BROWNIES

I have to make these. Just. Go. Look. At. Them.

Now, if only I was fond enough of my co-workers to bring them Kahlua infused brownies. Then I would have someone to share with, and could justify making them.

Well, maybe if I clear some room in the freezer...

Hmm....

Yes, I will eat the last of the frozen veggies necessary to sustain us through winter. Then there will be room for brownies. :-)

Binnur's Turkish Cookbook

Hi all, I found this blog I really enjoy: Binnur's Turkish Cookbook

So far I have made 4 recipes from this site: Potato soup, Rustic Red Lentil soup, Pilaf with Eggplant, and Asparagus and Mushrooms in Olive Oil.

I liked them all, but I have to say my favorite was the pilaf. Definitely check that one out! I will be making it again for sure, so you can expect a pic in the future, although Binnur has one on her site. I also was a big fan of the potato soup, I found it very subtle but delicious. My BF didn't like it at all, saying it didn't taste like anything! I guess his palate has gotten a little used to my heavy hand with spices.

Green Salad

Maybe it's because I'm sick of "winter" foods, but recently, what you see here has made up 50-100% of our dinners for the past two weeks. Those winter dishes--often meaty, always filling and warm--are comforting and welcome at the first hint of cold air. However, when spring rolls around I start dreaming of crisp veggies, a bountiful variety of produce, grilled food, and yogurt and fresh cheeses like feta and mozzarella.

The particular green salad shown here consists of a bed of mixed greens and arugula, topped with sliced red onion, julienned carrot, tomatoes, cucumber slices, avocado chunks and of course, salt and fresh-ground pepper. I use a simple balsamic vinaigrette, just balsamic vinegar whisked with a little bit of olive oil.

I love that such salads are fast, flavorful and healthy--you easily get 2-3 vegetable servings at one sitting!

Kotletiy (Picture)

Tonight's dinner: Kotleti.

You can see from the oil-soaked paper towel they are a bit of an indulgence. We don't have them all that often, but I like it when we do. With these we just had some chopped cucumber and tomato. We used a little spicy mustard with them as well.

You can find the recipe here.

Greek-Style Lemony Chicken and Potatoes

Tonight's dinner: tender chicken leg quarters marinated in a Greek-inspired mix of yogurt, lemon juice, garlic and herbs. This was roasted on top of potatoes and onions drizzled in olive oil. As you can see from the photo, it's way too much food for just the two of us, but I made enough for leftovers. I'm planning on topping a green salad with some of this roasted chicken for a nice lunch tomorrow; that is, unless my boyfriend beats me to it and eats it for breakfast!

We just got back from 2 weeks in the States, and I feel so heavy. We ate so much greasy food, especially during the last half of the trip, when we were at a conference. Being at my parent's home (the first week) we could eat reasonably, but during that conference it was difficult. So basically we consumed a large number of french fries and heavy sandwiches.

After that, we've both been craving lighter and more wholesome food. I've been eating almost nothing but green salad for the past few days, just because it's so good after all that grease! But today it was time for something substantial again, yet still nutritious and not too heavy. We had just bought some chicken leg quarters yesterday, so I decided to make this. Greek or Greek-inspired dishes are always so tasty, in my opinion!

Ingredients:
3 chicken leg quarters (or more if you like)
1 T olive oil

Marinade:
1 big clove of garlic for each quarter + 1 extra
1/4 c yogurt (plain)
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
About 1-2 T dried oregano (to taste, can use fresh of course)
1 sprig mint, chopped
Generous sprinkling coarsely ground black pepper
Salt
1 t olive oil

4 medium potatoes
1 large white onion
1 T olive oil
Salt

Method:
Can be done ahead of time: Crush and chop the garlic, and mix all ingredients for marinade in a shallow bowl. Make sure the chicken is clean and dry; salt it a bit. Place the chicken in the dish, coating well with marinade. Separate the skin from the meat to spoon some marinade inside each piece. Let the chicken sit in the remaining marinade, turning occasionally. I marinated for an hour, but you could even do it overnight. Just make sure you refrigerate the chicken.


Chicken in marinade; potatoes and onions in the pan, ready to cook.

