EatinginPrague

Remember Asian restaurant

2011-02-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a looooong time since I last blogged and I hope there is still someone following :-)
Our baby Ivan is almost 6 months old now and sometimes he is kind enough to let us eat out somewhere.
This restaurant was recommended in two comments to Mr. Cuketka's recent post on Vietnamese cuisine. Since we don't live too far away and the weather was nice, we decided to take a walk a give it a try. I hereby thank the people who recommended it :-)

Remember took over from a Chinese restaurant. The place is a bit cramped and overdecorated, but clean and cozy. You can actually see the kitchen in a window behind the bar and it also looks clean and well organized.
It's great that the staff speak very good Czech and have good knowledge of the menu. A huge plus point for that.

We decided to go for the most popular items, so we had to order the spring rolls. These were very nice. The cook didn't skimp on herbs like they do in Hanoi, where the filling is mostly noodles without any particular taste. The rolls contained shrimp, noodles, iceberg lettuce, cucumber, carrot, omelette, soy sprouts, cilantro and mint, with the usual sweetish dressing. This is the ultimate summer food.

My Nam Bo. The dish contained all the usual suspects - noodles, sweet sauce, beef, herbs, vegetables and peanuts. I love this type of dishes - fresh, crunchy, lots of different textures and profound flavors. I liked it a lot.

Husband's Pho with rare meat (number two on the menu) could have been hotter, but it was tasty nonetheless. It wasn't greasy as the Pho in the Holesovice trznice tends/used to be and had a clean, deep, concentrated beef and spice flavour, without excessive MSG use. Maybe there even wasn't any, we didn't feel thirsty afterwads like we do after Hanoi's Pho. Pickled bamboo, sliced chili and a lemon wedge were served on the side. More herbs would have been more than welcome though.

There is a small shrine inside the restaurant, not something you see often here.

In my opinion Remember serves way better food than the only other Vietnamese restaurant in town - Hanoi (Sapa market doesn't count). I haven't been to the Holesovice trznice for quite a while, but rumour has it that it's gone down a lot. The bistro on Sokolovska didn't impress me, even though it gets much praise. Remember restaurant has an extensive menu, with both Vietnamese and "Asian" dishes, which is probably necessary in Prague if you want to make some revenue. I think it could become a favorite, but we will have to see how it deals with the increasing popularity, due to the mention on Mr. Cuketka's site and the increasing awerness of Vietnamese food. As for me, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Remember and will return asap.

Where is Eatinginprague?

2010-10-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

Eatinginprague is very busy. Too busy to blog, too busy to cook and too busy too eat out. The reason for it being this little, 6 week old fella...

He takes up all of my time at the moment. Even though I miss all the good food and the fun, there is not a single minute I can spare to pursue my blogging career for a couple more months. I hope there is still someone reading this and I promise to come back as soon as possible with some new stuff :-)

Meanwhile, enjoy these incredible photos from a cookbook Ikea is about to issue. Perfect, huh? :-)

Polevkarna

2010-07-24T03:45:00.000-07:00

Prague is short of places like noodle, salad or sandwich bars, or other places serving good and cheap lunch grub. Polevkarna is such a place, specializing in soups and savoury pastries. It's a quite small bistro like establishment where you order at the bar, collect your food and find a place to sit either outside or inside. I'm sure that the proximity of quite a few big office buildings was the reason for opening at this venue in Karlin.

We arrived at 2 p.m. and there was only 2 kinds of soup out 4 left to choose from. A good sign - the place seems to be popular. None of us 2 was eager on the bean soup with walnuts, which I later regretted, so we both went for big serves of borsch. To go with it we ordered a piece of cheese chachpuri and fried eggplant with walnut paste served on home-made bread. The bill for 2 big soups, the chachapuri, eggplant and 1 Mattoni was 206kc - a very good deal in my opinion.

The borsch was very good. With just the right level of sweetness and acidity, crunchy vegetables and some meat. This isn't the borsch you sometimes get served in Czech restaurants, but a proper version of the soup.

The generous slice of cheese chachapuri went very well with the hot soup. Chachapuri has to be quite salty, because the cheese it's originally made with is very salty. Here in Prague, brynza or balkanský sýr mixed with tvaroh could be used to make chachapuri. No idea what the cook used here, but it was mighty tasty. They also had spinach and bean chachapuri on display, but we decided to stick to the classic this time and we did not go wrong. The slice of fried eggplant with a smooth walnut paste is a brilliant example of healthy and tasty finger-food. The home-made bread it was served on was wonderful.

The place clearly has a Georgian cook, there is no doubt about that. The superb chachapuri is a clear sign, as well as the little "sandwiches" with eggplant or spinach are typical Georgian and it all tastes very homey. Also the soups they serve often have a Caucasian or Russian feel to them - Bean soup with walnuts (walnuts are a staple in Caucasian cuisine), Chicken soup with tarragon (one of the most popular herbs in Georgia), Okroshka (a cold Russian soup made either with kefir or kvas), Borsch etc.

Below is the menu for the day of our visit. Short, straight forward and cheap. Everything is cooked fresh everyday and they do not seem to be left with any left-overs. By the time we were leaving they ran out of the bean soup as well. They announce the daily menu on their facebook page every day.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Polevkarna and hope they will open another outlet somewhere in the center. If they keep up the good quality, low prices and the simple koncept, they might soon see queues lining their entrance - I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case already.

Ladronka gourmet restaurant

2010-07-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

Ladronka is a park, but I it’s definitely not my favorite park in Prague. The reason for it being that it’s full of inline skaters and people riding bikes. Don’t get me wrong, I like sports and I do sports…..but there is no space for pedestrians in the front part of this park. You get angry and annoyed looks all the time if you step onto the inline or bike paths, if you don’t pay attention you can get easily overrun. So the best idea is to quickly cross this dangerous area and head deeper into the park where there is plenty of green and beautiful lawns. But if you are into inlining then this park is perfect!

Usedlost Ladronka is a big complex, with 2 restaurants, 1 fast food stall with plenty of shaded outside seating, facing several beach volleyball courts. There is plenty of other outside and inside activities like bowling, inline rental, petanque etc. When the weather is nice the place is completely crowded and you could spend a whole day there without getting bored.

But we were after more sophisticated dining...the Ladronka gourmet restaurant. We came across this place by accident, while looking for a nice place to have another family celebration. The place seemed "new" as I never read or heard of it. It’s fairly small and has a very nice, smallish terrace with a unique view of the park itself and the city panorama. When we came to inquire about reserving a table we were informed that they are French restaurant specializing in exclusive wines and food. The waiter stressed that there was no draught beer and no dogs allowed. We quickly looked through the menu, decided that it looked alright and made a reservation for 10 people.

When we arrived at 6 p.m. it was still very very hot and although the terrace disposed of an enormous a very sophisticated umbrella there was no way of getting any shade. Our table stood directly in the gleaming sun, while all the other, empty, tables took up the surrounding shade. Weird, if you ask me. But the staff did not seem to consider it a problem. BTW, not all of us arrived, there was only 8 of us in the end, but we informed the staff about this in advance by phone.

The views from the terrace are very nice...

The service was very considerate and polite, but it definitely wasn’t friendly or smiley. We weren’t given menus when we were seated, instead there were small pieces of paper under each guest’s napkin with an extract from the menu. There was a choice of 2 soups, 1 salad, 4 main courses and 2 desserts. No appetizers. When we asked why we weren’t given the full menu we were informed that the offer on the little pieces of paper were menu choices for large groups. We could choose from the normal menu, but it would take longer to serve us. Another thing I didn’t quite understand, because the choices were totally the same as in the normal menu.

Nevertheless, the regular menu has a choice of 3 soups, 2 appetizers, 3 salads and about 8 main courses. I didn’t think that their menu is particularly well designed. With one appetizer costing under 100 crowns and the other costing just under 400 crowns, it doesn't leave too many choices to the majority of people. The main course section offers a better selection. In the end all of us narrowed our choice to 1 appetizer and 1 salad and 3 main courses. *The online menu does not completely correspond with the onsite menu.

Above is my virgin mojito...way too sweet. The rest of the party drank wine, I'm not a wine expert so I avoid writing about it. All there is to say is that it was all good. The restaurant offers bottles costing over 20 000 crowns, but also some very reasonably priced and good quality wines.

Above is an amuse bouche we all received as a compliment from the chef. It was some kind of salmon pâté or rather mousse, with a few pieces of smoked salmon and a sweetish wine reduction type sauce. It was alright and extremely small :-) I thought it looked rather ridiculous on this huge plate, and I am used to small things on big plates. The also served tasty bread rolls, but surprisingly no butter or even olive oil. I would have been happier if they served some garlic and herb butter for the bread instead of this salmon thingy.

Foie gras with nectarines and some kind of fruit jelly. There are no active PETA members among us, so 4 from the party ordered this. It was a serious piece of foie gras served on a dense toast and with the sweet sides. This was alright but not spectacular. It was too raw for two diners.

Ceasar salad with prawns. It was a great Ceasar salad, with a well made dressing and crunchy Romaine lettuce. However, the prawns were just the average frozen stuff you get everywhere else. Overall I liked this, but just because of the very tasty and most importantly proper Ceasar dressing.

The first main course that came out of the kitchen was the Goose leg confit with cabbage and dumplings. The meat was good, well seasoned, tender and not greasy, as goose often tends to be. Thumbs up for the goose.

Lamb chops with ratatouille. They were way too raw for all of the people who ordered them. Some chops were not even warm. They were all sent back to the kitchen and came back a little more cooked, but still medium. After that they were delicious, very good meat just with the right amount of fat. The ratatouille was especially great.

Pike perch with chanterelles and a truffle espuma. I guess I could call this tasty. I couldn't taste any truffles in the white foam, but it went very well with the chanterelles, which I love. The fish itself was very well cooked and fresh, but unfortunately there were many bones in it. It was a fillet and in my opinion a fillet should not contain bones. There wasn't one or two or even five of them, but rather fifteen large bones. Another thing I didn't appreciate were the chips like potatoes on top, they were tasty by themselves or would have been great with a beer, but this delicate dish deserved a creamier side like mashed potatoes or creamed spinach or risotto.

Cremant jelly with sorbet. Refreshing, and very sour. Expect to have a blue tongue until the next morning.

Chocolate fondant. A good take on a classic, creamy and warm inside. I liked this!

Strawberry dumplings. Looks good, doesn't it? And it was tasty too. Sweet and fragrant straberries and the creamy, warm vanilla sauce made the perfect match.

Overall we liked this dinner, especially because of the beautiful setting. The food needs improvement however. Or perhaps the menu needs to be adjusted. The place might be a bit too expensive and too luxurious for this location, but despite this, customers were coming in all the time, although mostly having only dessert or salad. I guess we would come back if they amended the menu a bit, broadening the appetizer section and maybe adding some fresh seafood.

Artisan restaurant

2010-06-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

More than 2 months have passed since my last post...2 very busy months. All we did for the last 2 months was study and in the end we were rewarded. Proud pan inženýr and paní inženýrka deserved a small celebration and Artisan restaurant it was.
The place is fairly new and tucked away in a very quiet corner between Mala strana and Smichov. Not only it is easily reachable by foot or tram, but there is almost always free parking space right next to it. I didn't make any photos of the interior, they're available on the restaurant's website.
We came at about 6.30 p.m. and decided to sit on the outside terrace.

Soon after we were seated and given menus the bread arrived. It was tasty, dense and crusty bread, which has probably been grilled shortly. It was served with whipped butter. Simple, but tasty.

Above is the salmon ceviche with mango and jalapeno. A very colorful dish and it surely was tasty, but this is not something I would ever call a ceviche. It was rather a salmon carpaccio served with a mango and chilli chutney on toast. A ceviche, in my opinion, is something like this - pieces of raw fish marinated in lemon juice until becoming opaque and mixed with the other ingredients. Artisan's version served it's purpose as a good carpaccio, the fish was fresh, the mango was ripe, the toast was crunchy. I wish they served some lime wedges with it.

Husband surely made better choices this evening. His scallops with pea puree were fantastic. They were surprisingly big, lightly grilled and very juicy inside. The pea puree was velvety and the sweetish port reduction worked very well with it. These were the best scallops we have ever eaten in Prague.

I decided to go for the open ravioli with duck ragout. Again, I expected something else, but these were alright. The ragout was on the sweet side and tasted strongly of root vegetables. The meat was cut up in very small pieces and overall I thought that the sauce was too thin to be served with this type of pasta. It would have been better with tagliatelle or a similar pasta variety. It was tasty, but not something I would order again. A guest sitting at the table next to us ordered the bbq ribs, these looked incredible and I wish I ordered those :-) Next time!

Husband's black pepper steak was the star of the dinner. Very good quality meat, grilled to perfection and served with tasty sides. Husband said it was one of the top 3 steaks in Prague.

He savoured every bit and later said that it's a pity that they didn't offer bigger steaks on the menu. My favourite part were the haricots verts, they were very crunchy but not stringy. The chef in Artisan definitely knows how to cook a good steak and we would go back for it any time!

I decided to try their crème brûlée, as it's one of my favourite desserts. It was very decent, although a tad too sweet for my liking. I've never seen a crème brûlée with so many black vanilla dots, however the vanilla taste was not overwhelming.

As for drinks - husband had a few draught Pilsener, while I stuck to Mattoni. I haven't had any alcohol for a loooong time and I'm starting to miss it! There's nothing I can say about the wine list and other drinks on offer...

We were the only guests when we arrived, but more and more people started coming in after 7 p.m. The place seems to be popular and I strongly hope they will keep up the good quality, friendly service and acceptable prices. Overall we enjoyed this dinner a lot and we would return anytime!

Asparagus farm in Hostin u Vojkovic

2010-04-20T03:20:00.001-07:00

The asparagus season just started! Back in the days of the First Republic, Czechoslovakia was renowned for its asparagus, which it exported all over Europe. Unfortunately, over the years this fame faded and almost no asparagus is grown here anymore. Almost! I’ve numerously heard and read about a big asparagus farm near Mělnik, but never got around to actually visiting it. I needed to think about something else after weeks of studying and most importantly after a heartbreaking parting with someone we deeply loved. Yep, April was sad time for us. So I asked husband if he couldn’t take me to this farm to look around and buy some asparagus.

The village where the farm is located is not far away from Prague, just a 15 minute drive away from Letňany. The typical asparagus fields, covered with black plastic foil, were a clear sign that we were there. We drove into the agricultural complex on the other side of the road, parked our car and started wandering around in search for people. There was no one there.

We finally found a small sign on a building saying Bohaemer Spargel Kultur, which also said that the office is on the second floor. We walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. A gentleman opened up and we asked him about the asparagus. He replied that he doesn’t speak Czech…:-) It's an advantage that I speak German, because he neither spoke any English. He said that there was no problem with buying asparagus and that we had to follow him with our car. We drove through the somewhat rundown and abandoned, but considerably big complex and finally the man wandered into a big hall. We parked and walked inside too.

What was inside was rather surprising…there was one tiny automatic sorting link in the big hall, operated by four Asian gentlemen. They were washing and sorting out the asparagus and putting it in boxes. There was another gentleman who approached us and asked what we wanted. We said “Asparagus!”. He inquired how much we wanted, what quality and whether we had something to put it in. We handed him a plastic bag. Yeah, I know we should have taken a basket with us, and requested 1 kilogram of first quality. He put some asparagus stalks into our bag, put it on the scale and asked us for 100 crowns. I was actually afraid that they would not sell us any because we only wanted so little, but there was absolutely no problem. We paid and left :-)
There wasn’t one single Czech person we met, the men we spoke to were probably Dutch, not German for sure, and there were 2 cars with Dutch signs parking outside.

