Duck Pate

There was this restaurant in my town, years ago, when I was a girl... For some reason it was thought to be quite fashionable, to me then it was quite strange, now I know it was just very ugly. Anyway, there were two reasons why I liked when our parents took me and my sister for a dinner to that place. The first reason was that there was a fountain in the middle of the room and if we were lucky we could sit right next to it. Ugly or not, I have always liked water. The second reason was food - and to be more precise it was duck. They had this wonderful duck pate which was well worth spending time in ugly surroundings...
Anyway, one day the restaurant disappeared and so did the duck pate, naturally. I have never found anything similar to it in any other place (not that I was looking for it especially hard, possibly I just happened to be going to the wrong duck-pate-free places, that's all), so at some point I figured I should try to make something similar at home. It didn't take long to figure out the basic recipe, but getting the spices right has taken some time. But at the end it worked and this is all that counts. I'm quite happy with the results - and I enjoy my pate every time I make it.

 

Duck Pate
(two small loaves)

600 g duck fillet (with fat and skin)
400g chicken livers
250 g chicken fillet
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons finely chopped corriander
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, shredded
2 teaspoons cardamon
2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Bring water to boiling in a very big pot.
In the meantime separate skin and fat from the duck meat.
Cut the skin, fat, 1/2 duck meat, chicken livers and chicken fillet into pieces, put them in the bowl of a food processor together with egg, milk, salt and pepper. Process on high speed until the mixture is smooth. Add breadcrumbs and process one minute more.
Add the spices and mix well.
Cut the remaining duck meat into small pieces (1x1 cm), add to the mixture and stir.
Divide the mixture in halves. Put each half on a sheet of aluminum foil, form it into a loaf fitting your pot and wrap carefully with foil making sure there are no openings or holes through which the mixture could escape.
Put rolls into boiling water, cook for 90 minutes. When cooked, place them side by side on a wooden board and top with another board and something heavy (like a pot filled with water, few bags of flour or sugar or a few books). Leave the rolls like this to cool completely, then remove the aluminum foil and place loaves in a fridge. When thoroughly chilled slice and serve with fruit (fresh or canned). The pate also goes very well with cranberry preserve.

I Like It Black

Wherever I go I like to try the regional and traditional food. As long as it's safe, I mean... I have to know what I am eating and there are some things I would never touch even if eating them would make me a millionaire. I am being careful mostly when it comes to meat, but trying bread in most cases is absolutely safe.
So, trying different breads in different places I have come to the conclusion that very often bread eaten far away from home somehow is tasting better, at least for the first few days. After the first few days very often I notice it is not that good after all and I start to be missing my favorite bread from the bakery next to my place (next to my old place I should say, since I am speaking of Poland. I haven't been missing Belgian bread for a single day in my life and I will leave it with no comments. I love Belgian croissants, though.).
Anyway, trying all those breads that cannot really compete with the bread from "my" bakery I have discovered few that actually can. It's not that they would win, because they all are quite different, but I would place all of them together on the highest level of my private bread-podium.
But if I really had to pick a winner... Well, in that case the gold goes to the traditional Lithuanian bread (sorry, my favorite bakery round the corner).
You can get "Lithuanian Black Bread" in some supermarkets in Poland and it is not bad, even though it's not extremely nice either. But you can go up to the north-east of Poland, or even to Lithuania itself, and there you will get the real stuff (plus few other very nice regional treats and beautiful surroundings to spend time in) which is very well worth the trip . And when you are back home there is a big chance you will start trying to bake your own black bread - at least I did. And I must say it was not easy... I have tried quite a few recipes, and it never was what I wanted - until I tried a recipe for Peasant Black Bread out of a book that I brought many years ago from... the USA. It is not exactly the same bread, but close enough. Delicious. I love it, my kid's love it as well... OK, my husband does not love it, but actually I don't mind at all. That means that I can have more, so why would I worry? ;-)

Peasant Black Bread
(two loaves)

3.1/2 cups rye flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons caraway seed
2 packages active dry yeast
1 tablespoon instant coffee (powder or crystals)
3 teaspoons salt
2.1/2 cups hot water
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup dark molasses
1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
5-6 cups unbleached or all-purpose flour

Thoroughly mix rye flour, cocoa, sugar, caraway, yeast, coffee and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Stir in water, vinegar, molasses, and oil; beat until smooth.
Stir in enough unbleached flour to make a soft dough.
Turn onto a floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 5-7 minutes).
Place in an oiled bowl; turn to oil top of dough. Cover, let rise in a warm place until doubled (about 1 hour).
Punch dough down. Divide in halves, shape each half into a ball and place on a baking sheet sprinkled with flour. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk (about 1 hour).
Bake at 180ºC 45-50 minutes, or until done.