When you're ready to cook: Wash (peel if desired) and cube the potatoes. Cut the onion into sort of thick chips or semi-rings. Place potatoes and onions in a roasting pan. Mix well with some salt and 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Remove the chicken from the marinade, laying the pieces on top of the potatoes, skin side down. You can spoon any remaining marinade over the chicken. Place in a 190 degree C (375 degree F) oven for about 30 minutes. After about 30 minutes, take the pan out of the oven and turn the chicken pieces over. The skin side should be facing up now. Drizzle the remaining 1 Tbsp olive oil over the skin of the chicken. Bake for about 40 minutes more, or until chicken is done and skin is crisp and golden brown.

Notes and Serving Suggestion: It was a really nice, mild tasting meal. Filling but not greasy, the sort of thing you feel good after eating. I really like lemon flavor on the potatoes, so next time I may squeeze a little extra lemon juice over them. We ate this with a simple Greek salad. The sauce from the chicken was very tasty soaked up with bread.

Prunes Topped with Cream

I'm a bad, bad blogger. I have so many cool things to post about, but I don't ever seem to have enough time. But tonight I made this easy dessert that was so fast, I figured that writing a blog post about it would be fast, too. So basically, there was no excuse not to!

This is a Russian dessert that I first had at one of the several New Year's parties I attended in Ukraine. However, I find it remarkable that this could just as easily be French, as it features two French favorites: prunes and crème fraîche. That's basically like sour cream, but a little bit more mild.

I think this dessert is also fairly healthy, but beware that I find it really hard to stop at just one piece!

Ingredients:
12 prunes
12 walnut halves
~1/4 c crème fraîche (substitute full-fat sour cream)
1 T of sugar (can add more or less to taste)

Method:
Mix the cream with the sugar really well. If it's too sour, add a little more sugar. It shouldn't be super sweet though, it's going to balance the sweetness of the prunes. If your prunes are already pitted (stoned? Sounds weird.) then you're more than halfway finished. If they're not, take the stones out. Make a slice down the prune and just wiggle it out until it gives up. Tuck a walnut half inside each prune, and arrange them on a plate. Top them evenly with the cream and sugar mixture. Done!

Notes and Serving Suggestions: This recipe is so fast, especially if your prunes are ready. It is easily expanded as well, for a party or something. If you do this for a party, maybe poke a toothpick in them. They're really great with tea! I think of this as a dessert, but I think it would also be a cool hors d'oeuvre or tapas style food item.

Vinagret

The main part of today's lunch is pictured here: pelmeni (Siberian meat dumplings) and vinagret. Vinagret and olivier are what I think of as the "Big Two" of Russian salads. Both are extremely classic, everyone knows them, and you probably won't go to a Russian party or holiday celebration where they aren't present.

Even though everyone knows them, of course everyone has their own way of preparation. And of course, everyone is surprised to find out when someone else makes one of these salads differently, as they are "classics" for which the preparation is set in stone. ;-)

Here is how I've made it, which I believe is a pretty standard preparation. At least, my boyfriend proclaimed that it was "a real one."

Ingredients:
1 medium to large beet
1 large potato, boiled and peeled
1 large dill pickle (like this), or 2-3 smaller sized (baby dills)
1/2 a medium apple
1.5 c kvashennaya kapusta (or substitute drained sauerkraut)
1.5 c canned or jarred peas (you could use cooked frozen ones, but for some reason I've always liked the taste of canned peas)
A couple of tablespoons of oil (we use a mix of sunflower and olive, and it's tasty)

Method:
Boil the potato and the beet. Peel them. I usually boil first and then peel. It's easy, and the vegetables retain more nutrients and taste. (Experimentally verified!) It's best to do this in advance, if they are cooled off they are easier to chop into nice little cubes.

Everything except the cabbage and peas will be chopped into smallish cubes (in the neighborhood of .25"x.25" to .5"x.5"). Start with the beet and potato. Add them to a salad bowl. Salt just a little bit. You'll be adding other salty things (pickle, cabbage) so don't add too much, but the beet and potato should get a little salt of their own. Chop the apple and pickle(s) into small cubes. Drain the peas. Add these things to the salad. Now add the cabbage (or sauerkraut). Drizzle the salad with the vegetable oil, and stir well.

Notes and Serving Suggestions: This is probably my favorite Russian salad. I love all the ingredients separately and together they're awesome. Plus, there's no meat or mayonnaise! (Well, some people add herring. And some people use mayonnaise. See the intro to this post.)

This is great as an appetizer or part of an appetizer course, or, as we had today, as sort of a side dish.