Now, to the actual asparagus. I’m not really a big expert but IMHO this asparagus is way better than anything you could find in town. It’s plump, firm and it really cannot get any fresher than that. It virtually came from the field.

The ends where it has been cut off were oozing with the "juice", they just had no time to dry out. This is clearly the best and freshest asparagus I have ever encountered here and I hope it will taste good too! And most importantly it’s local!

I’ve been to Makro last week and the asparagus sold there came from Chile, it was soft and dry at the ends and cost 90kc for 500gr. These beautiful white stalks above cost only 100kc for a kilogram! Second quality would have been even cheaper.

It's a great pity that asparagus is nost so popular here yet. Back in the days when we lived in Munich there was an asparagus craze every year during its season. Everybody had to go out and eat asparagus with sauce Hollandaise, or asparagus with new potatoes and ham and cook asparagus at home. Germans eat lots of asparagus and during asparagus season the shops are full with gadgets for cooking and serving it. Hopefully this tradition will migrate here, because it's a very healthy, tasty and not difficult to cook delicacy.

*The Boheamer Spargel Kultur farm is located in a village called Hostin u Vojkovic. If you are driving from the direction of Vojkovice you have to cross the whole village, the farm is on the outscirts. There is no information about the farm on the net, or at least I haven't found any. There is no sign indicating that it's located there on the road or in the village. It has been mentioned many times in different magazines, but I felt that no one from the magazines actually got around to visiting it because they supplied very scarce and similar information. Only white asparagus is sold there and there is nothing like a shop or anything. It's a fairly big complex of old agricultural buildings, that are not used. I think that it's best to go there in the morning or early afternoon. When you come there you'll see a long white building on the left side, the office entrance is on the side facing the road. If there's no one there, try to walk deeper into the premises and peek inside the halls, maybe you'll find someone ;-)

This blog is not dead - Luka lu and some personal stuff

2010-03-17T03:13:00.000-07:00

This restaurant has been a favorite of ours ever since it opened. We mostly find ourselves there when we have a family celebration or when there is a larger party of us. Funny, but we never go there when there is just the two of us. What makes this restaurant so popular is the consistent quality of food and flexible service, it doesn’t pose a problem for them to assemble assorted plates of food for the whole table and they will easily adjust any dish according to the customer’s wish. The interior is a bit cramped, but there is a certain charm to it and their garden is beautiful.
This time we were there for another family celebration.

The usual bread and spreads arrived. I love their white bread, I could it eat all the time.
We ordered appetizers for the table.

Grilled calamari. This is a crowd pleaser and we always order this, these were fresh, moist and very good.

This is the assorted appetizer platter with a double portion of grilled peppers. The cured ham is very good, it’s soft and moist, not one of those overly dry hams you would get elsewhere. The cheeses are quite forgettable. Grilled, marinated peppers are one of my all time favorite foods. I make them at home all the time in season. Too bad they don’t serve any salty feta-like cheese with them, but otherwise they’re delicious.

Lamb sausages, another popular dish. Juicy, savory sausages go very well with the grilled peppers and the fluffy, soft bread.

The main courses:

Grilled dorade (sea bream) – I don’t know where they get these small sea breams, the ones sold in shops around town are much bigger. This was as good as it always is - moist and flaky. I bet that sea bream and the seabass are the two most popular fishes in this restaurant and I must admit that we never order other fish. It’s always fresh and perfectly cooked.

Grilled lamb chops – they could be a tad softer, but still these are better than many of the lamb chops you’ll get elsewhere.

Lamb sač (pod pekom) – this is another big favorite. The tender chunks of slow cooked meat, stewed with potatoes and carrots melt in your mouth. But this time the dish needed a good pinch of salt. Next to the lamb is the šopský salat, it is quite big and costs only 65 crowns, it’s one of the best value šopský salads I know of. Most importantly they don’t skimp on cheese and the tomatoes in their salads are edible all year round.

Seafood risotto – it tasted rather of cream than of tomato and was a bit too dry, although it doesn't look like it. There was plenty of seafood, mostly small prawns and squid and 3 big mussels. It was flavorful but there are better seafood risottos in Prague.

We were too full to fit in desserts.

I wouldn’t call this place cheap, but most of the dishes are reasonably priced. Add this to the considerably “expensive” location and you will realize that the ROI ratio is very reasonable. What I don’t like is the fact that they serve German mineral water in big bottles, local Mattoni is readily available and I do not appreciate these widely spread attempts to make money out of nothing. We can always ask for imported water if we want some. What we do like is their house wine and the wide choice of fruit spirits.

*** It's been more than a month since I posted for the last time. The reason for it was the fact that I wasn't too keen on food in the last 3 months. There are certain changes going on in my body that prevented me from eating most stuff except Mcdonald's, apples, kefir and crackers...if you know what I mean ;-) I couldn't look at food, I couldn's smell food and I couldn't cook food. Poor husband had to cook himself and eat in the bedroom sometimes. But now it seems that I'm beginning to feel fine and so this blog is alive again, at least until late August :-)

Maslenitsa, pancakes and caviar

2010-02-13T05:51:00.001-08:00

From the 8th to the 14th of February 2010 a holiday called Maslenitsa is celebrated in Russia, Ukraine and other countries. Generally Maslenitsa is celebrated 7 weeks prior to Easter and during the week prior to the start of the great Lent. Christian orthodox fasting rules are stricter than Catholic or Protestant rules, during Lent only vegetarian food may be eaten and fish is only eaten for 2 days during the long 7 week period. The use of oil is also limited. Only the seriously ill, some pregnant women and small children may ask their priest for permission to eat dairy produce, oil or fish more often. Being similar to the Mardi Gras or Carneval celebrations Maslenitsa is a time of party, fun and most importantly good food.

This painting by Boris Kustodiev, a famous Russian painter from the 19th-20th century, is called Maslenitsa. He painted a series of paintings on the theme of Maslenitsa from 1916 to 1920. This particular one depicts people hanging around outside and socializing, horse sledges snowrides, there is a queue waiting to enter a theater that looks more like a circus and a boy selling some kind of food on the foreground.

The most symbolic food eaten during Maslenitsa are pancakes, plain or with various sweet or savory fillings. Before Christianity arrived in Great Rus pagans used to celebrate spring by baking pancakes that symbolized the sun returning after months of winter. This pagan celebration was so immensly popular that the new Christian leaders decided to turn it into a religious festival. During Maslenitsa pancakes were made freshly everyday and different rituals were connected with them. A pancake used everything that was forbidden during Lent – milk, cream, sour cream, eggs, butter, yeast, oil and dairy products or fish for the fillings. Meat was already forbidden during Maslenitsa, so pancakes were eaten with fish or dairy products or with vegetable and fruit preserves. Eating elaborately and having fun meant saying goodbye to all the good food and the cold winter and getting ready for the difficult 7 weeks ahead.

Nowadays very little people follow the strict Lent rules, many restrict their fasting to not eating meat. But most families tend to cook pancakes during Maslenica. Many cities organize week long festivities with concerts, work shops and food stalls selling pancakes.

A hundred or more years ago regular caviar wasn’t really considered rich man’s food in Russia. Fish was so incredibly abundant in rivers, lakes and seas that both black and red caviar was very affordable. There are many levels of caviar quality depending on when the fish was caught, how the caviar was processed etc. In areas lining the oceans, big rivers and lakes and the Caspian sea fishermen families and peasants ate low grade caviar regularly. High quality caviar was brought to bigger cities but it still was quite cheap. But times have changed, the fish population has been reduced significantly and many legendary fish types like the sterlet or inconnu have almost vanished in free nature.

Today black caviar is an unaffordable delicacy for most people living in the former USSR but red caviar is much less expensive and therefore very popular. It can be bought in tin cans, glass jars or at supermarket counters where you can buy as much as you want as well as taste the caviar you are buying. Prices range significantly as does the quality and most people stick to their favourite brands. My favourite brand is Tunaycha.

In western restaurants caviar is often served with small, thick pancakes called blini or bliny. In traditional Russian cuisine the word bliny means a big, thin pancake, whereas small and thick pancakes are called oladji. In Russia caviar is most often eaten either on white bread with butter or wrapped into big and thins bliny with butter or sour cream. Bliny were traditionally made with yeast and buckwheat flour, but today there are also many simpler recipes available.

Ingredients for yeast pancakes:
800ml milk
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 generous tablespoons of dry yeast - a brand that you know and trust, many are unreliable
400 gr of flour
3 eggs
1/2 tablespoons of salt

Heat up about 200ml of milk until warm, but not too hot. Add yeast and sugar, mix well and leave in a warm place for about 1 hour. The mixture should thicken and double its size, now this substance is called leaven. Pour the leaven into a big bowl and add the eggs that you've beaten with a fork, flour, salt and the rest of the milk. Mix well and leave to stand in a warm place for about 30 minutes. You might need to add some more milk if the batter is too thick, it should be the consistence of thin kefir. Do not mix the batter anymore during of after that! A foam will form on top of the batter, it will make the pancakes porous and fluffy, if you mix the batter this foam will dissapear.
Heat up a pan and smear it with oil everytime you pour batter into it. Bake the pancakes on high heat and preferably on a cast iron pan. The thinner the pancakes the better.
Serve with butter, caviar, cured or smoked fish, sour cream, honey, cottage cheese, jam, preserved fruits etc.

Grand restaurant festival - La Degustation Boheme Bourgeoise

2010-01-25T14:40:00.000-08:00

Everybody knows about the Grand restaurant festival right? A budget friendly opportunity to set foot in some of the best restaurants in Prague.
The first restaurant we were to visit was Ambiente group’s La Degustation Boheme Bourgeoise. I don’t think there is any need to go into much detail about this place, anyone who is interested in gastronomy heard about this unique establishment.

We were greeted by the manager, who asked us for our reservation code, while he typed it into the computer a waiter took our coats. The manager offered us 3 tables, 2 by the entrance and one that is called the chef’s table, which is something like a bar lining the kitchen window. Of course, we chose the latter. A thin glass panel separated us from the small kitchen where some of the cooking takes place and where the plates are arranged. It was a pleasure to watch this perfectly coordinated team of professionals and see how all of the beautiful dishes were prepared. A unique experience.

Chef Oldřich Sahajdák at work. I was surprised to see that the majority of the kitchen staff was not older than 23-25 years. Some even looked younger than 20. A great start for a beginning chef.

We were asked whether we wated sparkling or still water and it was promptly brought to the table. After that our first amuse bouche arrived.

A Valhrona chocolate praliné with pepper and something else that I don’t remember J It was very good, but why serve a sweet amuse bouche at the start of a dinner? I guess it did have a deeper meaning.

Next the sommelier came, and asked us whether we wanted to choose our own wines or rely on them for the pairing. Pairing it was. The sommelier thoroughly introduced each one of the three wines.

Second amuse bouche – their famous beef tartar in a thin, crispy, wafer like bread. It was almost creamy. Husband liked this a lot.

Butter, salt and a choice of breads.

Prague ham with Malin horseradish sauce, baked potatoes and tiny cubes of stewed carrots. The ham tasted like real ham, which happens rarely these days. The horseradish sauce was delicate and not overpowering. A beautiful take on a classic dish and it all worked together quite well.

The svíčkova na smetaně was rather unusual. The beef was almost rare and very tender, almost too tender. This meat was probably cooked under very low temperature because even though it was practically raw, there was no trace of blood in it and it wasn’t red, but fairly light pink. But I’m no expert, I may be wrong. The dumpling, which was unusual as well but very good non the less, sat on a vegetable pureé. The sauce, the most important part of the dish, was smooth and silky. A cranberry jelly was served on top of that. Altogether it tasted and looked good, but this is not my favorite version of the dish.

Another amuse bouche – tomato raviolo with basil oil. A perfect example of molecular cuisine IMHO…how on earth do these people turn a tomato into an exploding blob of gel?? :) I guess it was meant as a palate cleanser, it was very refreshing and really did taste like tomato with basil.

Beef tongue with mashed peas and marinated (?) shallots. The star dish of the restaurant and I can now see why. The tongue was incredibly tender, almost like a paté. The rich pea mash and the caramelised onions were a perfect sidedish.

Dessert amuse bouche – tvaroh with a tropical fruits sauce. Smooth, creamy and sweet tvaroh was perfectly matched with this very tangy, fruity and intensive sauce. I’d eat it again any time.

I just had to take a picture of this batch of incredible looking desserts! The ball was actually pink and contrasted beautifully with the bright blue sauce.

The restaurant was full all of the time we have been there. Some people were there as part of the festival while others, mostly foreigners though, were enjoying regular dinners. I didn’t notice anyone of the personell behaving differently to these 2 groups of customers. I heard many people raise this argument of the staff behaving rudely or unattentive to those on a „budget“ during the festival. I don’t know about other places yet, but this was clearly not the case here.

When we were leaving the manager came to chat with us, among other things he asked about the other place we planned to visit during the festival. He also asked what dish we liked the best. For me it was the tongue and the dessert, for husband it was the tongue and the tartar.

We were handed 2 small golden cardboard boxes. The manager said they were chocolate muffins to go with our morning coffee. We don’t really drink coffee and we surely were not going to wait until morning :) The muffins were a bit unusual, on the drier side but with a very intensive chocolate flavor. Perfect!

I’m really happy we got a chance to get a glimpse of this place. I always wanted to go there, but spending almost 10 grand on a dinner with wine is beyond our income, at least for now. It’s a very fine example of a unique concept paired with perfectly professional service and great food.

** I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there is a mistake on their website. On my computer the English and French versions quote only one menu! There is a choice between 2 menus but the content is the same!

Kiev cake

2010-01-12T06:29:00.000-08:00

If you were trying to come up with a food to symbolize the capital of Ukraine then this cake would be it.

The one and only original Kiev cake has been invented in the 1950s and is since then produced by the former "Carl Marx confectionery factory", now known as Roshen. The Kiev cake is one of the most popular souvenirs to bring from this city.

There is no way one could make the exact same thing at home, altough many people try. It's simply something like Sacher, it's best bought. And the best Kiev cake is made by the Roshen factory, there is really no argument about that, although you could find many cheaper and uglier copies all around the former USSR.

See how beautiful it is? :-) The kitchy old-school thick cream decor has become a trademark of this cake and even though Kiev is now full of modern looking desserts no one will ever dare to modernize this legendary cake. It looks just the way it looked when my mom and dad were kids. Children loved the buttery, melting pink and blue flowers and the green leaves. The whole family fought over the big, fat white rose.

But what's inside? Inside are 3 layers of very dense meringue with big and small pieces of nuts between which are 2 layers of extremely rich buttercream. The whole thing is creamy, buttery and crunchy at the same time. On top of the cake is a layer of cocoa flavoured buttercream topped with the cream flowers and leaves, the sides are heavily sprinkled with crushed meringue and nuts. It is very sweet and very high in calories, but so incredibly good. Until today, exclusively butter is used to make this cake, no vegetable fats.

