Spring Recipes

Ananuri Pizza

2009-01-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

Deep in the mountains between Domatestan and Jevistan, hundreds of ruins are scattered far from the sight of modern life's confusion.
Monasteries, temples, baths and castles lay on their backs, watching the night sky and reflecting on their former glory.
Heirs of once proud noble families, the stories they tell smell of another age. They recount the joys and pains of their hosts of yesterday, the melodies they played, the poems they sang ; and if you ask them kindly they will even treat you with one or two recipes of their starlit feists.
Here is one heard by a merry group of talented archeologists who, after having spent the day listening to the tales of the stones, gathered by the fireside and merrily spent the night baking and eating this delicious pizza.

Ingredients :

Flour
Tomato paste
Spices : cumin, hot chili pepper powder, black pepper, dried mint, cloves
Sugar
Lemon juice
Onion
Walnuts
Fresh mint
Feta cheese and/or yogurt

Instructions :

First make the dough : put some flour into a large bowl, and add some cold water and salt. Mix with one hand (you need to keep one clean to grab objects, otherwise you will cover everything you touch with wet flour). Follow this simple algorithm : when slimy things stick to your hand, add more flour ; when the dough is too dry to mix, add more water. When you've reached a nice compromise, let the dough rest in a bowl and cover with a wet cloth for 20 minutes. You can now prepare the sauce.
Cut an onion in small pieces, and fry in a pan with some oil, mixing now and then. Add all the spices and mix.
When the onion is soft and sweet (yellow but not yet brown), add the tomato paste, the salt and the sugar. Add some water to let the tomato paste mix with the other ingredients and mix well. Let the sauce cook for some time until the water has evaporated.
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees celcius (or brownie temperature for our american friends).
Take the dough and re-mix it in your hands with a lot of force for it to become as homogenous as possible.
Shape little spheres with your hands, and spread them thinly with a cylinder over a board. They will form the base of your pizzas. Don't try to make them round ; it's much more fun if you make them into very elongated ellipses, so that you can make little boats out of them.
Spread thinly the sauce on each of the future pizzas, leaving a little space at the edge along the whole perimeter. Fold vertically the edges to prevent the sauce from leaking, shaping a little boat out of the pizza. You can be creative with the front and the back, giving a nice drakkar look for instance.
On each pizza, sprinkle whole fresh mint leaves, walnuts (without the shell and cut into little pieces, but we thought you could figure that on your own), and some lemon juice.
Put into the oven and cook until the crust is fully cooked.
Serve sprinkled with bits of feta cheese or dipped into salty yogurt, and light some candles.

Green chicken

2008-10-31T14:36:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, in a deep forest that sprawled in a valley at the foot of unreachable mountains, lived a giant who was feeling deeply lonely.
He had no friends to share his pains and his joys with him as all the creatures of the forest bowed in fear before him.
He would spend his days cooking delicious feists that he ate alone at his dinner table designed for twenty adult giants.
In the evening, he lit candles and sipped his mountain wine by listening to the sounds of the forest under the enigmatic gaze of the moon hung up from the top of space.
One day, his fortunes changed when a pretty giant princess lost her way in the forest. She was quick, fearless and clever : she captured a wild chicken and ordered it to find the nearest dwelling. The tamed animal took the path of the giant's house, followed by the princess.
She stayed behind as the chicken entered the house disguised as a bush with herbs from the garden.
Unfortunately for the poor chicken, the trick failed miserably as the giant had spotted him rampaging his crops. Our gourmet giant designed a delicious chicken recipe on the spot with lemon and fresh herbs to compensate for his lost harvest.
The princess waited patiently for the cooking to end, then sat uninvited at the giant's table and made him enjoy her sweet company.
Since then, they lived happily and had a lot of little giants.