Weekend Cooking Projects

It's the weekend again ... unfortunately, I think we'll be doing a lot more cleaning than cooking this time. The place has gotten to be a real mess! (We're both very busy with work.)

Plans:

Salad "Vinagret." One of the few Russian vegetarian salads out there (with the exception of any "fasting day" versions of other salads.

We want to try and hunt down some more winter cabbage. So far we've only found it in the farmer's market in the nearby French village. It's a bit more expensive than the regular one, but man, do I love that cabbage! The kvashennaya kapusta we made last weekend is almost gone, so it's time for round two (and maybe we'll make more this time).

I might make some piroshki. Last time I made them I was lazy and used store-bought pizza dough. When fried, this worked beautifully. When baked, the piroshki were bland. It's been a while since I made these from scratch. I may not do it because...

I think this is the weekend I'm going to try to make borodinskiy bread. I bought ingredients last weekend.

I'm going to make a big jar of ryazhenka! (I love the stuff). It's baked and slightly fermented milk. I know, it sounds disgusting. It's really good.

Maybe some soup? Probably should take advantage of the fact that it's still cold outside.

That's probably it. Like I said, a lot of cleaning to do, and maybe some work.

Kvashennaya Kapusta

This is the fermented cabbage we made this weekend. It's kind of like magic. The first day you don't want to eat it, but of course you try a little bit out of curiosity, and it is insanely salty. I kept asking my BF, "Are you sure we didn't add too much salt? Are you sure?" And he'd just respond, "Don't worry, you can't spoil this with too much salt!" I had my doubts. But then the fermentation actually happened, and it turned into the sour cabbage that I remembered eating in Ukraine.

Ingredients:
2 medium/large heads of white winter cabbage*
2-3 medium carrots
about 5 pieces dried horseradish**
A LOT of salt

*Using the winter kind, which is white and sort of flatter, is important because the leaves are firmer. I think it may still be tasty with regular cabbage, but the texture is better with the winter one.
**This is optional but I strongly recommend it! Each of the dried horseradish pieces I have is about .25"x.25". I'm sure you can substitute fresh, but it's probably stronger, so use less in that case.

Method:
Wash the cabbage, wash and peel the carrots. Grate the carrots on your grater's rough setting. Shred the cabbage (like for coleslaw or other salad). In a large vessel (I use a wide, deep bowl, like this but about 2-3x as deep), put a few handfuls of cabbage and carrots, then add a lot of salt. Sprinkle liberally all over the cabbage. Now, scrunch the cabbage and carrots with your hands, really work the salt in there. Toss in a piece of the horseradish. Add the next layer, a few more handfuls of the cabbage and carrots, and repeat. When you have exhausted all your vegetables, they're all in the bowl and thoroughly scrunched with salt, put a weight of some kind on the cabbage. We put a salad plate on top of the cabbage, and then a large pickle jar filled with water on top of the plate. Let it sit at room temperature for 2-3 days.

Ours took about 2.5 days before it wasn't salty anymore, but nice and sour. The cabbage should still have crunch, but it's softer. There will be a lot of liquid in the bowl, too. Keep it, it's tasty. And while the cabbage is sitting at room temperature, you don't have to worry about stirring or anything. If the liquid rises above the veggies that's fine.

Once the cabbage has fermented, keep it in a cool place, like the refrigerator, or outside (like we do) if it's cold enough.

Notes and Serving Suggestions: I really love this stuff. We made that huge bowl of it this weekend, and it's over half way finished! To serve it, put some cabbage in a serving bowl. Drizzle with a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil, sprinkle with a teaspoon or two of sugar (to taste), and mix well. Let sit for a few minutes then serve. You can also add herbs, such as dill, and sometimes people add chopped apples. Served as a salad, or as a side dish.

Weekend Cooking Summary (Late)

This past weekend we cooked:

-Shuba
-Golubtsy
-Pelmeni
-Kvashennaya Kapusta (salted fermented cabbage)
-Russian blini raised with yeast

Plus my BF and I accidentally made tvorog (farmer's cheese). We were trying to make ryazhenka.

I'll post more about the cabbage, blini, tvorog and ryazhenka later. In the mean time here's a pretty picture of golubtsy:


Ok, so the pictures not so good, but I assure you the cabbage rolls were!