When buying Kiev cake it's always best to buy the freshest piece and eat it within 1-2 days. After 2 days some of the cream soaks into the meringue and the meringue also dries out a bit, making the cake difficult to eat. It should be eaten cold, if it stands around for too long the cream becomes soft and unappetizing. The cake is sold in two sizes, the one pictured is the smaller one. This one costs 36 hrivnas, which is about 80kc and is more than enough as dessert for 5 people.

So, if you're ever in Kiev this cake is a must.

ThaiOishi

2010-01-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

We stopped by at this new Thai restaurant when we arrived to Prague from our holiday yesterday, to grab some takeaway food. Our flight was 4 hours late due to the weather and we weren’t in the mood for shopping and cooking.
The place is rather small, only 7 tables for about 20 people. It’s a non smoking restaurant and has free wifi, the place is clean and not kitschy.
The drink prices are quite unique for Prague - 15kc for a small Aquila or Mattoni and 30kc for a 0,75l bottle. They have Holba beer on tap, a big glass is only 22 kc and it’s very very good. This is the second place in Prague that I know of that serves this beer, Bukanýr being the other one. There was one friendly waiter/manager whose English was much better than Czech and another customer having a meal when we came in.

The placemats on the tables caught my attention. They depicted and described some of the most famous Thai dishes and their main ingredients. A label on the placemats said that they were produced by the Thailand ministry of commerce.
Our food took about 20 minutes to arrive, it came neatly packed, complete with the bill. We paid and headed back home.

I appreciated the “double packaging” (in a plastic bag or in alfoil and in a plastic container). I know it's not environmentally responsible, but nothing spilled on the way home and it was still warm after a 15 minute drive a 5 minute walk.

The tom kha kung soup was very good, bursting with flavor and not to hot, but I did skim off some of the fat before eating. It did not contain cherry tomatoes like some varieties in Prague do, but had lots of oyster mushrooms instead. There were 3 medium sized prawns. Tom kha kung, 75kc.

The green curry with pork was alright, although the meat could have been more tender and I like a curry with more vegetables, this one only had bamboo. But the sauce itself was very tasty with a medium heat factor. See those kaffir leaves? Not a common sight is it? Kaeng kiaw wan moo, 130kc.

I don’t eat eggs so we ordered the pad thai kung minus the eggs. I thought it was a tad too dry, this was because it wasn’t mixed very well. Half of it stuck together in a clump while the other half had just the right balance between noodles, peanuts and bean sprouts. It wasn’t too sweet and we actually liked it. Pad thai kung, 150kc.

The chicken dish was rather unremarkable, it had no taste whatsoever and I do not recommend ordering it. It had a Čínské bistro feeling to it. Kai kra tiam, 130kc.

Husband doesn’t really fancy hot food so he ordered a miso soup for himself from the Japanese menu. It was a decent classic miso with tofu and seaweed. Misoshiru, 45kc.
The rice was very fragrant but a little clumpy. It was 30kc per serving.

The total bill was 649kc, together with 2 beers and one small Aquila. No charge for the packaging.
I didn’t study the Japanese menu any deeper, it’s all online on the restaurant’s web. I don't really trust Japanese food in non-Japanese restaurants, but I may be wrong.There are no translations in the online menu which is a major flaw IMHO, the printed menu in the restaurant has Czech and English descriptions.
The restaurant also offers delivery, but the website does not specify the conditions and whether this service is free or not. ThaiOishi is located almost next door to a new Indian restaurant called Curry House. Their websites look very alike and the close by location may indicate that the restaurants are affiliated.
We enjoyed some of the food, the prices are decent and we might take advantage of the delivery in the future. This isn’t the best Thai restaurant in Prague but if you’re in that area it’s definitely worth checking out.

Kiev

2010-01-10T00:57:00.000-08:00

I just returned from a short stay in Kiev and will shortly start a small series of posts on restaurant food in this city.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

Enjoy the holidays everyone! :-)

Chicken and duck liver pâté

2009-12-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

A classic appetizer that looks good on the festive table and is also very easy to prepare. It's not something you would eat often, as it's very rich, but Christmas is the time to treat ourselves. Rabbit liver is also very good in pâté. This pâté is very basic and general, you can use only one kind of liver and also other herbs, the recipe is appliable to a wide range of ingredients.

Ingredients:
750gr of chicken and duck liver - 50/50
2 small shallots
200gr of butter
120ml of cognac, marc or brandy
Leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme
1 cup of whipping cream
Salt, pepper

Carefully wash and clean the liver, cut off any hard parts and cut each liver into about 3-4 pieces. Pour half of the cognac over the liver and let stand for an hour. In a heavy pan melt about 100gr of butter and sauté the shallots that you have cut into thin rings until they become soft. Add the liver along with the thyme leaves and sauté for about 10 minutes on medium flame, stirring occasionally. Pour in the leftover cognac, season with salt and pepper. After about 2 minutes turn off the heat and let cool for 10 minutes.
Pop the whole lot into a food processor, add the cream and blend until completely smooth. Pour the pâté into serving bowls. Melt the leftover butter and pour over the pâté. Decorate with bay leaf, peppercorns or thyme. Let cool in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

Serve with bread and cranberry sauce or jam.

Milléme pâtisserie boulangerie café

2009-12-17T08:06:00.000-08:00

About once or twice a month I make my way to Jířího s Poděbrad, for work. When I do, I almost always stop by at Aromi la Bottega, but this time I was going to visit a nearby French style bakery called Milléme. Brewsta, whom I’m a huge fan of, wrote up a review on this place and I wanted to visit it for ages. I was quite busy and so I just grabbed a few things to take home.

The selection wasn't as big as I expected but the stuff looked very good. I was surprised to see macarons!

Tahiti (59kc)

My favourite probably. The cream has a very pronounced and refreshing qumquat flavour. The spongecake is fluffy and very good.

Noisette (69kc)

No pastry here, it's a combination of two very delicate creams, almost like a souffle.

Chocoline (59kc)

Soft layers of sponge cake and a very light chocolate cream. Nice.

Apple tart (40kc)

Crispy, and thin pastry on the bottom and lots of thin apple slices. The apples were soft but not mushy and kept their shape well, which is always good. It had just the right amount of cinammon and was not too sweet.

6 different mini macarons (140kc)

They were alright, not the best I've ever eaten. Some of them may have sat around for too long, but the pink and green ones were delicious. They only offered packages of macarons, not individual ones.

I haven't seen any regular cakes (big ones) on offer, the selection is limited to individual sized desserts, fruit tarts and puff pastries. Milléme also offers French style breads and baguettes, sandwiches, quiches and other savoury stuff for takeaway. The eat in menu offers salads, ommelets and other small dishes. The prices range significantly. A chocolate and nut slice of some kind that costed 59kc stood next to one that looked almost the same but costed 99kc. A medium sized baguette costs 28kc and it looked very appetizing. Breads cost around 50-70kc.

Everything I bought was very good and totally worth the prices, I was even surprised it wasn't more expensive. I would recommend their desserts to anyone. However, I haven't tried anything from the regular menu.

Salmon with a miso, maple syrup and soy sauce glaze

2009-12-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

This recipe emerged by accident when I had a beautiful salmon fillet and did not want to cook like I mostly do, with olive oil and herbs. Initially I wanted to marinate it in miso, soy sauce and honey, but we had no honey inhouse. I grabbed maple syrup instead and the other ingredients were added in the process. The result was delicious and it may well become my new favourite way to cook salmon, although next time I will let it marinate for a few hours longer.

Ingredients:
Salmon - 500gr in this case
2 teaspoons of light miso paste
4 teaspoons of lime juice
2 teaspoons of maple syrup - or more if you're into sweet, caramelly tastes
1-2 teaspoons of regular soy sauce - be careful here as the miso is quite salty
sesame and chives for garnish - supposed to serve a mere decorational puspose but proved to fit in very well tastewise
You can always adjust the marinade to you personal liking, by tasting it!

Blend all liquid ingredients and the miso together and pour half of the marinade over the salmon pieces. Leave to stand in the fridge for at least 4-5 hours. Put on the grill function in your oven and heat it up onto 200C. Place the fish onto a baking tray and cook under the grill for 7-12 minutes, depending on how thick the fillets are. Smear the fish generously with the marinade you set aside for 2-3 times.
Serve with rice or any other side.

Mussel night in Vozovna Stromovka

2009-12-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

I don't like writing negative stuff and I avoid it at all cost when it's avoidable. This time it’s not and the bad thing is that I actually liked this place before. The place has major organization problems it must adress as soon as possible. There were only 2 waiters, but the place is not that big! There was also a gentleman in a white shirt wandering around and looking very important, something like a manager probably. I’ll come back to him later.

It all started the very moment we came in. I have reserved a table about 3 weeks ago, but they had no note of our reservation. I’ve made the reservation via email and got a confirmation. They looked in the computer and in the diary, our name wasn’t there. They were apologetic and reacted promptly by bringing in a table and 2 chairs from outside. BTW the place was fully booked; if they hadn’t come up with bringing in the table, we would have been turned away. The furniture is hard plastic and it’s obvious that the chairs were ice cold for another 30 minutes, I had to sit on my jacket. The waiter seated us, smiled and walked away not to return for 15 minutes. He hasn’t given us menus, hasn’t taken our orders, nothing. Husband walked to the bar and got us the menus. About 10 minutes after that the smiley and actually quite pleasant waiter came along and took our orders. We ordered 2 different Belgian beers, 2 kinds of mussels, French fries and 3 oysters.

Do you see the menu above? It quoted the prices for 1, 3 and 6 oysters, just as the official menu I was sent did. We’re absolutely not into oysters and just wanted to sample 2 pieces for the sake of it. But our waiter promptly told us that we could only order 3 or 6. He couldn’t answer why they quoted the price for singular oysters. We were “forced” to order 3. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not about money, it’s about the principle.

We waited and waited for our beers. A woman with a teenage boy and a baby that came in after us and who was obviously friends with the “manager” was served food earlier than we were served our drinks!!! We arrived at 7 p.m. and were served our first beers at 7.45 p.m, I’m not joking. Husband wanted to get up and leave, but knowing how much I wanted the mussels he stepped on his pride.

The beer was alright and although pricy (at 49-55kc for ¼ litre) we kinda enjoyed it. I think they only had those 3 Belgian beers on tap this night, I haven’t seen anyone drinking any other kind of beer.

The oysters were served on a spectacular plate with pebbles. As I said, we’re not really into oysters, but I quite liked those. They were meaty and smelled good, I ate the two of them. Husband still hates oyster BTW. The menu said that these were Belon oysters. Belon oysters are a delicacy and expensive, because the French AOC standard says that they should only be harvested in a certain region along the Belon river. Was this the case here? I don’t know, but hey were round like Belon oysters should be, and not oval like the usual oysters.

The mussels, steamed in wine and steamed in Leffe beer.
There was lots of them, probably more than the ½ kg quoted in the menu. So there are plus points for the portion size. They were very fresh, plus points for that too. But, the majority of them was half raw!!! We felt like idiots. I mean, I have eaten mussels for dozens, maybe hundreds of times but I’ve never been to Belgium and so I thought that maybe this is the way they are eaten there. For me, a mussel should be fully open, the majority of those was only half open and their shells were so brittle that it was a real problem opening them up without cutting yourself. They were slimy inside and you could not peel them away from the shell in one piece, they tore apart, revealing their slimy and unattractive guts. I thought that they were tasty, but something was terribly wrong with the texture.

As I looked around, I saw several other people showing each other the opened mussels and shaking their heads while wondering whether this is right. Husband ate about 10 or 12 of them, proclaimed them disgusting and stuck to the fries. I kept eating the mussels, picking out those that were more or less cooked. Yeah, I’m desperate. I still regret not having made a photo of one of the partially raw mussels. What a horrible waste of good quality raw material. It is necessary to mention that the place is obviously owned by the same owner as the Les Moules restaurant. The name means mussels and it’s a fairly upscale Belgian beer restaurant specializing in mussels. Funny, huh?

Oh, the fries were great! Crispy on the outside and soft inside. The mustardy mayo was good too.

There was a number of other very annoying things, like the fact that we weren’t served bowls for empty shells, napkins, bowls of lemon water, we got the first two after we asked but never got the latter. Most other tables had to ask for those things too. The staff constantly forgot to bring us our drinks and had very stupid excuses for it. We weren’t asking for any excuses but the waiter felt that he had to comment on the missing beer with “Oh, I draught it but I forgot for whom it was! Hahaha” WTF? Just say “Sorry, I forgot about your order.”

But, what about the guy in the white shirt? He constantly kept returning to the table with the woman, the teenager and the baby. He asked them if everything was alright for at least 5 times, but totally and absolutely ignored the other 10 tables. He kept walking in and out from somewhere in the back and even though he clearly saw that the waiters had a hard time doing their job, he never helped them.

Now, I know this is all our fault. We should have complained about the service, sent back the food etc etc, but when it comes to it I’m always too shy to do it, as are most people around me. This is utterly and absolutely wrong and it’s about time we start doing something about this attitude of ours. I hereby promise to send back the next overcooked steak or non aldente pasta I get at a restaurant!

At least it wasn’t an expensive dinner. The mussels were 145kc each and if they had been good it would have been a major bargain.

But will I ever return for a thematic dinner at this place? Never!

Shurpa

2009-12-12T05:21:00.000-08:00

It’s cold and ugly outside. Time for a hearty soup.

Shurpa is a general name for soup in the cuisines of Central Asia. In Europe, lamb soups are not very popular, yet in Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Turkmenistan and most importantly Uzbekistan, lamb soups are cooked to perfection.
Shurpa is not really a soup in the European sense, it’s rather a main course, like Vietnamese Pho. Shurpa is a very rich and mildly spicy stock with tender meat and vegetables.

Igredients:

Lamb – 0.7kg, mixed bones and meat
2 tomatoes, cut into big pieces – I know it’s winter! But try to get some good ones
2 onions
2 carrots
2 bell peppers, cut into big pieces

2 chillis
4-5 whole, peeled potatoes – waxy and firm ones
1 whole bulb, unpeeled bulb of garlic – just peel off the most dry, outer layer
fresh basil – about 2-3 stems
black peppercorns
whole cumin seeds – a generous pinch, crush it with your fingers a bit
salt
water

I am no claiming that this is the ultimate and authentic recipe, it’s not. First of all, the lamb is absolutely different here. Secondly, the vegetables aren’t as ripe and sweet, especially in winter. And finally, experts would say that this dish, just like most other central Asian dishes, should be cooked in a big cauldron called qozon, over open fire. But were not in Samarkand, so we will be cooking it in a cast iron pot, on a stove.
The chillies must be absolutely intact, otherwise you’ll end up with a fiery hot soup. Those who want their soup to be spicier can always scrape out some of the cooked chilli into their bowl!
You might use powdered cumin instead of whole seeds, but seeds are preferable. If you don’t have any cumin cook something else, it’s absolutely and utterly necessary.
Experts on shurpa, plov, manty and other central Asian dishes know which part of the lamb is good for each dish. I will not go into details because I’m not one of those experts. Just take some part that has both, bones and meat and also some fat. You definitely do need bones and please, do not cook your shurpa with expensive stuff like sirloin, chops etc. Take meat from the leg or the shoulder.
Cooking is very simple. Put the meat into a pot and add about 2.5 litres of water, bring to boil and skim the foam that forms. Add the other ingredients, cover and simmer on low heat for about 3 hours. Check the soup occasionally and remove any foam that might form. Season with salt.
Shurpa should actually be served in two bowls, one with the stock and one with the meat and vegetables, I didn’t do that this time. Make sure every bowl contains all ingredients.