Ingredients :

Chicken pieces (some of them with bones on)
Lemon (and a lime as well if possible).
Bunch of fresh mint
Bunch of fresh basil
Fresh, dry or powdered chili pepper (really hot, not for tourists)
Black pepper
Ginger
Garlic
Nutmeg
Lemongrass
Green peppers or chilies
Piments ou poivrons verts
Sugar, salt

Instructions :

Prepare the marinade for the chicken : if the chilies are fresh, remove the seeds and chop finely. If they are dry, remove the seeds and crush in a mortar to get a powder.
Add black pepper and nutmeg.
Crush a garlic bulb and an equivalent quantity of ginger with the side of a large knife, then chop finely.
Add the chili pepper, the garlic and the ginger to the chicken pieces, and pour quite a lot of salt. Mix with your hands by rubbing all the pieces. The red color must be visible on each piece.
Let the chicken rest about 20 minutes, and in the meantime continue the preparation.
Cut roughly the equivalent of five big garlic bulbs (or keep them whole if they are small) ; keep in mind that small pieces burn quickly.
Chop in small pieces (slices or half slices) the soft part of two sticks of lemongrass.
Cut half of the skin of a lemon in stripes, and do the same for just a little bit of lime (beware : lime skin is VERY bitter, so use at most one or two stripes).
Heat some vegetable oil (sunflower for example, avoid olive oil for this recipe), and stir-fry on a low flame the garlic, lemongrass, and lemon skin for a few minutes, taking great care not to burn the garlic (it should not even begin to turn brown).
Remove the garlic/lemongrass/lemon skin mix from the fire, save in a bowl.
Cut roughly the green peppers.
Heat the pan again on a high flame, and add the chicken pieces with the green peppers. Stir-fry until they turn brown ; spray with a few drops of lemon (or lime) juice from time to time.
Cover, lower the flame to a minimum, and add half a glass of water.
While the chicken cooks gently, wash and chop all the mint and basil in small pieces. Add to the chicken.
Pour sugar on the chicken and let it cook on a low flame with the lid on, leaving a small opening so that the water can evaporate. Continue cooking for about 20 minutes.

It's ready ! Our team tested this recipe with cream and parmesan pasta, and it was a great succes :p

Sandtribe stuffed Peppers

2008-10-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

A long long time ago, in a far away land, lived a tribe of happy hunters on a sandy beach at the edge of a warm forest.
Their favorite food was by far the fireduck, that they caught by shooting fierce arrows on these stupid beach-roaming birds (whose preparation method will be detailed in an upcoming recipe).
Nonetheless they had to find some vegetables to supplement their diet in the spring months when the fireducks migrated to distant isles (as they were quite stupid, they migrated at odd times). Their spring-time delicacy consisted of red peppers stuffed with all the magical ingredients that the nearby forest would offer them.

In this forest, in a quite odd fashion (so many things were out of place in this enchanting land), grew olive trees, tomatoes, onions, and tall tamarind trees. All around, aromatic spices such as cinammon, fennel, and black pepper grew on low-lying branches. And sometimes, a very special kind of tree could be found that provided smoked bacon. In this peculiar natural environment, a very sophisticated culinary tradition developed among this friendly people which was otherwise of the most primitive sort.

I now invite you to join the fun with my own version of their delicious stuffed red peppers. You are free to choose large chili peppers, or more pacific sweet peppers, as long as they have a shape convenient for stuffing and cooking (long and straight for horizontal cooking, or regular bell-shaped for vertical cooking). In any case, they have to be able to rest where you put them without the stuffing escaping.
As for the meat, you are invited to use one with a distinctive flavor such as smoked bacon, lamb, turkish sucuk or pastirma. Otherwise, don't bother and let the dish be vegetarian.

Ingredients :

Red peppers (fit for stuffing and cooking, see above)
Some meat with a distinctive flavor (see above)
Half a glass of rice
Onions (one or two big onions, or several smaller ones)
Garlic
Tomato paste
Aromatic spices (my pick : cinnamon, fennel, bay leaves, black pepper, a little turmeric)
Tamarind paste (optional, but recommended)
Lemon juice and skin
Chili peppers, dried or fresh (if you are stuffing normal peppers, or if you are crazy)
Green olives without kernels
Parsley leaves
Sugar

Instructions :