Shuba (Herring in a Fur Coat)

The finished salad with a portion removed

There are many versions of how to layer this salad, but this is the one my BF's mom uses. The salad is shaped into a dome or elongated dome on the plate. But if I ever get around to having a dinner party, I want to make mine look like a fish. These ingredients will make a small salad that fits on a dinner plate. That means 4 big servings or 8 small ones. (A small serving would be enough if you had other salads/appetizers, but a big one is good if this is the only salad.)

Ingredients:
135 g salted herring fillets (I used ones with 4% salt) (bones removed)
1/2 a large beet
1 medium sized potato
1 small onion
2 hard boiled eggs
1/4 c mayonnaise

Method:
Boil the beet and potato until they are soft. You can peel first and then boil, but I like to boil and then peel (I've heard it makes the vegetables tastier and more nutritious). Boil the eggs. Keeping everything separate: Grate the potato on the fine grater setting and the beet on the course one. Chop the onion extremely fine. Chop the herring into pretty fine pieces, too. When the eggs are done, peel and chop them (yes, you guessed it, into pretty fine pieces).

Now the layering. Spread a very thin layer of mayo on the plate, where you will make the salad. Cover that layer with all the herring. Cover the herring with all the onion. Next comes the potato, then the egg. Now, you should have sort of a dome made from these layers. Cover the whole dome with the rest of the mayo, and then put the beet all over the mayonnaise.

Me with the finished product:


Notes and Serving Suggestions: This salad seems to be an obligatory part of the new year's table. It often shows up
on festive occasions in general. Served usually as an appetizer or part of a large salad/appetizers course, but I find it filling enough to be the main part of a light dinner. Also, all that mayo isn't so bad distributed throughout the whole thing. :-)

I'm Tired!

I cooked more today than I probably have in the past month! Today I made golubtsy (cabbage rolls stuffed with meat and rice), kvashennaya kapusta (salted cabbage, alluded to in the New Year post), and shuba herring and beet salad, also alluded to in the New Year post).

I had also intended to make a bunch of pelmeni today and freeze them, but it looks like that will have to wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm also going to make a bunch of meat broth, and maybe I'll try my hand at bread (but probably I'll leave that for next weekend). But so far I feel pretty good with 7 cabbage rolls (big ones!) in the fridge, 7 in the freezer, and one in my stomach. :-)

Pictures and recipe for shuba tomorrow, and the same for kapusta shortly afterward.

Weekend Cooking Projects

This weekend (tomorrow) I'm going to try and make the delicious kvashennaya kapusta (salted cabbage) that I ate ate my BF's parent's house. I know it involves horseradish, carrot and cabbage, but I'm not sure about the rassol (brine). We're going to call tomorrow and ask. :-)

My hopefully soon-to-be-in-laws have a huge stand alone freezer that is stocked with produce from their piece of land (dacha) and tons of pelmeni. They also have lots of cool stuff in jars: preserved tomatoes, aforementioned cabbage, homemade prunes, plumes in sour-sweet syrup, tomato juice, apricot jam, pickled cucumbers, pickled garlic, cherry jam, jars of kompot (kind of like juice), and honey.

The upshot of this is that half of a meal in the winter consists of simply opening a jar or the freezer. I think that is brilliant, and I want to create the same thing over here. You see, we work, a freaking lot. As some of you may have noticed, the big collider (scariest machine ever, I believe it was called) where we're working is going to be turned back on pretty darned soon. We have to prepare for that, so that we can graduate and continue to be gainfully employed. As such, BF and I are both VERY busy, and we have been living on mostly noodles and fried eggs.

That was fine before, but after a week of being fed the goodies I've described earlier in this post and in the last one, it doesn't sit very well with me. Not only because it's not as tasty, but also because it's kind of demoralizing. It makes me feel not like a grown-up to be eating noodles with fried eggs every night, until we run out of eggs, like we did tonight.

Yeah. So, tomorrow we're gonna be busy. I've decided to make 1) salted cabbage to put in a bunch of jars, 2) pelmeni (meat dumplings) and 3) golubtsy (cabbage rolls) to put in the freezer. Sunday I may make vareniki (cheese filled dumplings) and a bunch of meat broth to also freeze.

New Year

I just got back from Ukraine. It was so fun, and my first time celebrating New Year Russian style. New Year is the main holiday in Russia and in many former soviet countries, including Ukraine.

One of the most important aspects (the aspect?) of celebrating is the novagodniy stol (New Year's Table). This is the dinner table, laid out with tons of different zakuski (appetizers), salat (salads) etc, etc. Sometimes all food for the meal is laid out at once on the table, other times the starters are on the table, and then hot food comes out of the kitchen, and then more hot food, and then of course, tea and dessert!