It’s a great pity that Central Asian cuisine is not known in Europe. Especially Uzbek cuisine is one of the most complex, unique, and sophisticated cuisines in the world. It’s a cuisine completely dedicated to meat and it makes the best out of it, combining it with spices and vegetables that have been grown in a land where the sun always shines. It takes great pride in perfect ingredients, but uses up every last nasty bit at the same time.

Mussels steamed in wine

2009-12-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned that I love mussels? :-) Yeah, they're my favourite food. This is another classic recipe and it's extremely simple.

Ingredients:

1 kg of mussels - cleaned
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
1 stem of celery
1 red chilli
fresh thyme
1/5 litre of good white wine
olive oil
salt

Pour about 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a big pot or deep pan and heat it, add the chopped shallots, garlic, celery and chilli. Roast for about 3-5 minutes on a medium flame. Throw in the thyme and mussels, pour in the wine, raise the heat to maximum and cover. After 3 minutes or after all of the mussels have opened season with a tiny bit of salt and serve with a crispy baguette. A little chopped parsley garnish on top looks nice.
That's all I need to be happy.

BTW we reserved a table for the mussel night in Vozovna Stromovka this Friday, so more mussels are coming up this week I hope! There is still a possibility that we will have to cancel it though
:-/

Jamie Oliver’s pasta with bacon, peas and mint

2009-11-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

I was watching Jamie’s ministry of food on TV Spektrum when this dish attracted my attention. Jamie said that he cooks it for his kids and that he and his wife eagerly eat it too. He taught one of the participants to cook it and it looked so appetizing that I just had to do it. In the original recipe Jamie uses mini pasta shells, I haven't found any and so I used fussili instead. I think any smaller, shaped pasta which you can eat with a spoon should be ok.
This is the original recipe and the result.

I used pretty much the same ingredients, except that I used dried mint (from our own garden) and sour cream with a high fat content instead of crème fraîche. I do admit that the substitution of the latter probably made a difference, but it was good nonetheless! It's one of those dummie recipes, but I cook it over and over again.

Il Gattopardo

2009-11-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

The place is operated by the owner of A Putia, a Sicilian specialty shop which is located opposite the restaurant, so clearly it’s a restaurant specializing in Sicilian cuisine.
It’s quite spacious, and has seating for about 50 people, but might easily host a party for 70 if more chairs were brought in. It’s decorated with photos of scenes from Il Gattopardo movie, generally the décor is a bit eclectic, but not bad.

We were the first customers, we came at about 11.45. We were waited by a nice Italian gentleman, service is a bit slow but attentive. He handed us the menus and informed us that we could order from special menu only, it was the lunch menu for this week. This special menu offered 2 antipasto dishes (prosciutto and bruschetta), 4 pasta dishes and 4 meat dishes (2 pork, 1 chicken and 1 beef). All dishes in this menu ranged from 110czk to 170czk, which is acceptable IMHO.

The main menu is quite extensive and also fairly priced, I will post some photos of the menu at the end of this post because the restaurant has no website. They also have a monthly special wine offer with 5 wines about 100-150czk cheaper than the regular price. There are wines around the 250czk mark but also some much more expensive ones. They also offer a wide variety of Italian drinks, including 6 kinds of Italian beer, soft drinks, mineral waters etc. I was pleased to see that they also offer the more decently priced Czech Korunní water, a thing not too common in places like this, where you end up ordering stuff like San Pellegrino and Aqua Panna.
We were after some pasta and so mom ordered tagliatelle with artichokes, chicken and cream (130czk), I ordered the lasagna (110czk) and we also ordered the tuna bruschettino (120czk) to share.

Mom’s tagliatelle were very good. They were clearly made from fresh pasta, not my favourite in Prague restaurants because it often comes out too soft and overcooked, these ones were perfectly al dente. There was a perfect amount of sauce, and although it needed some salt, it was very tasty and delicate. The chicken meat was not roasted, it was “pulled” and added a nice texture to the dish.

My lasagna was equally good, if not better. The photo is not too appetizing, in fact, it looks plain bad to say the least :)) The ragú had a pronounced meat flavor with a perfect amount of tomatoe. It looks like a small piece, but believe me, it was so rich that this smallish piece was more than enough.

The bruschettino was a bit odd IMHO. The huge piece of bread was smeared with some tuna paste that tasted very "sharp", it clearly contained tuna, onion and vinegar. On top of that there were small pieces of mozzarella, tuna, tomatoes and capers. The taste of the paste was very intensive and I’m not sure if I liked it. It’s probably an acquired taste.
We had espresso after the meal, it was extremely strong, it least for us. I’m not a big coffee drinker and felt like I drank 3 redbulls afterwards.

If you are looking for a fast lunch I suggest you get there later than we did, we waited almost 45 minutes for our food. People that came later were served faster, the kitchen must have started to fully operate by then, as I said, we were the first customers.

There is no other place in the area that serves such good pasta.

Next time we will sample some antipasti, meat and fish dishes from the regular menu. Generally, I thought that it was a nice spot and I would go back for the lasagna any time.

Sorry for the lousy photos, I still can’t get used to making photos in the dark.
Here are some pages from the menu, I think it looks interesting although a bit too extensive.

No matter how hard I look I simply can’t find the function with which the photos can be opened full size in a new window. The menu must be difficult to read in this size. Can anyone help me with that?? :-)

Saltimbocca style cod

2009-11-29T08:52:00.000-08:00

I sometimes have a hard time deciding how to cook fish fillets and most often I do it the most simple way, I panfry them with olive oil and herbs. But this time I decided to do something different and since I had a few slices of prosciutto in the fridge saltimbocca it was. Of course, the original saltimbocca is made from veal, but why not experiment a bit?

fish fillets - I had cod and next time I will use a firmer fish
enough thin prosciutto slices to cover all fillets
sage
salt, pepper
olive oil

Season the fish with salt and pepper, be careful with the salt as the prosciutto is salty. Cover each piece of fish with a suitable slice of prosciutto and put 1 sage leaf onto each piece. Secure the sage and the prosciutto with toothpicks. Heat up a pan with dome olive oil and pan fry the fish for 1-2 minutes on every side, depending on how thick the fillets are, mine were quite thin. Serve! I served the fish with some buttered rice which I mixed with sauteed baby spinach.

Depression cooking with Clara

2009-11-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

I accidently bumped into this very interesting series of cooking videos. All of them are available on youtube.

Clara, an American lady of Italian descent, started making this show when she was 91 and by now she turned 94! She is cooking meals that she and her family cooked and ate during the Great Depression in the 30s. She also reflects on her childhood and teenage years and comments a lot on the fact that people ate simple but healthy food back then.
Clara’s family ate meat only once a week, and not every week too, they mostly lived on pasta, vegetables, beans, home made bread etc. They would turn off the heating to save money and sit next to each other to warm themselves.
Now, let’s reflect this onto the current situation. Have people started to eat healthier during the recession? No, the majority went from buying expensive ham (containing meat) to buying cheap ham (containing crap)! How many people started buying local, seasonal and cheap apples instead of bananas? It’s a rhetorical question.

Clara wrote and published a book and a DVD with her complete show can be bought online.
It’s never too late to start a career! :)

Nigella's banana chocolate muffins

2009-11-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

This recipe comes from the Nigella Express book. It’s the easiest muffin recipe ever and they're good too! The original recipe contains toffee, but chocolate is mentioned as an alternative. I used dark chocolate since toffee wasn’t available. Oh, you also need very ripe bananas, those that are already going brown.

Ingredients:

3 very ripe bananas

125ml of vegetable oil

2 eggs

250 gr of flour

100 gr of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of baker's powder

150 gr of toffee or dark chocolate

Preheat the oven onto 200C.

Mash the bananas in a bowl. Blend the oil with the eggs. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and combine with the oil and eggs mixture. Add the bananas and mix. Pour about 2 tablespoons of the dough into each muffin form and bake the whole lot for about 20-25 minutes. One of the shortest recipes ever!

They are just basic and simple banana muffins, but you can make them more spectacular by frosting them with a cream cheese and butter frosting!

Letenská husa, Hvězda and Lokal

2009-11-16T14:42:00.001-08:00

St Martin’s wine is available from 11 November, but we didn’t have the time to go out for dinner or wine tasting somewhere. We took advantage of a Sunday off.
This St Martin's wine trend trend that came out from nowhere is amazing. Following the tradition of Beaujolais Nouveau Czech wine makers decided to give it a go and make this into a full scale wine festival. Restaurants caught on quick, more and more of them offering goose specialties and St. Martin’s wine. It’s a marketing trick from A to Z but it works well.
But why are geese eaten during St Martin’s day? My Culinaria Germany book says that geese gave out St Martin’s hiding place by squeaking and so during this saint’s day geese’s necks were wringed and the geese eaten. A bloody habit…
Not having eaten any goose during the St Martin’s festival we decided to check out the Letenská husa in the agricultural museum. It’s a small presentation of young St. Martin’s wines and some thematic food.

Unfortunately, there was no goose! Only duck, and it wasn’t particularly cheap. I thought that 160czk for a leg of duck was quite a lot, regarding the fact that there was no seating and the food was served on plastic plates. We decided that it was not worth the money. It always amazes me how inflexible some vendors are, they sell klobasa for 40czk or duck legs for 160czk. Why not sell duck paté or picked duck meat in sandwiches etc.??? But it's always either the cheap stuff or the expensive stuff, nothing in between. 160czk is simply way too much money to spend on stánek food and I don’t think I saw anyone actually buying or eating the duck.

We turned our attention towards the stall with ostrich meat.

This is an ostrich steak. I never had ostrich before and thought it was interesting. The meat was juicy although too salty, it had this slight metal flavor (like blood) and tasted like something between beef, pork and lamb. I didn’t think it was well prepared but if it’s cooked and seasoned properly it might be a delicacy. This piece cost around 80czk which is fine but, I found it appalling that they charged 5czk for every serving of ketchup, mustard and bread. They’re incredible, these people! When will they learn?? I've been charged 5, 10 and even 45czk for single serve ketchup packets, but never for ketchup and mustard out of 10 litre plastic containers. OMG
We bought some Černá hora beer for my dad in law, he collects beer stickers, his collection holds more than 3000 pieces now. We bought just one bottle of rosé wine, we’re not into St Martin’s wine. It's all about the hype, not about the wine.

We also had a potato pancake with garlic and smoked pork. The pancakes were prepared in advance. Upon order the lady and her little helper put some minced garlic and smoked meat inside the pancake, folded it and grilled it on the griddle with some lard. It was tasty! The pork lard on the pic below is ours. Pork lard with škvarky is one of my many guilty pleasures, it's simple irresistable on a piece of warm dark bread.

Some koláčky. We had quite a few and they were delicious.

We had a nice walk in Hvězda park afterwards.

And then we headed to Lokal. I will not go into much detail about this place, it has been discussed by many before. It’s a spectacular place, I never thought that Dahab (the restaurant that occupied this space before) was that big. It’s HUGE. Even if all the tables would have been occupied it still would feel kinda empty. It was fairly dark inside, not good for photos.
I had boiled beef with horseradish sauce and bread dumplings. I now know that I’m no horseradish sauce fan :) IMHO the horseradish flavor is very weak and the sauce is floury, milky and bland. I’ve tried horseradish omáčka for a couple of times before and it’s probably just not my thing, because the people sitting at the table next to us said that the sauce was finger-licking good and better than their grandmother's. The beef was cooked perfectly and the dumplings were some of the best I had.

Husband’s fried cheese with tar tar sauce was very good. Wow, husband had a vegetarian dinner ;-) It was not greasy at all. He ordered a cucumber salad to go with it, it was a classic Czech style grated cucumber salad with a sweet and sour dressing, very refreshing.

The beer is exceptional here, one of the best in Prague. I really liked how stylish the place is. The curtains, the wall painting (I mean the green flowers) and other stuff, it all looks like the hospoda in the village where our weekend house is :)

We will be going back for sure to sample more items and to have some more of that great beer. I can’t wait to try the Svíčkova in Lokal. Service was exeptionally good. The barman (or rather the beerman) eagerly answered our questions about the beer system inhouse and he even admitted that the spectacular cooling spirals served a mere decorational purpose. The other staff was very friendly and helpful too.

Big thumbs up for Lokal!

Beef and broccoli

2009-11-12T06:24:00.000-08:00

Seeing Pioneer woman’s beef and broccoli made me crave this dish. I seriously doubt that there is such a dish in China, it’s probably an American or European invention, but it’s one of the most popular dishes in Chinese restaurants.
Back in the days when I used to live in Barrandov, me and mom used to go to a local Chinese place called Dlouhá Zed’. The food was good and it did not taste like the cheapo Čínský bufet stuff, and they also made delicious home made dumplings. We also often saw Chinese families eat there. That was until mom found a dead fly in her beef and broccoli about 2 years ago. I haven’t eaten this dish since then, it gave me the creeps. I decided to cook it myself rather than eat out, if there will be a fly in my beef and broccoli I will at least know who to blame :-)

My recipe is a combination of several recipes from my cookbooks and it differs slightly from the recipe Pioneer woman used.
* For stir frying I use Rumpsteak from Makro. It’s not too expensive (under 200czk for 1kg) and is quite tender. I once tried making steaks from it and they weren’t good, but it’s totally fine for stir frying. It's sold in green plastic boxes in the aisle with steaks and "fancy" meats.

Ingredients:
500gr of beef
500 gr of broccoli
light and dark soy sauce
starch - I use corn starch
oyster sauce - preferably without MSG (available in some stores selling organic food)
sesame oil – optional
Shao Xing wine – sold in bigger supermarkets and asian shops
sugar – preferably brown
1 large clove of garlic
just about the same amount of ginger

Cut the beef into very thin strips, the thinner the strips the softer the meat. Mix together 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce and 1 table spoon of the following each - dark soy sauce, sesame oil, Shao Xing wine, sugar and starch. Blend it all well together and pour over meat, mix well and leave to marinate. I usually marinate the meat overnight.
Cut the broccoli into small pieces and either steam it or boil it until almost done. Throw it into ice cold water so that it keeps its green color.
Chop up the garlic and ginger into tiny pieces.
Heat up a wok, preferably not non-stick, with a tablespoon of peanut oil (or other vegetable oil except olive). Throw in the garlic and ginger and stir fry until they become fragrant. The wok must be heated to the max! Add the meat and stir fry until it’s brown and soft. Pour in 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce, 3 tablespoons of Shao Xing wine and 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce. Let it come to a boil and add the broccoli. Mix well and serve with steamed rice or over noodles.

Duck confit

2009-11-12T04:30:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly, the technique of slow cooking in a big amount of fat gives you pure duck meat with a minimal fat content! All of the fat melts and forms a thick layer of duck “lard” that you can reuse later to make even more fantastic things.
Duck fat is the most healthy animal fat! It’s content of unsaturated fatty acids is very close to olive oil. No wonder it’s so popular in France!
I often cook this dish when I know that we will have a couple of busy weeks ahead and I won’t have any time to indulge in any serious cooking. Just 10 minutes on a pan and a gourmet dinner is ready.

You need duck legs, garlic, salt, pepper and herbs.