Barely cook the rice (it should be almost edible, but not quite).
Soak a spoon of tamarind paste into hot water for ten minutes, mixing and crushing now and then. Then discard the solid contents by filtering, keeping only the water (you don't want to have hard tamarind seeds in your dish, do you ?).
Cut the heads of the peppers 1cm from the top (horizontally if they are bell-shaped, in diagonal if they are long), keeping the heads preciously. Empty the contents of the peppers with a spoon and a knife if needed.
Chop together the garlic, olives, and parsley into small pieces and place in a bowl.
Cut the onions into thin slices.
Chop the meat into small pieces together with the lemon skins.
Crush the spices and the chilies (if they are whole).
Heat olive oil in a frying pan and add (in this order) the meat with lemon, the spices, and the onions, stirring constantly for one minute between each ingredient.
Add a few spoons of tomato paste, and stir for a few minutes.
Add the ingredients from the bowl and continue stirring.
Add the lemon juice and the water from the tamarind paste, and continue cooking until much of the water has evaporated. Add as much salt and sugar as you want, making sure that it tastes delicious. Mix in the rice. You now have a paste that will be used for stuffing.
Stuff the peppers with the paste up to about 90% of their volume, making sure that you fill them densely. Don't overfill them as the rice will increase slightly in volume.
Place the peppers nicely in a big pot ; they are allowed to touch each other but not to step on each other. Put their heads back if you can, otherwise dump them randomly in the pot. Spray with olive oil, salt, lemon juice, and aromatic spices.
Cook on medium fire for a few minutes (not much more, otherwise the peppers will leak from the bottoms or worse stick to the pot !).
Mix one spoon of tomato paste in half a glass of water, and pour gently the liquid in the pot.
Close the lid (leaving a very small space so that water vapor can escape), and cook on low-medium fire for about 15 minutes, checking regularly if some water is left.
You can actually continue the cooking for as long as you want provided that the peppers are not too soft - they should hold their shapes and be transferrable to a plate without self-destroying.
Transfer to a plate and serve hot, or leave in the fridge and serve cold.

In all cases, I advise you to use the thick sauce that's left in the pot to pour on the peppers when serving. Furthermore, I suggest spraying some crushed Feta cheese on the peppers and serving with some garlic-lemony-salty yogurt, it is absolutely gorgeous !

Happy stuffing,
The Spring Recipes team

Thoughtful cucumber

2008-10-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

For some cultures, mouth-feel is as important as taste ; this is the reason why the chinese insist on chewing things that doesn't even seem to qualify as food for westerners (chicken feet, rubber-like seafood).
Similarly, diet-obsessed people suffer from a common disease contracted by seeking the greenest, least caloric, and freshest foods : the cucumber-crunch addiction. Indeed, it is hard not to fall in love with the delicious sound of agony that a whole raw cucumber emits when eaten alive. It is almost as orgasmic as the first puff on a cigarette, and admittedly much healthier.

Here is a recipe that will give a whole new meaning to the culinary fellatio of our green friends : the stuffed cucumber. Take a small specimen, cut its head off, and dig a long channel in its soft core by delicately rotating a sharp knife around it. You can then stuff it with the sauce of your choice, possibly sweet sour and spicy, giving a warm contrast between the fresh crunch of the innocent vegetable and the intellectual bite of the sauce.

Ingredients :

Cucumber (prefer the small crunchy ones)
Cheese such as feta, goat cheese or ricotta
Star aniseed or fennel (crushed)
Balsamic vinegar or lemon
Garlic
Red thai chili peppers and chili oil
Olive oil

Instructions :

Cut some garlic into small pieces.
Mix in a bown the cheese, aniseed, vinegar, garlic, olive oil and chili peppers into a thick paste.
Cut the head of the cucumber off.
Dig a channel in the core with a sharp knife by slicing delicately the edges of the soft central part.
Stuff the cucumber with the paste.

Eat with the hands, and enjoy !

Volcano chicken

2008-10-07T13:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a second recipe with chicken, and I hope that we will not get too much flamemail from vegetarians and people worried about dioxins.
This is a dish that does wonders to your tastebuds as the dried tomatoes give their umami to the chicken and the olive oil gets loaded with all the aromatic spices.
It is very nice to slow-cook a few vegetables (peppers, onions, garlic cloves with the skin, green chilli peppers) either together with the chicken or roasted in an oven. Serve everything with basmati rice or roasted potatoes, and sprinkle some crushed dried chillies and coarse salt on the chicken.