We saw 4 different New Year's tables on this visit. I don't know if I can even remember everything that I ate, but here's my best attempt at a list. Recipes for some of these to come. I've given some links to my favorite Russian cooking website. It's in Russian but there are pictures, too.

Salati (Salads):
-Shuba (Herring in a Fur Coat, ours had the beets on top)
-Kapusta (Preserved Cabbage with Horseradish)
-Mimosa (Fish and Egg)
-Olivier (very classic one, mostly potatoes)
-Vinagret (very classic, it has beets)
-Grated carrots with garlic
-"Korean" spicy carrots (posted about these before)
-"Happy New Year" salad
-Green salad topped with radish and red caviar
-Crab and corn salad

Zakuski (Appetizers):
-Kalbasa (Salami)
-Eggplant caviar
-Buterbrot C Ikroi (Buttered bread with red caviar)
-Olives
-Fried pieces of white fish
-Fried pieces of veal
-Stuffed goose's neck
-Holodyets (meat in gelatin)
-Pechenochniy Tort (non-sweet cake made from liver)
-Fried chicken cutlets
-Salted fish (trout, some tasty white one I don't know, salmon)
-Homemade prunes (delicious)
-Homemade conserved tomatoes
-Marinated mushrooms
-Salmon and cheese rolls
-Stuffed mushrooms
-Quince fried with sugar
-Preserved apples

Hot dishes or Main dishes:
-Boiled and salted goose (this is a Tatar dish and DELICIOUS)
-Belyash
-Pelmeni served with Georgian plum sauce
-Braised meat with quince and potatoes
-Cooked duck with apples
-Broth (from goose)
-Plov (with chicken)
-Indian spicy potatoes (I made these)
-A baked chicken stuffed with bread stuffing, American style (but with Russian flavors...dill, parsley, celery root, carrots, parsley root, tarragon, onion and garlic). Everyone was amazed by the idea of stuffing a chicken with bread!

Desserts:
-Thick blini (made with yeast)
-Kievskiy Tort
-Bannaniy Tort
-Tiramisu (not like it's Italian namesake, but good)
-Some tasty jam cookies
-Lots of honey straight from the dacha
-Pineapple
-Homemade jams (cherry, raspberry)

Drinks:
-Balsam from Bashkortostan
-Balsam from Tatarstan
-French white wine and Champagne (our gift)
-White wine from Crimea (BAD)
-Red wine from Crimea (not half bad)
-"Champagne" from Odessa (pretty good)
-Vodka
-Samagon (homemade alcohol) from honey
-Kompot

You know what, I'm sure I've forgotten something! But that's a lot, isn't it? I hope I can manage to find the recipes for more of those things, because they were all really tasty.

Also, this new year I managed to make my first good toast in Russian. I had tried twice before, but this time, I finally managed a really good one.

There will be posts...

But probably in 2010.

We're going to Ukraine soon and and I'm so excited! This is because in Ukraine, New Year is a major holiday. It is like Christmas is in America. Except that it's sorta like Christmas+Halloween+Thanksgiving+New Year. Yeah. And my BF's mom is a really good cook, so I'm sure I'm going to get to learn lots of cool Russian, Tatar and Ukrainian recipes. Which I will then blog about!

I've been looking through my collection of "draft" posts, and there are a lot of recipes that I want to try. I just feel so much more motivated to cook when the really nice spring and summer produce starts to arrive. (And when I'm not sick, and when my apartment isn't messy...for some reason it's always messier in the winter?)

The most exciting food news lately was that we continued our fledgling tradition of going to a certain restaurant on Christmas Eve for meat fondue. Lots of meat, with 7 different sauces to dip it in, fresh tasty fries, bread and--of course--good red wine. I'm really glad we thought to start that one!

Geneva Restaurant Review: Palais du Saigon (Ferney)

This has very quickly become a favorite. An office mate introduced me and the BF to this place, oh, two weeks ago? Since we've been there twice for dinner and once for lunch.

The biggest reason why? It's cheap (for here). And still quite tasty.

First Impression: Nice looking, if quite typical, Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant. Not very big, but big enough. From the outside it's quite easy to miss. We drove by it several times before being introduced to it by someone else! They are always busy, which is a sign of it's popularity. Nice: they have their own parking lot, you don't have to look for a spot on the street. The only downside is that from where we live you have to take the car, not the bus.