Cut off as much fat from the duck legs as possible. Make cross like cuts into every leg and rub in some salt. Leave for 12 hours. Salt is a natural conservative and, if you want your confit to last for a while the meat must get through a proper salting process. If you are planning to consume the dish within 4/5 days then you can drop 10-9 hours, but still leave the duck to absorb the salt for at least 2-3 hours.
Melt the fat in a pan on low heat. It will take you about 40-50 minutes.
Put the legs into a big but shallow cooking dish. The dish should really be shallow because you want the fat to cover the duck legs. If you use a narrow and tall pan or skillet you will end up with lots of excessive space unfilled by fat.
Place the legs into the bowl along with 2-3 unpeeled garlic cloves and a few stems of marjoram, thyme or any other herbs you like. Pour the fat over them and cover with a lid or alfoil. Don’t worry if some parts of the duck are sticking out of the fat, the duck has some more fat underneath the skin that will melt and cover the meat properly. Set your oven onto 150C and leave the duck alone for at least 5 hours or more.
Take the cooking dish out of the oven, let it cool and put into the fridge. If some of the meat is still uncovered by fat then you will have to find another container for the duck. Don’t be afraid to squeeze the duck into a smaller container, it's much more flexible when cooked.

When ready to eat, just take out the legs and roast them in a pan until hot and crispy.
The side dish is potatoes sautéed in duck fat. Only 3 ingredients, yet so incredibly delicious! Slice the potatoes into relatively thin slices, melt a couple of spoonfuls of duck fat from your confit in a heavy pan and roast the potatoes until soft and crispy, add salt to taste.

The perfect meal for a cold autumn night!

* When I cook duck in a different way, I never throw away the fat I cut off. I freeze it and it often comes very handy. If you don't want to make your own confit you can buy ready made canned confit. I'm pretty sure I saw it in The Seafood store (both locations) and in the big wine store in Nový Smíchov mall.

Výlov rybníku Dvořiště - the gastronomic part

2009-11-03T03:58:00.000-08:00

There were all sorts of things being sold.

Hungarian sausages, salami and spices. Where is the goose liver??

Home made Slivovice (husband and mom were very happy about that) and surprisingly good homemade pickles and local vegetables.

The pickled cucmber (kvašáky) were a major discovery for me. They did not contain any vinegar and tasted just like they do in Russia and Ukraine, salty instead of sweet and sour.

One of the biggest stalls. There is carp goulash bubbling away in the huge pot.

Grilled trout.

The food was carp, carp, carp!

Many people’s prejudice against fresh water fish is closely related to carp’s muddy flavor. Amur or tolstolobik do not have this muddy flavor and are healthier and cheaper than carp, but for some reason they are mostly ignored by the public. In the end it’s always the cook who makes the difference, cooking fresh water fish simply requires more effort than your average salmon, but it’s good nonetheless and most importantly it’s local!

Here we have the famous carp fries from the famous Šupina restaurant. Crispy, greasy and filling, the ultimate fastfood.

Carp steak with horseradish sauce (Petr Stupka stall). Delicious! It was coated with crispy polenta and was well seasoned, juicy and most importantly boneless!

Carp bifteček (Petr Stupka stall)

Carp potatoe cake (Petr Stupka stall)

Petr Stupka is a fairly famous Czech chef, well mostly TV chef. He apparently cooperates closely with Třebonský Kapr , the biggest fish farmer producer in the country. He is a nice person to chat with, he loves his job and is a good source of information on freshwater fish. Here, he cooked the 3 dishes pictured above. The last 2 were prepared with an interesting innovation Třebonský Kapr came up with. I had mixed feelings about it, until the first time I tried it at the Ryby a Víno festival in Prachatice about a month ago.

The Kapří product has been promoted by Třebonský Kapr for a couple of years. It’s basically a frozen, raw carp sausage with oatmeal. What you do is cut off a piece, unfreeze it and use as you would use other mince.

For some inexplicable reason this stuff cannot be bought anywhere, they only offer it for wholesale traders. The carp bifteček constits of this carp mince, spinach and cheese. This isn’t gourmet food, but it’s quite palatable! It’s also cheap and I would personally prefer this to the notorious frozen pangasius (basa) sold everywhere.

We had much more food, but I thought that only these two stalls stood out. The rest of the food was greasy and not very well made. The stalls looked as though they transformed from grilling sausages just for this one weekend and therefore the fish was cooked just like sausages - for a long time on a greasy grill. The Šupina stall had a nice and talkactive lady serving the food but no cook in sight, the food was brought in from somewhere else. Petr Stupka was the only real chef there...the only person who put at least some effort into cooking good and most importantly different food. All of the time we have been there he has been communicating with people, explaining what he was doing, answering any (sometimes very stupid) questions.

BTW here is the catfish we bought. It was surprisingly good just simply seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled!

Výlov rybníku Dvořiště - the technical part

2009-11-02T14:03:00.000-08:00

I had hard time deciding how I should name this post because until this weekend I had no idea of anything like that existing. Well, I actually heard and read about the famous pond haulings in Southern Bohemia, but I never thought about the English name for this process. I don’t even know whether the whole process is actually called hauling, so let me call it the more common Czech name - výlov rybníku.

Many people mentioned to me that they made their ways to the ponds upon sunrise. We are way too lazy to do that. We woke up at about 9, had a peaceful breakfast and drove to the pond. It’s only 70km away from our weekend house but the roads are peripheral and so it took us more than an hour to get there, we arrived at about 11:30. We parked our car and walked towards the pond. We were really quite amazed to see that the pond was HUGE, it doesn’t do it right to call it a pond actually, it’s a proper lake.

The fishermen start at 6 in the morning and work until 3 p.m., for 4 days in a row. It’s a tough job for tough guys. They all drink slivovice in the process but still it must be very exhausting to stand in this freezing water, sorting tons and tons of fish.

What they do is throw out the nets, haul them to the banks and then by hand they pick up the fish from the water into buckets. Their colleagues then sort out the fish into different containers. Most of the fish goes into trucks and is driven away, but some of it is sold on the spot. More on that later.

At 2 p.m. the amount of people attending dropped significantly and we decided to go too. It was very cold that day and we were freezing by then. Of course we couldn’t leave without buying some fish. We bought a 5kg catfish. There was a huge variety of live fish on sale. I thought that it‘s somewhat depressing that in a country with such vast ponds and lakes all we get to buy in supermarkets is local trout and carp. Even in Makro the selection of fresh water fish is small. One of the carps in the box weighed 6kg!!!

I enjoyed our trip immensely! Next year I hope to go see the same thing happening at the Rožmberk pond/lake, which is the biggest in the country.

The next post will feature food!

Mozarella from Aromi = Insalata caprese

2009-10-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

This is what I had for lunch yesterday.

The mozzarella comes from Aromi la bottega. This melt-in-your-mouth milky buttery goodness is no comparison to those supermarket mozzarellas. Yes, it’s not exactly cheap, but it’s worth every halíř. Aromi’s la bottega is probably the best Italian deli shop in Prague, also the most expensive one. But if you are looking for unquestionable quality, this is the place to go. Good and ripe tomatoes and good olive oil are a must!

Lunch at Sakura

2009-10-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

The number of new sushi restaurants and bars in Prague has been steadily growing in the last couple of years. Sushi is the ultimate “trendy” food and therefore it appeals to many people.

However when it comes to quality, Prague’s sushi places don’t shine. The only exception in my opinion is The Sushi Bar, which is very pricy, and maybe the more affordable Sushi point chain. I have heard some good things about Nagoya, but haven’t tried it yet. The Euro magazine issued a list of Prague's best restaurants and the only Japanese restaurant in this list in Mashhana., I've been there about a year ago and thought it was just fine.

The main problem of sushi in central Europe are the ingredients, the execution and the prices. In a country where the regular lunch menu in an average restaurant costs 100-120crowns not many customers can justify paying 100crowns for 1 single nigiri. But the thing is that high quality fish costs even more than that, as prices in The Sushi Bar suggest. So what do these new restaurateurs do to reduce prices and tempt more customers? They put way too much vinegar into the rice so that it overpowers the flavor of the not-so-fresh fish, they set up AYC running sushi belts, they employ self-trained cooks etc etc. I think many people know what I am talking about, but let me tell you that the sushi problem in Prague is diminutive in comparison to Moscow or Kiev. There you’ll find sushi places virtually on every corner and the quality of food in the vast majority of them is bad to say the least.

To be more just I have to say that the sushi in Sakura is not the worst in Prague, the running sushi in Palladium or Planet sushi (a Russian chain) are worse. Plus, we have been there for lunch, which is the more budget friendly option, maybe they do better at dinner but I’m not sure if this is the correct way to go for a restaurant.
The place itself is spacious and has a pleasant outside terrace. We chose from the lunch menu, which includes several sushi sets with miso soup and many Chinese style main dishes. The main menu is very extensive, they even offer whole Peking duck…I know it's weird.

I ordered the Sakura menu 12 for 330 crowns, my fellow diner ordered the Sakura menu 2 for 180 crowns and the chuka wakame salad for 90 crowns from the main menu. My set should have contained miso soup and tea, but I never got the tea, even after I inquired about it. Were they out of tea? They serve Yamasa soy sauce here, which is not my favorite as it is too salty for my liking. When we were placing our orders the waitress asked whether we wanted the soup. I asked whether it's really part of the set and she said yes, it is but they always ask the customer whether he/she wants the soup because many people end up not eating it, hmmmm.....

The miso soup was actually quite good, with soft silky tofu, lots of seaweed and with no MSG added as I thought.

The salad was alright but it was drenched in the sweetish vinegary dressing, it was virtually swimming in it. There was too little wakame in this wakame salad.

My sushi set contained 4 nigiri and 2 varieties of maki, california and salmon. It’s difficult to screw up a california roll and it was ok. But the other stuff was not so good. The tuna smelled bad so I didn’t touch it, I mentioned that to the waitress and she just shrugged. The prawn was one of these frozen butterflied prawns you see in Japanese stores and Makro. The salmon was probably the best item, at least is was fresh.

The other sushi set contained just one nigiri, the california rolls and cucumber maki. Again, the california roll was ok, so was the cucmber maki.

The rice itself was too vinegary, combine this with the extremely salty soy sauce and you will get the idea about the overall impression.

Was this a cheap lunch? No! The bill, with 3 bonaqua waters, was 700 crowns. And mind you, the place was packed with people!
Now let’s sum it up – I wasn’t given the tea I paid for, the tuna was smelly, the rice was too vinegary, the salad was not worth 90 crowns. The miso soup was good, the salmon was actually fine too. Was this lunch worth 700 crowns? No, we would’ve been better off in Mirellie which is a few minutes away.
What did I learn? Save money and go to The Sushi Bar!

**As I revisited the website of Sakura I was amazed to see that they have opened 2 other restaurants, one in Prague and one in Kladno. They do not seem to be suffering from recession, another proof of how popular sushi is becoming here.

Salmon with garden cress sauce

2009-10-16T05:07:00.000-07:00

Garden cress is full of vitamins but due to a very spicy taste isn’t liked by some people. It used to be called “the poor man’s pepper”. This was because it was used as a substitute for pepper by those who couldn’t afford the expensive spices that were shipped in from Asia. Today, garden cress is mainly eaten as a part of salads or in sandwiches, but sometimes it is used to cook soups and main dishes. Cress gives any dish a very distinct, peppery flavor but heating it lessens this effect and gives the final dish a very pleasant tanginess.

Garden cress, or Řeřicha in Czech, is sold in little boxes that contain shoots of the plant. What you do is cut off the green parts and use them. If you don’t throw away the box with the leftover shoots new plants may grow from them, but that doesn’t always happen. I guess it depends on the quality of the shoots or on how long they have been standing around.

Ingredients:
2 x 250gr salmon fillets
1 tablespoon of chopped tarragon
2 heaped tablespoons of garden cress
3 tablespoons of sour cream
1 small clove of garlic – thinly sliced
150 ml of white wine
Salt, pepper
Oil

Heat up a pan with some oil and fry the seasoned salmon for 2-3 minutes on every side, depending on how thick the fillets are. Remove the fish from the pan a put onto a heated plate. In the same pan sauté the garlic for a minute and add the wine. Let evaporate until there is about 1 tablespoon of liquid left. Add the sour cream, cress and tarragon. Cook until sauce thickens, season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over the fish and serve!

Na Kopci and lunch on rainy Sunday

2009-10-13T02:30:00.000-07:00

I wanted to sample the new menu at Na Kopci ever since it was introduced in early September. Why? Because there are mussels on the menu and mussels are one of my favourite foods! On top of that, the chef at Na Kopci used to work in Belgium, a country known for its mussels!

Na Kopci has opened about a year ago and has gained much fame since. It’s located as far away from the city center as you can imagine, and I don’t mean that it’s dozens of km away but that it’s hidden in a remote and quiet residential area above Anděl and there is no chance you will accidentally come across this restaurant. People who have been there once return on a regular basis and traveling a small distance by bus or car does not discourage them.

The place itself is tiny, there are always 2 attentive and smily waiters ready to give you more details on the menu and wine list, the food comes out fairly fast and the presentation is always clean and simple, with emphasis on fresh ingredients. Na Kopci is not an expensive restaurant! Well, you do pay more than in you local hospoda, but the local hospoda doesn’t serve fresh swordfish or proper Ceasar salad does it? The prices in similar restaurants in the town center, similar by food concept but often lacking the good quality, are double in the best case. And most of all, Na Kopci is a non smoking restaurant!

We thoughtfully reserved a table for 5:30pm, there was only 1 other free table inside when we arrived. We were seated and handed the menus. We knew what we wanted beforehand and so did not have a hard time deciding. It is fairly dark inside so the pictures are not good, but I decided to share them anyway.

Husband’s creamy fish soup with aioli. There was one mussel and a piece of fish inside the soup. It was perfectly smooth and had a very delicate seafood flavor, the aioli and thin toast were a perfect complement.

My pot-au-feu beef soup. The soup contained a few pieces of incredibly tender beef, crispy celery, carrots and baby turnip in a strong, clear and well seasoned beef broth. Perfect for a cold autumn evening.

Husband’s steak with bordelaise sauce and mushrooms also included snow peas and potato slices baked with bacon. The steak was tender and perfectly medium, but the whole dish needed salt.

My mussels mariniere were served in a stylish big black pot with Moules written on it. Because the pot was so big and black and because there was so little light inside, there was no way I could make a photo of the mussels, which is a great pity because tastewise they were the best dish of the evening. They were big and fresh, lightly steamed in wine and not dry. There were crispy homemade french fries and mayonnaise served along with the mussels. These were the tastiest mussels I have eaten in Prague. But unfortunately, I also have to mention that the person cleaning the mussels did not do a good job. There was no sand in them but quite a few of them haven’t had their “hair” removed. I’m not sure but I bet this is a major flaw. Oh well, I just removed the stuff myself and enjoyed the mussels anyway.

We ended the meal with a crème brûlée. It’s probably the most popular dessert at Na Kopci, you see most tables ordering it. Remember how Amélie Poulain enjoys breaking the crust on crème brûlée with a spoon in the Amélie movie? That’s exactly what we did! :-)

I would recommend Na Kopci to anyone who wants to enjoy a peaceful lunch or dinner with good food and fair prices. You will have to travel outside the beaten track but the place is worth it. However, if you are picky about perfectly cleaned mussels, think twice before ordering them.

