Avigayil Damm

During our visit to Oslo, we stayed at the Holmenkollen Park Rica Hotel. Since we took a mini-cruise package which included the mini-cruise, hotel accommodation and breakfast plus one additional meal, we chose to have our dinner at the hotel. The restaurant that was appointed to serve the additional meal was De Fem Stuer, one of their in house restaurant which seems to specialize in fine dining. We were excited to see what kind of culinary adventure awaits us.

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It was one of those days that I couldn’t figure out what to cook. I looked through my fridge to see what I have, and I found some chicken and some leftover parmesan cheese which I can’t remember what I had it for. Automatically my head put those two together and and decided to look up for recipes calling for those two ingredients. For some reason I must have looked up the words ‘chicken parmigiana’ because on the first page of the search result, I found this recipe by Ree Drummond.

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It’s high time to share another recipe that I have tried out. One of my favourite recipe collection is the Periplus Mini Cookbooks series. This one is taken from the Tasty Mince Recipes. It looked like it was easy to make, and I have always liked making food from minced meat, because it can be turned into so many different dishes. So here is the recipe:

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It was time to try out another recipe. Tonight I picked fish in herb tomato sauce, a modified recipe from ‘The Australian’s Women’s Weekly Make It Tonight’ series, with recipes for cooking in microwave.

Ingredients:

• 425 gr can tomato puree
• 1 medium onion, chopped finely
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 tbsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 clove garlic, minced/crushed
• 2 small chicken stock cubes
• 1 tsp sugar
• 4 (1 kg) white fish fillet

The only white fish I came across in my last grocery shopping was dory fish, so I tried that one. The fish is cooked, covered, on high temperature in the microwave for about four minutes and then set aside. The rest of the ingredients, consisting of tomato puree, onion, garlic, oregano, parsley and thyme, chicken stock cubes and sugar,  are all mixed together and cooked, covered, in the microwave for about 5 minutes, stirring once.

The sauce is then poured over the fish and they are cooked again together, covered, for another four five minutes or until the fish is cooked through. Pardon for the poor-quality picture, but there you have the result.

Taste wise, I didn’t care much for the dory fish. What I would do next time, is probably fry the dory fish instead of cooking it in the microwave. Or, pick another type of white fish altogether, such as cod.

The onions could have tasted better if it was cooked ahead first with the garlic until soft and fragrant. Plus, next time I would go easy on the thyme – it made the dish smell slightly earthy. But I am not giving up on this one just yet. With the above changes, I will definitely try it again sometime.

Today my hubby was struck by the ‘cooking’ lightning, and decided to bake bread. I, on the other hand, was due to cook chicken meatballs in tomato sauce, according to the one week menu.

First, the bread. My hubby found a basic white bread recipe which he followed. It’s the basic all purpose flour, yeast, milk and butter. This recipe also called for three teaspoons of honey. The dough is kneaded for a while, left to stand and raise for 45 minutes, kneaded again, divided into two baking forms, and left to raise again for another hour. My hubby read somewhere that instead of egg yolks, you can also use cold coffee (as in the drink, not the ground beans) to brush the surface of the bread to give it a nice colour. That’s exactly what he did, before he sprinkled some poppy seeds on the top. Right after it has cooled a bit, we dug right in, and were very happy with the result. Of course, nothing really beats the taste of freshly made bread.

As for me, I started my cooking process a few minutes after the bread was finished – or shall I say, after I have finished tasting a piece of the newly baked bread. The chicken meatballs (yes meatballs again, and yes I can see the ‘chicken’ tag grow bigger and bigger in the cloud) also contains fresh chopped thyme as well as breadcrumbs. The meatballs are fried first until golden brown, and then set aside. The sauce is made of chopped onions, stir fried in butter until soft, combined with crushed tomatoes, chicken stock, some balsamic vinegar and Italian seasoning mix. I added some tomato sauce which gives a little sweet taste to balance out the sour taste from the tomato and balsamic vinegar. After the sauce has thickened slightly, the meatballs are returned to the pot and left to simmer for some minutes. I served it with spaghetti (second favourite carbohydrate source) and sprinkles of parmesan cheese. The result left my sole customer happy – and customer satisfaction is the most important thing in my line of business!