Food: More than reasonably tasty. I think we've tried almost every single soup, and I like them all. They have pho, but it's not as good as in the states. Certainly hits the spot when you have a craving, though. Beef, chicken, scallops, pork and tofu dishes have all been delicious. I really loved the scallops. Portions on the main dishes are big enough to share with one other person if you get a side of rice/noodles and each get an appetizer/soup first.

Drink: Haven't tried the wine list. I always stick with H2O when it comes to Asian food. BF has had beer, Tsing Tao. He liked it.

Price: For this area, it is very, very reasonable. We're talking 20 euros a person for dinner, 10 euros a person with the lunch special! (I know my fellow Americans are probably fainting at that "cheap" dinner price, but here it is, especially for what you get.)

Interesting: They also seem to do a bustling to-go business. Will have to try that out!

Consensus: Love it! I really do like to go every week. We get to eat out without feeling guilty for blowing a ton of money.

Kotletiy

These are Russian hamburger patties/meatballs. They are simple, fast and extremely delicious, especially with mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:
1 small onion
50 g bread, stale is ok
Milk enough to soak the bread (~1/3 c)
About 400 g ground beef
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying onions (just a little) and patties (a lot, enough for shallow frying)
Flour for dredging

Method:
Let the bread soak up all the milk. It should be soft enough to just be mush, like oatmeal consistency. While it's soaking, fry the onion, diced. I let the onion get a little brown. Mix the bread, onion and beef very well. You should be able to form balls, but they will be a little sticky. Dredge the balls in flour, shaking off excess. Fry in the oil a few minutes each side, till just almost cooked all the way through. Let them drain on a paper towel on a plate, they will finish cooking with carry-over heat.

Notes: I love these! The salting is tricky, I'd rather undersalt than oversalt. We've had a batch both ways, and well, you can always add, but you can't take away.

Seriving Suggestion: The best with mashed potatoes, also good with bread. They are tasty cold but I prefer them warm and juicy. I even chopped up leftovers and put it on top of a plain frozen pizza; that was delicious.

Too-Many-Vegetables Soup

Yesterday I realized that we had way too many vegetables around that were going to start being too old any day. So I decided to make a big pot of veggie soup using whatever we had around.

Ingredients:
1/2 small red onion
1 large white onion
4 small carrots
2 leeks (bulb and lower leaf portion)
1 medium zucchini
2 big white mushrooms
1 c shredded cabbage
1/4 c parsley, chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 T balsamic vinegar
1.5 T olive oil
Salt to taste
A little soy sauce or fish sauce (about 1 t)
1 bay leaf
Water to fill the pot

Method:
Warm the oil in your soup pot. Slice the onions into half rings, add them to the pot and let them saute. Peel and grate the carrots, cut the leeks into half rings, and add them to the pot as well. Salt the vegetables and let them saute. Now add water to fill the pot almost full, and turn the heat up to bring the soup to a boil. Add chopped zucchini, chopped mushrooms, shredded cabbage and garlic. Put in the seasonings: bay leaf, balsamic vinegar, soy or fish sauce, salt and parsley. Add them to your taste. Let the soup simmer until the cabbage and zucchini are soft enough for you.

Notes: I was surprised how good this was. I mean, I was kind of begrudgingly making it, thinking I was basically cleaning out my fridge, and that it wasn't going to taste that great because there was just water, no meat based broth or long-cooking-full-of-goodness vegetable broth. But it turns out it doesn't take a lot of time for the veggies to flavor the water. It only took about 25 minutes or so total. Of course you can use whatever veggies you have around, but I think that the leeks and mushrooms made this especially tasty.

Serving Suggestion: Good with a piece of bread. My boyfriend put leftover roasted chicken meat in his bowl, and he liked it.

Spicy "Korean" Carrots

This was an attempt to recreate a dish that is sold in markets across the former Soviet Union. I had it in Ukraine, and got a craving for it in a bad way a few nights ago. But Switzerland is not the FSU, so if you want spicy "Korean" carrots here, you have to make them yourself. That is a problem, because it is a closely guarded secret. It's not an actual Korean dish, but those of Korean descent in the FSU who know how to make it don't tell anyone the recipe. There are, however, a lot of recipes on the internet, and I figured that they were all similar enough that the basic approach must be right.