Rain has ruined our plans for outside activities on Sunday and so we enjoyed a Greek style lunch at home. Homemade tzatziki and melitzanosalata, store bought feta stuffed peppers and olives and greek salad with pita bread. We also had some greek style lamb with vegetables baked in claypots, which there is no picture of. All simple but delicious stuff.

TTTM SAPA - the Vietnamese market

2009-10-07T02:02:00.000-07:00

There is no other place like this in Prague. In fact, there are one or two similar but smaller markets, but they can’t compare to TTTM SAPA. It’s a small world of its own and is the center of the Vietnamese community in Prague and maybe even in the whole country. It's like a small town, it has language schools, a kindergarden, a buddhist temple, hairdresser and beauty salons, casinos, grocery stores, restaurants etc. People working in Sapa are generally very friendly but speak very little Czech. The place itself is actually a wholesale market with clothes, household items, electronics and other stuff found in many smaller Vietnamese markets and shops. But all of this was of no interest to us because we were there for the food! There are many small vendors selling just one particular food and also places serving the more traditional Čínské bistro fare.

The grocery stores in Sapa sell exotic fruits and vegetables (even stinky durian!!!), live fish, seafood and meat. There are also many ready made foods sold, like whole grilled ducks, banh mi sandwiches, different sweets, fresh juices etc etc.

On our first visit we tried the Bun cha at an eatery called Hai Ha. It’s a small joint where 1 guy is grilling, 1 guy is chopping and marinating the meat, 1 guy washing and chopping the herbs and vegetables and 2 women are assembling the plates and waiting the tables. The meat is being grilled outside of the restaurant in a small adjacent side-street. The meat is marinated in a sweet marinade and so it burns ferociously on the grill, due to this the guy operating the big grill is constantly wearing a mask. A somewhat bizarre sight. The place itself has 2 big and 4 small tables. What you do is come in, sit down and wait.

One of the ladies will either come and ask you something or she will start bringing the food straight away. We were approached by one of the ladies, but didn’t understand a word she said and so I just made the victory gestrure with my fingers to indicate that we want two portions. She nodded and walked away. In about 2 minutes we were brought a dish of greens, a dish of noodles and a bowl of sweet and sour dressing/soup each. A couple of minutes we got our two plates of meat.
This is how it looks altogether.

Perfectly grilled thin morsels of delicious meat and tiny thin “hamburgers”, they are meant to be dipped into the bowl with the sweet and sour dressing and eaten with the provided greens. The noodles are aslo meant to be eaten with the dressing. These herbs are not sold in regular supermarkets or groceries, apart form cilantro and iceberg lettuce they are authentic Vietnamese herbs and their names remain unknown to me (Ngo gai perhaps?). The combination of the four elements contributes to the complex experience from this dish. The meat is tasty on its own, but together with the herbs, noodles and dressing it is a major delicacy. It costs 90 crowns each I believe.
After finishing off our Bun cha we wandered around the market and came across a vendor frying something closely resembling doughnuts. We bought to kinds of doughnuts and a mysterious

square parcel wrapped in a leaf (banana??).

The doughnuts are…uhm….unusual :-) They were extremely greasy, oil was dripping when I bit into one of them. They had thick and hard crusts inside which was some gooey substance. The most interesting thing was that they were not sweet at all! The one dusted with powdered sugar was sweet because of the sugar, but the filling and the other doughnut were not even close to being sweet. Oh well, I never was a connoisseur of Asian desserts and I guess it will stay the same :-)
The leaf wrapped parcel was another surprise! We unwrapped it when we got home and it contained a square made of sticky rice with some pastelike yellowish-grey filling. It was

something like this. Interesting, but not something I would buy again.

We visited the market again this weekend. This time a couple of friends joined us. We wandered around the market a bit and sat down in a place serving Pho.

It was very good, but I thought that the Pho soup served in the Holešovice tržnice is richer and has deeper flavours. Here is a picture of some delicious noodles I had in the Holešovice tržnice recently, these are actually also called Pho (Pho xào) but are not served as a soup.

Pho is probably the most famous Vietnamese dish. I am obviously not the only one who wonders how it is possible that there are no Pho restaurants all around Czech Republic, with so many Vietnamese people living here. For some inexplicable reason they resort to operating Chinese bistros with food of questionable quality. Vietnamese food is much healthier and tastier than sladko-kyselé kuře! You can get Pho at several places in Prague though, Sapa market being one with the best variety.
For more information on Sapa, check out Pan Cuketka’s wonderful report and a map worked out by his readers, it’s very helpful! Pan Cuketka also wrote 2 extensive articles on Pho and bun cha in Prague, here is one and the other.

Pumpkin pancakes

2009-10-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

The Hokkaido is probably my favourite pumpkin variety. It's sweet, has a pronounced flavour and stores very well. Hokkaido pumpkins are a bit difficult to peel though, so I bake them with the skins on and then just scrape out the soft flesh. However, if cooked long enough the skin is perfectly edible too! Given that the pumpkins are organic and have not been chemically treated of course!
These pancakes are very healthy, they contain just a little flour, no eggs and you only need a small amount of oil to fry them. Served with sour cream and lots maple syrup, they are one of my favourite breakfasts!

Ingredients:
400gr of Hokkaido pumpkin
150gr of flour
1 tablespoon sugar
a pinch of salt
½ teaspoon of baking powder
about 150ml of milk
oil for frying - 1 teaspoon per each batch of pancakes

Cut up the deseeded pumpkin into several pieces, line a baking tray with baking paper and put the pumpkin pieces on it. Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes, until the flesh is soft.
Scrape out the flesh and mash it up in a bowl. Add the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Pour in enough milk to make a paste like mixture that is thick enough not to fall off the spoon, but smooth at the same time.
Heat up a little oil in a non-stick pan. One tablespoon of the mixture will make one pancake, use another spoon to scrape the mixture off into the pan. I put 5 tablespoons of the mixture into the pan each time, so every batch consisted of 5 pancakes. Cover with a lid and fry on medium flame for 3-5 minutes. When you take the lid off you will see that each pancake has flattened out on the pan. Turn them around and bake for another 3-5 minutes, until brown on both sides. The baking time depends on how thick the pancakes are.

Serve warm with maple syrup, honey, jam, youghurt or anything else you like.
I sometimes keep some of the baked pumpkin aside, cut it into small pieces and add to the mixture to make the pancakes chunkier.

Beef tajine with raisins and apples

2009-10-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

I am totally in love with my tajine and the fragrant dishes that come out of it! It’s made from some special ceramic that can be used to cook on the stove, not only in the oven. And this makes it a perfect piece of cookware. I often use the lower dish to sauté or even fry things, because it distributes and holds heat very well. I am thinking about buying an Asian pot from the same product line, if only it wasn't so darn expensive! So, for now I happily stick to my tajine.

Neoluxor stocked only 2 books on Moroccan cooking and so I bought both, one in Czech and one in English. The latter is somewhat more sophisticated and calls for more exotic ingredients, that are apparently irreplaceable but also fairly difficult to find.

The recipe for this tajine comes from this book. The result was very tender meat in an incredibly aromatic and thick sauce. It is best to serve this dish with cous-cous or rice and a refreshing crunchy salad.

Ingredients:

1 kg of beef cut into small pieces - I used hovězí zádní

1 onion - diced

125gr raisins - no need to soak them

3 sour apples

3 tablespoons of honey

4 sprigs of cilantro - tied together

1/4 teaspoon saffron

1/2 teaspoons of ground dried ginger

1,5 teaspoons of cinnamon

freshly ground black pepper
salt

olive oil

20 gr of butter

Heat up the tajine on the stove with some olive oil and butter and quickly fry the beef. Remove the meat from pan and turn down the heat a bit, add some more oil if needed and throw in the diced onion. Saute until translucent and soft.

Add the saffron, ginger and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and sauté for another minute until the spices are fragrant, add a generous portion of the freshly ground pepper and pour in approximately 375ml of water. You can always add more water if needed. Put the meat back into the tajine along with the cilantro and add some salt. Mix thoroughly, cover and let simmer on medium to low heat for about 1,5 hour.

Uncover the tajine and add the raisins, add some salt if needed. Cover again and let simmer for another 1/2 hour.

In the meantime cut the apples into quarters and remove the stalks. Heat up some butter in another pan and sauté the apples in the butter. Pout in the honey and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Let caramelise and set aside.

Serve the meat with the apples. You should sprinkle some sesame seeds on top, but I didn't have any.

*I used more cinnamon, ginger and raisins and less saffron, but you can always taste the sauce and add more if you desire. I also increased the cooking time by half an hour.

Pumpkin soup

2009-09-30T03:29:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed a fairly warm September, but now autumn has finally set in with rain and cooler air. I hope Indian summer will grant us some more warm days though! As autumn progresses I tend to cook more substantial meals full of seasonal produce. Apples, plums, local tomatoes and most importantly pumpkins and squash are all in their best form now. I used to hate pumpkin when I was a kid, but now I love it!

Ingredients:
1 kg of pumpkin
1 long stem of green celery
1 small clove of garlic
¼ of a long red chilli, deseeded
100gr bacon - diced
100ml cream
3-5 sage leaves
Olive oil
Salt, pepper, sugar
0.5 l water – chicken or vegetable stock is even better (NOT stock cubes)

In a medium sized pot heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil and throw in the bacon. Fry for 1-2 minutes and add the roughly chopped garlic, celery and chilli, sauté on medium flame for 2 minutes. Peel and deseed the pumpkin and chop into medium sized pieces, the size of a matchbox approximately. Throw into the pot along with the whole sage leaves and turn up the heat. Sauté for another 3-5 minutes until the pumpkin starts to caramelize a bit. Pour in the hot water or stock and let boil gently on medium flame for 10-15 minutes until the pumpkin is soft. Pour the soup into a blender and blend until it’s smooth, a hand blender will do the job just as good. Pour back into the pot and add cream, season with salt and pepper. If the pumpkin is not sweet enough a pinch of sugar will balance out the flavor. Serve!

Those who are on a diet can leave out the bacon and cream, but I would suggest using stock then.

A weekend in Southern Bohemia – Part II

2009-09-28T14:44:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we were after a more cultivated experience so we chose to visit Hluboká nad Vltavou. We were surprised to find out that there is a beautiful big lake near Hluboka, as well as a new zoo and a golf course. The lake is suitable for swimming and is lined with camping lots and small cabins.

The town itself looks “new”, I guess the municipality has a considerably high income from all the tourists. This allows them to keep the town center renovated, making it very picturesque. There were hoards of people wandering around and when we reached the main square we understood why. There was an annual wine festival being held this weekend. The main square was lined with small stalls offering wine, food and souvenirs and there were also folk concert on a big stage in the center of the square.

We decided to check out the castle first and have a close look at the stuff offered at the festival later. The castle is beautiful and everyone visiting the area should see it, at least from outside.

We wanted to see the interior of the castle, but because there were so many people around, there was a 3 hour wait for a tour and we didn’t want to wait that long. So, we just wandered around the castle and park for an hour or so.

The gates of the main entrance to the castle are decorated with a metal crow poking out the eyes of a guy that looks suspiciously like a cossack. Typical cossack styling! I mean the moustache and hairstyle.

We saw a wedding photo session taking place inside the castle. See the bride inside the glass winter garden?? The place is perfect for weddings, it's very romantic! But there is an absolute lack of privacy there, tourists are everywhere.

The wine attracted many people. There was a wine tasting inside one of the buildings on the main square but also there were many outside stalls offering wine and most importantly this year's Burčák.

Husband was driving so he didn’t have any but I drank a couple of glasses. We also tried something that I wanted to try for a long time – Kapří hranolky or Carp fries! It’s a dish that was apparently invented in the famous Šupina restaurant in Třebon. It’s basically boneless carp marinated with some spices and deep fried. It is very greasy but surprisingly tasty! I have never tried the original version though. This portion with a slice of bread cost 60 crowns and there is lots of carp for that price., it's very filling.

The same stall also sold different kinds of smoked fish, we bought some too.

There were also different sausages, trdelnik, pancakes, potatoe pancakes and other traditional festival and fair food. We might be returning next year!

A weekend in Southern Bohemia – Part I

2009-09-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that we have a weekend house near Pisek. We missed my mom’s birthday due to our exams and this weekend we wanted to catch up. Mom actually lives in the weekend house now, because she started a big (re)construction project there. She decided to turn the weekend house into a place suitable for year round living and so now she watches over 5 workers everyday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. She hasn’t been to Prague for 2 months now.
On Friday she invited us to the Středověká krčma in Pisek, a place we’ve never been to before. Oh man, what a bizarre place this is :-) It’s something like a medieval tavern with a show. We were greeted by a barman dressed in old, dirty clothes. He said smth like “What the hell do you want here?? You wanna stuff yourselves and have some booze?? Get your asses seated at the table over there!” Uhm, this is the way they talk there and it is supposed be that way. They try to make us feel like they think people felt in the middle ages. To make it short, service is arrogant and talks in a weird way on purpose, it is part of the whole concept. When they take away your plate or glass they yell “Máš dožráno??” or “Máš dochlastáno??” That’s just the way it is there.

There is this hangman hanging from the ceiling, I sat right under him.

There was some sort of clown entertaining us the whole evening, he was even funny sometimes.

Some people dressed as monks began torturing young and pretty “witches” later, the witches even flashed their bare breasts for a couple of minutes!
The climax of the evening was a fire show. I have to say that I was impressed. Not by the show itself (although it wasn’t bad at all), I have seen better and bigger fireshows. Instead I was wondering how they could get the authorities permissions for performing a show like this inside of a building. There really isn’t much space inside and the minute they lit the fire it became very hot! There were all sorts of inflammable things lying around like hay, rugs etc. It was fun to watch though.

Now for the food…it’s alright but nothing spectacular. It’s just this standard fare like you would find in thousands of other restaurants, greasy meat all the way. But on the other hand, what would you serve at a place like this? The portions are enormous and so I would think twice before ordering a starter, maybe only one to share between 3-4 people.

A picture of the koleno above is all I have. It was very dark inside and so the rest of the pictures didn't turn out at all.
We also had some kind of beef tartare on dark bread as a starter, it wasn't bad but desperately needed salt. I had half of a duck with dumplings and cabbage and is was the best dish of the evening, half a duck sounds big but it was quite small, it was rather a duckling and just enough for 1 person. Husband ordered this koleno shown above, it was huge but fairly average. Mom ordered pork ribs with honey, these were ok, but drenched in sauce which made them very difficult to eat.

The prices are high and not only for Pisek. Keeping in mind that every person additionally pays 150 crowns entrance fee, I didn’t expect the food to cost that much. My duck cost 390 kč, the koleno was around the 270 kč mark and the ribs around 220 kč. It’s ok for Prague, but otherwise this is probably one of the most expensive restaurants in Pisek, but you are really paying for the show here.
Did we like it? Yes, it’s a touristy concept, the food is overpriced, bla bla bla…but I thought it was fun! It’s not a place were you would go for a romantic dinner or family celebration and I wouldn’t go back for food, but it serves it’s purpose as a show. And this is how the place should be taken, as a touristy medieval show with average food.

Mussels with wine, cream and chilli

2009-09-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Mussels and clams are one of my all time favourite foods! This recipe is probaly my favourite, I cook it most often. It's a perfect romantic dinner for two or a decent starter for 4-5 people. All you need to go with these mussels is some fresh baguette to mop up the sauce and some white wine to drink along.