Back to Cloves

There were those wonderful pear desserts that my Grandma would make when we were coming over for a Sunday dinner. Pears cooked in syrup, served with velvety egg-vanilla cream... Delicious... Grandma knew I and my sister loved them, so mostly there were extra servings waiting for the two of us. I still remember the flavor and aroma of those pears - and I admit that I have never managed to get even close to them with the ones I am making sometimes. And I guess I never will - the dinners at Grandma's, blue chairs that I hated because the textile on them was so rough, old white plates with some floral border, big forks and knives (those I hated just as much as I hated the blue chairs. They were so damn heavy...), all these are beautiful memories of my childhood. You can't compete with memories, can you? So, I stopped trying to reproduce that taste I remember. Let it belong to my Grandma's pears in cream, let it be ever special and ever the best. Let it come to me in memories every time I am cooking pears and the kitchen is full of the cloves' aroma. Good thing there are cloves and they always smell the same...

Pears in Wine
(4 servings)

4 big pears
1.1/2 glass white wine
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup cranberry preserve
4 -5 whole cloves
1 stick cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons sherry
whipped cream and a little bit of cranberry preserve to serve (optional) 

Pare the pears, leaving them whole with the stems attached.
Put all the ingredients except sherry in a skillet, bring to boiling.
Turn down the heat, add the pears and let them simmer for about 40-45 minutes - just until they become transparent at the edges. Get pears out and set them aside to cool.
Add sherry to the syrup, bring it to boiling and let boil for another 20-25 minutes, until it becomes very thick. Pour syrup over the pears, chill thoroughly.
You can serve these pears with whipped cream and a little bit of cranberry preserve, but they also taste very nice just by themselves.

I Hate Bananas

If somebody asked me to name the fruit I don't like I wouldn't think twice. Bananas. That's the correct answer.
For some reason I have never liked bananas, banana drinks, banana puddings, banana candy or anything that looks, smells or tastes like bananas. Things that have to do with bananas are not for me - that is the rule and I'm not going to change it. I don't have an impression I'm missing anything by not eating bananas - but still world would be less beautiful without them.
See, As I have already stated I don't like bananas and that's the rule. It's holy. But what kind of a rule would it be if there were no exception on it? So. To make my rule quite perfect I have found an exception - and that's banana bread. I love it.
The thing about banana bread is that even though it has to do with bananas the banana taste and flavor are not very obvious. It doesn't smell like raw bananas, nor like artificial banana aroma. It just smells like... well, like banana bread, I would say. No more and no less. And, what is even more important, it does not have the consistency of bananas - even though when I think of the consistency of those mashed bananas that I put in there... OK. let's say the consistency part has not been mentioned here ;-)
Anyway, banana bread I could eat every day. Still warm out of the oven, toasted with butter, not toasted with or without butter, with whipped cream or without it... Banana bread is very flexible, takes pretty much everything. I like flexibility.

Banana Bread
(proportion for two loaves)

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup shortening
2 cups fully ripe bananas, mashed (5-6 bananas)
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
3.1/2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Combine sugar, shortening, bananas, eggs and milk in a mixing bowl, beat well.
Blend remaining ingredients, add to banana mixture and mix until blended.
Turn into two greased loaf pans.
Bake at 180ºC  45 to 50 minutes, or until done.
Get the pans out of the oven, leave the loaves in pans  to cool.
Enjoy your banana bread :-) 
 

Sugar Waffles from Liege

 

There are some things about Belgium that are really bad, like Belgian drivers and the overall chaos...

But there are also some things about Belgium that are wonderful - like Belgian beers (Kriek being my favorite), Belgian chocolate and Belgian waffless. 

There are many sorts of waffles: with or without yeast, with or without beer, not sweet at all or extremely sweet. One thing they have in common (at least those that I have already tried) is that they are very, very nice. The nicer the colder the weather is and the waffles warmer.

In Belgium you can get waffles anywhere: in a supermarket, at a restaurant, on a street corner. Or you can make them at home - then not only will you get the great taste of waffles, but also your kids, husbands, boyfriends etc. will simply adore you.

Liege Sugar Waffles
(about 20 small waffles)


750 g flour
270 ml lukewarm milk
70 g fresh yeast
3 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
15 g salt
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
400 g very soft butter
500 g pearl sugar

Put all the ingredients except for butter and sugar into a bowl and mix until the dough is smooth. Cover the bowl with a towel and place in a warm place to rise for about 45-60 minutes.
Punch dough down, add butter and sugar and work the dough for a short while - only until the butter is well mixed in. You don't want the sugar to dissolve.
Divide the dough into 20 balls (can be less or more - the thing is they have to fit into your waffle iron), place them on a board and place in a warm place to rise.
Preheat the waffle iron - remember not to grease it! When the iron is hot, start frying the waffles: place the dough balls in the iron (possibly two at a time), close the lid and let the waffles fry for about 4 minutes, or until golden brown.
Because of the amount of butter and sugar in the dough your iron will be a total mess at the end, but the waffles are worth it :-)