t disappeared

First I didn’t want to publish this recipe on the blog, because I just altered one of Gordon’s recipes – but in the end I changed it so much, and the beer matches this dish so nicely, and so many of you wrote to me asking why no recipes had been published and why I had disappeared and even telling me that you cannot live without my… well, I have just transgressed all logical boundaries… so in the end I grabbed my camera and from then onwards you know the story.

So I haven’t disappeared, and I will come with recipes, but I needed to do some clean-up in the springtime. But we haven’t died of hunger. But I was really happy to get so many questions! Thank you all! And those who didn’t do so can now be ashamed.

This plate made of concrete is a dream come true for me, I am very grateful to the Vintage Bazaar for that! They are the nicest and most talented group in the world!

Spinach fatayer with beer and sour cream dip

For the dough:

- 250 g flour

- 1 tsp. salt

- 2 tbsp. olive oil

- 100 ml beer

- 20 ml water

For the spinach filling:

- 2 tbsp. olive oil

- 450 g spinach (washed)

- 5 shallots

- 60 g pine nuts (roasted)

- 90 g cottage cheese

- 1 tbsp. creamy goat’s-milk cheese

- zest of ½ lime

- salt, pepper

- nutmeg

For the sour cream dip:

- sour cream

- garlic (mashed)

- salt, pepper

Preparation:

1. Knead the ingredients of the dough. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap it in foil and put it in the fridge.

2. Cook the spinach on 1 tbsp. olive oil until it is wilted completely. Squeeze the spinach, and then chop it in a food processor. Fry the shallots lightly on the remaining olive oil. Mix the ingredients of the filling. Put it in the fridge while working with the dough.

3. Spread the dough as thin as possible and cut squares with 6-8 cm long sides. Put a spoonful of filling in the middle of each square. Moisten the sides of the squares with water, and then fold them into triangles. Put the triangles on an oiled baking sheet and bake them in the oven preheated to 180°C until they turn golden brown.

4. Mix the ingredients of the sour cream dip.

Strawberry & almond muffins with cream cheese frosting and amaretto biscuit crumbs – Zselyke’s name day

Let me show you a small detail from our weekend. We celebrated the name day of my daughter, Zselyke. True, the name day is already over, but the second child is not the first. But I think we could finally make her feel special. The only thing I feel sorry for is that I could not really take photos of the balloons because they flew away too early. I hope you also had a great weekend.

 The soft creamy cheese is a really good match with strawberries: it is the goat’s cheese that makes these muffins really exciting. But the best part is definitely the amaretto biscuit crumbs on the top. And you can prepare them extremely quickly. Although they are not really for children, still, they could try the muffins.

Strawberry & almond muffins with cream cheese frosting and amaretto biscuit crumbs

Ingredients:

For the strawberry & almond muffins:

- 150 g all-purpose flour

- 100 g almond (roasted and ground)

- 2 tsp. baking powder

- ½ tsp. baking soda

- pinch of salt

- 1 egg

- 120 g sugar

- 100 g soft butter

- 180 ml sour cream

- 20 strawberries

For the cream cheese frosting:

- 40 g Philadelphia cream cheese

- 40 g Goat cream cheese

- ½ vanilla bean

- 2 tbsp. powdered sugar

- 15 g butter (cut in cubes)

For the amaretto biscuit crumbs:

- 50 g digestive biscuits

- 2 tbsp. Amaretto liqueur

- 15 g butter (cut in cubes)

Preparation:

1. For the muffins mix the dry ingredients. Beat the egg with the sugar with an electric mixer, then add the butter and the sour cream. Mix in the dry ingredients and fill the cavities of a muffin pan with the batter (it will yield appr. 10 muffins), and hide two strawberries in each of them. Bake the muffins in the oven preheated to 160°C until 30 minutes. Let them come to room temperature.
2. Mix together the ingredients of the frosting with an electric mixer.
3. Crush the biscuits in a food processor. Add the butter and the Amaretto and pulse them in the food processor until crumbs form.
4. Spread the frosting on the muffins and sprinkle them with the Amaretto biscuit crumbs.