Ingredients:
1 kg of fresh mussels
1 large clove of garlic
1 shallot
1 chilli
300 ml of decent white wine
200 ml of cream (heavy cream is better, but to reduce fat I use the 12% cream)
some fresh thyme
1 tablespoon of butter + 1 tablespoon of olive oil
salt

I described how to handle mussels and clams here.
Carefully wash and clean the mussels. Throw away any mussels that are already open and don't close when you handle them and also broken ones. In a deep pan or pot heat up the butter and oil, add the finely chopped shallot and garlic and fry for 2 minutes on medium heat, add chilli and thyme. Turn the heat to maximum. Throw in the mussels, close the pot with a lid and shake it. Pour in the wine and let boil for 2-3 minutes without the lid, pour in the cream, add salt to taste and shake well again. Let cook for 2 more minutes. Remove any clams that haven't opened. Serve!
The prawns on the left were simply fried with some garlic infused olive oil.

Terrine de porc et poulet

2009-09-14T01:54:00.000-07:00

Terrines are very versatile. There are meat and fish terrines, vegetarian terrines are common too. They can be served warm as a main dish, or cold as an appetizer or simple dinner with a loaf of fresh bread. I often make this terrine when we invite someone over for dinner, but sometimes I cook it just for ourselves.

Terrines are actually the baking dishes in which terrines are cooked. They are mostly rectangular or oval and have a lid. I don't have a proper terrine bowl, so I use a tall rectangular baking dish and alfoil.

Ingredients:

250gr of pork mince

250gr of mince from chicken thighs

150gr chicken liver

150gr of good quality bacon in long thin slices (pancetta is even better)

1 small onion, finely diced

2 tablespoons of finely sliced basil

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of chopped dried cranberries

1-2 tablespoons of cognac - optional

salt, pepper

1.Mix together the mince, basil, olive oil, dried cranberries and cognac (if it's available). Season with salt and pepper and let stand in the fridge for a couple of hours.

2. Sautee the finely diced onion with butter until soft, but not brown. Add to the mince and mix well.

3. Take your baking dish and line it with bacon. You should kind of wrap the bacon around the meat filling when you put it inside the baking dish. It is best to take two pieces of bacon and put one of their ends opposite one another on the bottom of the dish and let the other ends hang from the sides on top of the dish. It should cover the walls of the baking dish completely.

4. Put half of the meat mixture into the baking dish, kinda inside the "bacon basket". Cut the liver into pieces about the size of a cherry. Put on top of the meat and cover with the leftover meat. Devide evenly and cover with the slices of bacon hanging from the sides of the baking dish. Cover with a lid or alfoil, tightly seal.

5. Heat up the oven to 175C and put inside a big baking dish or tray with water. Place the terrine into the water, it should cover at least half of the terrine bowl. Cook for about 1,5 hour.

6. Take the terrine out of the oven and let stand for about 10 minutes. Uncover and remove, or pour out, ecxess fat. Cover again and let the terrine cool down before cutting.

This terrine tastes best with fresh, crusty bread and some vegetables, and maybe also a blob of cranberry jam.

Esse

2009-09-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

Oh, does it fell good when you’re done with all your exams in time! Especially when they are the last exams before the final exams after which we will be proud pan and pani Ing. Our last exam took place yesterday and of course we wanted to celebrate a bit. We were so exhausted that travelling somewhere was not in question for us, so we decided to stick to another neighborhood joint of ours – Esse.
Esse is one of these “Potrefena husa” style places, a better beer pub with a modern interior, a large selection of Staropramen brand beers and serving modern style cuisine. We have been there several times and actually liked it. Esse serves a very nice Svíčkova na smetaně, although my judging of Svíčkova may not be very accurate. As a non-Czech I, unfortunately, don’t have a babička to cook it for me, so I don’t really have a meter to judge it. We weren’t after Svíčkova this time though. And here is what we had:

Prawns with olive oil, ginger, garlic, served with toast.
The 4 prawns themselves were large and well cooked (even though they were clearly frozen, they weren't dry) but didn’t deserve to be drenched in bottled, overly sweet chilli sauce. There was some delicious cream cheese on the toast, I couldn’t identify it.

I had the chicken breast with mushroom ragout and potato šišky. The only flaw of this dish was the generous sprinkling of paprika on top the chicken breast. All in all this was one of the best chicken breasts I have recently eaten. It was plump and incredibly juicy. I don‘t think I have to explain how difficult it is to cook a chicken breast properly, without making it dry, which happens in the majority of restaurants. The mushroom sauce, I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a ragout, was tasty and there was no flour added to the sauce, which is always nice. I would order this dish any time again.

Husband’s steak with confit shallots and mashed potato. The steak was ordered medium, and it was cooked medium. I am not an expert on steaks, but husband said it was fine. It was served with a sweetish sauce (the confit shallot sauce perhaps?) and over the actual shallots. The shallots were white for some reason, which did not match with the sauce, and did not look too appetizing. The mashed potato was made from real potatoes and was well seasoned.

We had a couple of beers with our food and Richie the dog was offered a big pink bowl of water.
One thing I’d to like mention are the mistakes in the menu. I think that this is already the third menu they have here and it still has these stupid grammatical mistakes like blue chesse, fettucciene and others. Fettuccini is actually written two ways on one single page and both are wrong! I really can’t imagine how this is possible and it makes me think about how seriously the owner takes his business. It makes a very bad impression, which is a shame because the food is not bad at all and the service is good too.

Pork chops with orange juice, dijon mustard and honey

2009-09-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

We are now in a very busy studying period and so I don’t do any complicated cooking. Just simple stuff. These pork chops take about 5 minutes to marinate and 15 minutes to cook, you can cook a side dish at the same time. This blend of flavors is quite traditional and fairly classic but I have never used it on pork, mostly on chicken. Interestingly, it worked out very well! The meat has a very delicate but zesty flavour and is incredibly tender.

Ingredients:
1kg of pork chops
Juice of 2 oranges
2 teaspoons of honey
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of Maille Provencale mustard – optional, I just happened to have it in house
Some rosemary and marjoram – or other herbs
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt, pepper

Blend together the juice, honey, mustard and oil, add salt, pepper and fresh herbs to taste. Pour over the pork chops and leave in the fridge overnight. Take them out of the fridge 1 hour prior to cooking so that the marinade liquidizes a bit and is not so thick. Heat up a pan with a some oil and cook the chops on medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how thick they are.
I served the chops with some sautéed kale (mangold) and grilled paprika.

Fish baked in salt

2009-09-05T11:37:00.001-07:00

This is a great way to prepare fish. It's fast, easy, healthy and most of all tasty!

Ingredients:

Whole fish that is as fresh as possible - I had 2 seabasses about 400gr each

1kg of fine salt

300gr coarse salt

2 egg whites

lemon and herbs are optional - I used rosemary, estragon and oregano

Mix the salt with the egg whites. Spread half of the salt mixture on a baking tray. Put 1-2 slices of lemon and some herbs inside the fish. Cover with the remaining salt and form something like a sarcophag us for each fish.

Put into preheated oven and bake at 225C for 20-25 minutes. When you take your fish out the oven they will look like this.

Hit the salt layer softly with a hammer or smth else a couple of times until it breaks into several bigger pieces.

Clear off the upper layer of salt and the skin. Carefully remove the flesh and serve with a little bit of olive oil and a salad.

The curry test

2009-09-02T09:03:00.001-07:00

I was revising my pantry yesterday and came across 4 packs of instant curry paste. These aren’t the classic and basic Thai green, red and yellow curries. These are more special – Matsaman, Madras, Panaeng curries and the very special Korean Ottogi curry. Very special because I have never seen it before :)

I do use stuff like this sometimes when we need to eat something fast and I don’t want to indulge in any cooking. All you have to do with these is cut up some meat, roast the paste a bit, add meat and maybe some vegetables, add coconut milk and let simmer for a few minutes. The results vary though, from very acceptable to plain bad. Let’s give these 4 curries a go and find out whether it is possible to cook a palatable or even tasty quick meal from prefabricated stuff like that.
The first contestant is the Panaeng curry with chicken.
It did smell nice while the paste was being roasted. I added some green beans for colour and texture.

But tastewise it was just ok and I won't be buying it again. I had to add some fish sauce and quiet a lot of brown sugar to make it more interesting. It absolutely lacked the depth of flavour a curry should have. It’s described as „Mild“, but is rather medium hot. The coconut milk desintegrates into lots of fat when cooked too long and this is what happened in my case. I overcooked it a bit.
I would not have been happy if I was served this in a restaurant, but if you're come home hungry and exhausted it will do the trick for you. Don't expect any wonders though.

Bohemia Bagel

2009-08-30T02:28:00.000-07:00

Do you have a favourite neighborhood joint? Our's is probably the Bohemia Bagel in Holešovice. We go there really often, mostly for a beer or two, but we also eat there at least once a month. The place is famous for its burgers.

Here are some we had recently:

Husband's BBQ burger with fries.

My hamburger with bacon and cheese with salad.
The burgers are always of consistent quality. Big, juicy, well assembled. It's not everyday food, but it doesn't hurt once in while!

This place has more to offer than just burgers. They serve quite well made salads, Ceasar especially, sandwiches, different American style breakfasts etc. They have thematic evenings several times a week, like the wing Wednesday, taco Thursday, burger weekend. Their lunch offer isn't half bad too. All in all we like the food and the service is fine, we even get a 10% discount when there is one certain guy waiting the tables in the evening.

The place has received some critisism for bad service at http://www.expats.cz/ and other resources. I have to say that it's partially true, I agree to some extent. The service is a bit unattentive during lunch hours and may even seem a bit "bitchy". However, it's not the case during the evenings. This is probably because the staff is ALWAYS different at lunch and in the evening. I have some ideas why this is the case, but I do not want to ventilate them, because they are just ideas.

We like the place nevertheless and will probably continue continue going there.

Chicken tajine with honey and pears

2009-08-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

This is a new friend of mine! I bought it today :) I have been fascinated by tajines for a while now and actually planned buying one with discount during the Dny Marianne. But then I saw this offer above and decided to buy the green tajine now. It can be used to cook on a stove and in the oven, very unusual for glazed clay pot! I think it may well become one of my favourite pieces of cookware.
This is the first dish I tried cooking in my new and shiny tajine and it worked out beautifully!

The original recipe comes from one of my favourite food blogs. I amended the recipe a bit though. This represents Morrocan food is to me - fragrant, rich, delicate, sweet and savoury at the same time, colourful. Delicious!

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken chopped into pieces

1 medium onion, very finely chopped

1 smallish bunch of coriander

2 medium sized sticks of cinammon

1 tablespoon of grated ginger

300ml of saffron water (details later)

4 firm pears

50gr of butter

5 tablespoons of honey

salt, white pepper

olive oil

Heat up some olive oil in you tajine and throw in the chopped onion, fry it on medium flame until soft and translucent. Turn up the heat and add the chicken, let brown for several minutes. Pour 300ml of warm (NOT hot) water into a glass and add a small pinch (5-8 strands) of saffron or a teaspoon of ground saffron. Mix well. As the result you should have a bright orange liquid tasting strongly of saffron. Pour this liquid onto the tajine along with the cinnamon and ginger, add the coriander (tied together by a thread so it does not fall apart), salt and pepper. Cover and let simmer on medium to low heat for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes place the tajine into the oven, which has been heated to 170C-190C. Leave for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile peel the pears, remove stalks and cut into quarters. In a non stick pan heat up the butter, add the pears and the honey. Let the pears caramelise on high heat until a brown caramel forms. You can see it and also smell it - it's brown, sticky and smells like candy.

After the tajine has been in the oven for 45 minutes add the pears together with the caramel. Let cook for another 15 minutes.

Serve with a neutral sidedish that is suitable for soaking up the delicious sauce, something like plain couscous or rice.

Borsch - Борщ - Boršč

2009-08-25T02:22:00.000-07:00

When I was younger (14-18 years) me and my mom often went shopping in town and of course such shopping sprees always ended with a nice lunch. Once, many years ago we decided to try a Russian restaurant located on Na Příkopech. It was a long long time ago, maybe even 15 years. The restaurant was probably a survivor from communist times and has been closed down for good soon after we ate there.

We ordered borsch. What we got made us wonder whether they understood our order correctly and so we asked if this stuff they brought us is borsch. The waiter said - "Yes, it is, and if you don't like it go back to where you come from"...:-) Oh well, we ate, paid and left. This incident persisted in my memory not because of the hateful comment, which was actually my first and most importantly only encounter with hatred towards my origin, but because this borsch included frozen peas, corn and a smoked sausage.

Here is how I cook the Ukrainian national soup -

Ingredients:

0.7kg beef, chicken, pork or duck - with bones, excess fat removed

2 medium beetroots

2 medium carrots

0.5kg cabbage

2-3 big potatoes or 2 handfuls of soaked white beans

2 VERY ripe tomatoes or tomatoe puree (if you want to keep it simple)

salt, pepper

some vinegar - about 1 tablespoon

First of all you need a proper meat stock. Not the one made from stock cubes! Make some real stock from the meat. Tradition tells to use pork, dietary issues say the opposite, so I mostly use beef or chicken. Duck makes fabolous borsch! Let it simmer for several hours with a few bay leaves, peppercorns, whole onion, carrot and celeriac root. No need to strain the stock for borsch, you are not looking for transparancy here.

Once you have the stock peel the beetroot and carrots. Grate them on a grater, heat a pan with a little oil and add the grated vegetables. Let them simmer for a while, add grated tomatoes (or the puree). Season the mixture with salt and pepper and add about 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Pour into the broth. Cube the potatoes and add to the soup, I sometimes add beans instead of potatoes. Thinly slice the cabbage. Turn off the flame under the pot, add meat if you still haven't done so. Add salt and pepper to taste. That's it. No pickled, frozen or canned stuff and no smoked meat or sausages.

Serve with lots of sour cream!

Osteria Da Clara

2009-08-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

It was our second wedding anniversary yesterday. We went out for dinner at one of our favourite places, Osteria Da Clara. Anyone who is seeking home style Italian food and most importantly well prepared pasta should check this place out.

For some reason the photos turned out to be really bad. I will remove them later probably.

Above are the eggplant rolls with ricotta.

The crostini. Husband loves the one with liver paté, he says that it's the best paté he ever ate. It's not one of those French style fancy stuff, it's just staight forward liver with a few pieces of onion.

Husband's Scaloppine dello chef . The menu says that it's prepared according to the chef's fantasy. This time his fantasy made him use some tomatoe sauce, cream, bacon and some blue cheese.

My Fettine di maiale con albicocche e noci.

The food is superb, as always. The chef has a thing for a sweet taste in savoury dishes and it works very well. See how they serve their famous sauteed carrots with every main? The carrots are to die for! Husband does not eat any cooked vegetables, except in soup, but happily munches away on these carrots.

I now know that 9p.m. on a monday is probably the only time when the restaurant is not fully occupied. It was though when we came at 19.30. Sometimes it's impossible to get a table there unless you make a reservation several days ahead and the place is sometimes fully booked even for lunch. Da Clara is not a fancy restaurant, it's a small, homey place so don't expect silver forks and crystal stemware.