The carrots in the market are sold in looong strips. I think they use one of these. Since I don't have one of those, I had to settle for attempting to julienne my carrots. Since I'm not a chef, and carrots are hard, I had to settle for thicker carrot sticks.

Spicy "Korean" Carrots

Ingredients:
2 very large carrots, 1 small one
1 small white onion
1 big clove of garlic
1.5 T vegetable oil
1 T powdered coriander
1.5 T chili powder*
2 t sugar
Juice of half a lemon
Salt to taste

*Note: My chili powder is mixed with a few other spices (oregano?!) and is a bit weak. You can adjust this based on your ingredients and your taste.

Method:
Cut the carrots into as close to a julienne as you can, or use a vegetable slicer of some kind. They shouldn't be shredded though. Slice the onion into thin half rings, and chop the garlic. Warm the oil in a large skillet. Add the onion, fry until translucent, soft and fragrant. Push the onions to one side, make sure there's enough oil pooled on the other side so you don't have to add more (we want to keep the fat down to some extent). This may mean tilting the pan slightly to get some on that other side. Once you have some warm oil on the opposite side of the onions, add the spices to it. Make sure that all the chili powder and coriander is immersed in the oil, let it fry for some seconds, it should smell really spicy. Add the garlic to the pan, and mix every thing together. Turn the heat down as low as it goes, add the carrots, the sugar, the lemon and the salt. Toss the carrots really well in the spice mix. Let them cook for a few minutes, you may need to keep tossing them so the spices don't burn and so they cook evenly. They should be still a bit crunchy when you serve them.

Notes: In recipes I've seen online they use vinegar, not lemon. But I had half a lemon, so guess what went in, and guess what tasted good? Also, in the real recipe the carrots aren't cooked. They sit in the marinade for a long time. But I cooked them because I was really hungry and couldn't wait. I think it especially worked out because I had thicker carrots. The flavor was close enough to the real thing to satisfy a craving. I think it would be even closer if I didn't cook the carrots and had really nice and thinly cut ones.

Serving suggestion: This was part of a dinner that included frozen and microwaved spinach souffle and perfectly boiled eggs (thank you, boyfriend!). I think they'd make a really good side dish to poultry or pork. Or even hamburgers, come to think of it.

Geneva Restaurant Review: Auberge de Satigny

Went here with my advisor and office people a few nights ago.

First Impression: Looks nice. Big dining room, can seat a lot of people. Not so much a "date" place though, come with friends. There were quite a few groups of people here and some kids running around. View of the dining room is a soccer field.

Food: Of course, la chasse is on right now. They had a menu for 43 francs or so; squash soup with foie gras for entrée, roasted wild boar with traditional chasse sides, and some kind of egg custard I believe, for dessert. I decided to take this same soup that was on the menu (12 francs), the medallion of deer with sides (34 francs) and my boyfriend and I split a sundae for dessert (9 francs). My boyfriend got salade melée and the deer, others at the table took a terrine of hare and the deer.

The food was not bad. I really enjoyed my soup, I was told the terrine was wonderful and the salad was nice as well. The deer was disappointing. It was a bit tough and the cut was too thick. It is much nicer at Le Chaumaz, where they grill it in front of you, and then take it to the kitchen and slice it into bite-size pieces before putting it on the plate. Their sauce and sides are also better. Here the sauce was a tasty pepper sauce. There were some cranberries, brussels sprouts, candied chestnuts, red cabbage and spaetzle for sides. Dessert was very good; a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate and caramel sauces, meringues crumbled on top, and whipped cream. Oh, wine was nice too.

Honestly, I think it was a bit pricey, simply because the main part of the meal was not up to standards. If I had only taken the soup and dessert (or the terrine and dessert) I probably would've been extremely satisfied.

Interesting: They had a large selection of strange game: kangaroo, ostrich, springbuck, etc. But what I thought was weird is that most of the meat, including deer and lamb, was from New Zealand. I know we have both of those things in Switzerland! I also think it's strange they have so many kinds of meat, when I can tell from the way mine was done, this is not a meat place.

They also have a pizzeria here, you can get pizza in the restaurant or take it to go. From what I saw in the dining room, the pizza seemed to be a popular choice.

Consensus: I really did enjoy my soup and dessert, but I don't think I'll probably be back. The soup was one of the best I've had in a restaurant, but I've already tried it now, you know? Maybe we'll end up back someday though, because it is very close to CERN.