Ingredients :

Big pieces of chicken with skin (legs and wings for instance)
Dried tomatoes
Green olives (whole and without kernels if possible)
Olive oil
Onion
Garlic
Tomato paste (or a ripe tomatoes chopped finely)
Aromatic spices or herbs (my pick : 3 whole cloves, 2 cinnamon sticks and 2 bay leaves and/or some thyme)
Turmeric powder
Black pepper
Dried chili peppers or chili powder if desired
Limon juice
Sugar

Instructions :

Wash and dry the chicken pieces. Place them in a very large bowl and rub them with salt, chillies, sugar and some pieces of uncooked onion and garlic. Add some olive oil and a lot of lemon juice, and let marinate for as long as possible in the fridge. It is a good idea to stir with your hands every now and then.
Cut an onions in large slices, and chop very roughly four or five garlic cloves.
Heat violently a wok or a large pot, and place in it the chicken pieces. Quickly (before it burns !) add all the whole (unpowdered) spices you had selected together with the onions. Stir continuously until the skin of the chicken gets colored ; then lower the fire to a moderate heat and add the garlic and a small spoon of tomato paste (or the chopped tomato). Keep on stirring continuously until the tomato has blended into the oil.
Add the olives, the black pepper, the rest of the spices including the tip of a spoon of turmeric (don't add too much, it would ruin the taste !), sugar and some salt.
Add small quantity of water (less than half a glass), turn the fire to a minimum, and cover almost completely keeping only a small opening for the water to evaporate slowly.
Cook for at least an hour, checking regularly if the chicken is done. Add some more water if the cooking is not complete and all the water has evaporated.
You can turn of the fire and cover completely when cooking is complete and an oily sauce with very little liquid is left. The chicken can then wait for some time while the guests are done eating the starters or while the rice finishes cooking.

Oh, and here's a tip for you wine lovers : serve with a slightly coarse red wine from south-west France or South America (try the Casa Mayor from Argentina, it is a must), that will send all the spices flying around your head !

Rolled chicken

2008-10-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

This recipe is always a great success as an appetizer or as a starter for dinner parties. Provided you prepare the ingredients in advance, it is generally possible to kidnap two or three guests to make the rolls in industrial quantities as the gluttons swallow them one after another. The enslaved guests will not complain as they can use their priviledged position to eat as much as they like (while the others shout where are the next rolls ??).
We would also like to state that these rolls are perfect to supplement the post-party breakfast after a much-deserved rest in the fridge, in the unlikely case they have not all been eaten.

The rice spring roll wrappers can be found in any asian grocery store or supermarket, but it is preferable to pick the mid-sized or large ones (and not the small ones used to make fried spring rolls). As for the pesto, prefer the versions that have a lot of parmesan and garlic.

Ingredients :

Rice spring roll wrappers (round, at least 20cm in diameter)
Chicken breast
Pesto
Balsamic vinegar or lemon juice
Green onions
Red or green pepper
Sugar (brown if available)
Hot chili (thai red for example)
Black pepper

Instructions :

Boil a pot of water and boil the whole chicken breast for approximately 5mn. Cut slightly to check if the inside is not pink, otherwise continue the cooking for a few minutes.
Cool the chicken in cold water from the tap or in iced water.
Cut the chicken in thin slices of about 3cm (1.5 inch) long. Separate the white and green parts of the onions, and roughly cut the white part. In a large bowl, mix the white part of the onions, the chicken, pesto, vinegar (or lemon juice), chili peppers and sugar. Add black pepper and quite a lot of salt.
Cut in 3cm slices (1.5 inch) the peppers and the green part of the onions.
Put in one bown the peppers, in another bowl the onions and in a third bowl cold water.
For each roll, proceed as follows : Wet the whole surface of both faces of a rice wrapper. Rest the wrapper on a board (or plate). Put some green onions, some peppers and some chicken slices in a line at about 3/4 of the diameter of the wrapper (see drawing).
Roll two turns, and fold the right and left sides and continue rolling (see drawing).
Store the rolls one next to another (in layers if needed) in a flat dish. Don't worry about them touching each other, you will be able to separate them easily by pulling delicately.

The rolls are now ready, and can be served with a vinegar-sweet-hot sauce.

Welcome to the Spring Recipes !

2008-10-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

Winter is coming. You are free to succumb to depression, to bury yourself into the couch and to die from an overdose of dumb television, served with stale popcorn as a snowstorm rages outside.
The Spring Recipes team suggests a more attractive alternative : impress your friends, your mom as well as the other bears of the house by cooking delicious and extraordinary dishes.
Our two professional cooks (from the UCP, the university of chili peppers) will regularly suggest new recipes on this blog from their own favorites. Don't hesitate to experiment with the ingredients or the cooking process, and publish your innovations as comments !

Finally, we invite you to recommend to your non English-speaking friends the French (recettes-printemps.blogspot.com) and Turkish (ilk bahar-tarifeleri.blogspot.com) versions of our blog.

Happy cooking,
The Spring Recipes team