We're very happy eaters but still couldn't finish our mains, next time we will not order 2 starters but only one to share, it's simply way too much food. The waitress will happily pack the leftovers in a "doggy bag" for you however! The portions they serve at lunchtime are smaller than those served for dinner. The service may appear a bit slow but it's very attentive, smiley and most importantly personal. I give 5 out of 5 for the service in Da Clara.

I always wonder why good service poses to be such a huge issue in restaurants. All we customers need is a bit of attention, some info and a smile! I guess I'm asking too much though.

Something like fajitas...

2009-08-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not an expert on tex-mex cuisine. I've never been to the USA nor Mexico, so I am not claiming that this is THE original recipe, this is just the way I do it. I find that Prague restaurants serving fajitas tend to skimp on meat a lot and basically serve sauteed onions and bell peppers with a few strips of meat. That's why I stopped eating fajitas in restaurants and now we sometimes make make them at home. This dish is a real crowd pleaser, you serve the separate ingredients and your guests assemble their fajitas themselves. If you decide to cook the more traditional beef fajitas use good quality meat!

Igredients for 2 people:

1 -Meat

500 gr chicken breast

1 teaspoon of ground cumin, paprika, oregano, brown sugar

1 teaspoon hot chile sauce (I use green habanero sauce)

2 teaspoons of avocado oil (or olive oil)

juice of 1 lime

1 crushed garlic clove

1/2 of a yellow and red pepper

salt pepper

*1 small sliced onion

2 - Tomato salsa

2 ripe tomatoes

6-8 slices of pickled jalapenos (I've never seen fresh jalapenos in Prague)

juice of 1/2 lime

1/half of a crushed garlic clove

salt, pepper

* 2 tablepspoons of finely chopped onion

3 - Guacamole

1 very ripe big avocado

juice of 1/2 lime

salt pepper

1 tablespoon of the tomato salsa

fresh coriander, chopped

* 1 tablespoon of finely chopped onion

4 - For serving

6 medium sized tortillas - preferably corn tortillas

Grated cheese

Sour cream

*I don't eat raw onions! That's why I rarely use them, but fajitas actually should contain onions.

Preparation:

Cut the meat and peppers into strips, mix with other ingredients from the Meat part and let stand in the fridge for 6 hours at least, I leave to marinate overnight.

Prior to cooking prepare the salsas. For the tomato salsa finely chop the tomatoes or use a processor to do it. Finely chop the pickled jalapenos and add to the tomatoes, add other ingredients and mix well. For the guacamole cut the avocados in half and remove pit. Mash the insides of the avocado in a bowl, if the avocado is ripe enough than it will be easy to do. Add the lime juice, salt, pepper and some of the tomato salsa. Mix well.

Heat a large skillet with some oil. Stirfry the chicken with the peppers.

Put salsas, cheese and sourcream into separate bowls. Serve the meat with the tortillas, salsas and condiments. Enjoy!

Kiev - Honey fair at the Lavra

2009-08-19T03:27:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from Kiev, the city I was born in and spent the first years of my life in. My grandparents and dad live in Kiev and so I go to there regularly. Among other things I visited is a honey fair held at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The Lavra is a Unesco heritage site and probably the most important christian-orthodox church and monastery complex in the world. From here christianity spread across eastern Europe. On the 14th of August the holiday of Makovija is celebrated and it is the first day of the Medovyj Spas, a holiday celebrating the first honey harvest of the year. My granddad loves honey and so we simply had to visit this fair.

There were about 70 bee farmers from all over Ukraine selling their stuff there, more than 20 kinds of honey and about 30 different bee products (like wax, royal jelly, cosmetic products etc).

My granddad bought 7 different types of honey from the beautiful young lady and her grand mom pictured above. They were very friendly and helpful.

There were thousands and thousands of bees! I don't think this fair is a suitable place for small children or people allergic to bee bites. I still wonder how I didn't get bitten by one of those.
Generally the fair was very interesting, I never knew there was coriander or chestnut honey for instance. A pity there were so many visitors when we were there, otherwise we would have taken a walk inside the Lavra complex, but my grandpa was happy nevertheless! And that's what's really important to me :)

Return to Vozovna Stromovka

2009-08-19T03:12:00.000-07:00

I've already written about this place, we have been there numerous times after that but never eaten anything. This time we did.Barbeque ribs. Small? Oh, yes! Only 2 smallish pieces but only for 115kc. However with the second main we ordered there was plenty to share and we were absolutely full. The meat was soft and almost fell off the bone, the sauce was too vinegary for my liking, but still fine.

The Schweineschnitzel. The menu says it is just as you will get it at Figlmüller, a famous Vienna restaurant known for its schnitzels. The schnitzel was massive and very well cooked, thin, crispy and well drained. I gave half of the schnitzel to Husband, there was no way I could ever finish it off by myself. We also had some roast potatoes, which were also good.

I like this place! They are now grilling a whole piglet every Saturday, I think it's worth checking it out!

Himalaya restaurant

2009-08-06T03:18:00.000-07:00

I went shopping with my mom yesterday. We wanted to have lunch together and she requested Indian food. By that time we were on Namesti Republiky and there is no Indian place nearby except Himalaya. I've heard some nasty things about this place but not considering myself a connoisseur of Indian cuisine I didn't think it would be too bad. What a mistake.

The restaurant itself is somewhat rundown and considering the fairly high prices I was certainly expecting something else. The unpleasant kitchen odours were very intensive and the ladies room was not something you would easily find in Prague1 - old, stinky and ugly. The staff does not speak Czech, only English.

We ordered meat samosas and 2 chutneys with pappadums, lamb korma, butter chicken and pulao rice. The menu is very extensive, offering a wide choice of different curries etc, but we decided to stick to these more popular items.

The photo above shows the samosas, chutneys and pappadums. I didn't take photos of the other stuff, it wasn't worth it. The samosas were the best dish, bursting with a tasty meat filling, they did go well together with the sweet mango chutney. The tomatoe chutney was nothing to shout about. The main courses were plain bad. The lamb was tough and almost impossible to chew. The lamb corma costs 255 crowns, for that you get about 8 2x2cm pieces of this terribly cooked meat and lots of lukewarm overly sweet and thick sauce. The butter chicken was a horror for me as a non eater of onions. The meat onion/ration was something like 1/5. In the tiny serving dish there were few pieces of overcooked chicken breast covered in an insipid red sauce consisting of finely chopped onions and oil. No creamy sauce typical for butter chicken whatsoever. And that for 219 crowns. The pulao rice was tasty.

I haven't had such a bad restaurant meal in a long time and when the bill was brought it became even more depressing. 850 crowns for food that was unpalatable. What a waste of time and money! :-(

Creative website

2009-08-04T13:36:00.001-07:00

I've stumbled upon this funny website. Some design loving foodies developed a very creative way to present sandwiches. This sandwich drew my attention to this site. Funny isn't it? :)

Roast chicken - the way I do it

2009-08-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

Everybody loves roast chicken and there are hundreds and hundreds of recipes. For us, a whole roasted chicken is the perfect comfort food. It's easy as a piece of cake.

Ingredients:

1 chicken - I prefer to buy the yellow ones, but this time there were none

1/2 small lemon - I always buy the organic ones

5 big cloves of garlic + 1 whole bulb

herbs - thyme, rosemary

olive oil

potatoes -about 1 kg

Preparation:

Wash the chicken, sprinkle it generously with salt and pepper. Cut the carefully washed lemon into quarters and put inside the chicken along with 2 cloves of garlic and a few stems of rosemary or thyme, or both. Place the chicken into a baking dish and pour some olive oil over it. Let stand in the fridge for 6 hours at least. When ready to cook peel the potatoes, or don't peel them if they are new potatoes. Cut them into pieces and place into the baking dish along with the chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste, add 5-6 stems of herbs and 3 cloves of garlic cut into pieces. Cut the whole garlic bulb in half and place into baking dish. Sprinkle with olive oil and cover with alfoil. Cook covered at 180C for 45 minutes, uncover and cook for another 45 minutes until a crust forms. Occasionally smear the chicken with the juice that forms at the bottom. Serve and enjoy!

Khinkali - Хинкали

2009-08-02T01:56:00.000-07:00

Tortellini, pelmeni, xiao long bao, vareniki, gyoza, manty are all types of filled dumplings. So is khinkali, a famous Georgian dish. When I was a kid me and my mom lived in Georgia for 2 years and my mom learned to cook many Georgian dishes. Caucasian cuisines are not very known in Europe which a great pity because they are truly unique and very healthy. However many of the most famous dishes cannot be cooked outside their country of origin because Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani cuisines take great pride in local products that are rarely available outside these countries. Although these 3 countries are very small and located very close to each other their cuisines differ extremely.
This recipe is a combination of my mom's recipe and this one. The author of the latter, Milena from Tbilisi, is a great cook and a specialist on Georgian cuisine. Her recipes are always very well explained and she dedicates much oo her time on explaining the origins of the dishes and when and where they are eaten. She is also a great photographer and often takes her readers on trips around Georgia. Her recipe is probably more authentic but as my mom's recipe differs a bit, I decided to put together my "own" recipe. Khinkali can be also filled with cheese or vegetables or mushrooms. But I cooked the most traditional ones with meat.

Ingredients:

1 kg of mince - a combo of pork and beef. If you use lean meat the dish will be ruined!!!

finely chopped onion - Milena uses 300gr, I add much less about 50gr

salt, pepper

finely chopped coriander - Milena does not add coriander, but 1 teaspoons ground caraway seeds

hot paprika to taste

water

1 litre or more of warm water - the amount depends on the flour

flour

salt

Instructions:

1. Make filling from ingredients the meat and spices. It should not be lean!! Add some water to make it "juicy", about 100ml. The filling should be shiny, soft and "slimy". I don't know how to explain it better.

2. Make dough. Pour lukewarm water in a bowl, add a bit of salt and continuoulsy add flour to make a very stiff dough. I think you could do it in a good, strong stand mixer or breadmaker. I do it in a breadmaker. The dough shouldn't be soft, in fact it should be almost too hard to roll out. Let it stand covered for 30minutes.

3. Devide the dough into....parts and form sticks out of each part. Cut the sticks into round pieces. Milena says they should be the size of a walnut, my mom makes them bigger. So I decided to do somethin in between, let's say the size of a plum. Roll them out one by one and fill with filling, about 1 tablespoon of filling per each parcel. Now, there should be some unfilled space inside the dumplings because a tasty soup will form inside, so do not fill them completely! Milena has beautiful pictures on how to form them, my mom does it the same way but when she assembles them she leaves a big "tail" on top of them. Milena's is not so profound. Khinkali are eaten grabbed by this tail and the tail is thrown away when the dumpling is eaten.

4. Boil some water in a big pot. Boil the khinkali for about 5-10 minutes, depending on the size. Smear a thin layer of oil on a plate and serve the khinkali on it. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper.

Be careful when eating, they are filled with a very hot soup.

Crayfish from IKEA

2009-08-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

No recipe here, just a tip. From late july to early september IKEA sells wonderful frozen crayfish. In Sweden there is a festivity called Midsommar and during it lots and lots of crayfish is eaten. IKEA is offering crayfish in its cafeteria and also this frozen stuff. It's already boiled in a salted dill brine and can be eaten straight away without any further cooking.

I haven't got the slightest idea why there is no fresh local crayfish sold in the Czech republic. With so many ponds and lakes there could be plenty of farmed crayfish here. The only 2 places that sell frozen boiled crayfish that I know of is Makro and IKEA but only during the summer months. This crayfish costs 249kc for 1kg. Although a bit messy to eat it's delicious with a beer or 2!

Prague market - Pražská tržnice

2009-07-31T01:48:00.000-07:00

Mr. Cuketka posted a picture of things he bought at the Pražská tržnice in Holesovice on his Facebook page. I decided to follow and so here is what I bought today.

Dill, koriander, garlic, baby eggplant, "Canadian" blueberries, Czech blueberries, cucumbers, string beans, beautiful gladioluses.

I try to shop at this market every week, or sometimes even twice a week. There is no other place like this in Prague and I like it a lot! There are some stands with imported fruit and veg but about 60%-70% of the vendors sell local seasonal produce. I will post photos of what I buy every time, I think it will be interesting to see how the variety of fruit and veg changes through the seasons.

Gravad lax

2009-07-30T05:37:00.000-07:00

I make my own gravad lax at home. The ones that are sold are either full of preservatives or very expensive. Marinated salmon takes 5 miutes to make and can be eaten in 24-48 hours. Why buy those prepackaged ones then??

Ingredients:

1 kg of salmon fillet - I proportionally reduce ingredients if there is less salmon

4 tablespoons of sea salt

2.5-3 tablespoons of powdered sugar

2 tablespoons of freshly ground black or white pepper

4 tablespoons of dill

Preparation:

Cut the fillets in portions if needed. Mix salt, sugar, pepper and dill. Coat the fish with this mixture on the side where there is no skin. Put the fish skin down on a plate, cover with alfoil or plastic foil and refrigirate. You should turn the fish around once if the fillet is very thick. After 24-48 (it depends on how well marinated you want the fish to be, I like it slightly "raw") take the fish out of the fridge and cut it into thin slices. Use a very sharp knife!

You can also freeze the marinated salmon and defrost it in the fridge.

This time I served the gravlax as a tartar on a crispy potatoe cake with sour cream.

Tolstolobik - Толстолобик

2009-07-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

Tolstolobik (or flat head carp) is a forgotten and neglected fish, which is a big shame in my opinion. This fish has 3 huge priorities -

1. It's cheap

2. It's tasty

3. It has the highest content of Omega-3 fatty acids of all fresh water fish common in Europe.

I sometimes buy it when I see fillets or steaks sold, I don't buy whole fishes because they tend to be very big. Tolstolobik doesn't have this "muddy" flavour and smell that turns many people away from carp but is somewhat dryer, because it contains much less fat. Its meat is delicate and I wouldn't recommend grilling or frying it, it tends to fall apart.

I found this recipe at http://manek.bloguje.cz/, which is a great Czech resource on cooking local and imported fish. Thanx for sharing the recipe Mr. Mánek! I amended the recipe a bit because I used fillets instead of steaks and there was more fish than in the original recipe.

Ingredients:

1,2 kg of tolstolobik fillets or steaks

5 tablespoons of parsley

4 tablespoons of mustard - I used Maille dijon mustard (my faourite mustard)

2 cloves of garlic - czech garlic I mean, if you use chinese garlic you will need at least 5 cloves

5 tablespoons of breadcrumbs

some butter - about 100gr cut into very thin slices

salt, pepper

Preparation:

Season the fish with salt and minced garlic and let stand (1-3 hours). Place the parsley and breadcrumbs into a a foodprocessor and mince. Put the parsley/breadcrumbs mixture onto a wide plate and let dry fro a couple of hours as the fish marinates.

Sear the fish on a hot pan with some oil (flesh down a very hot pan and fry until a brown crust forms). Remove from pan and smear a very thin layer of mustard on it. Coat the fish in the parsley breadcrumbs , put into a baking dish, put a little butter over each piece and bake for 25-35 minutes in a preheated oven at 200C. Serve and enjoy!

Of course other fish can be prepared this way too!

Spaghetti a vongole

2009-07-25T02:22:00.000-07:00

Pasta vongole is a classic Italian dish and is always prepared with long thin pasta like spaghetti, spaghettini or linguini. It's amazingly simple to make and tastes heavenly but only under the condition of having fresh vongole, good pasta and ripe cherry tomatoes, which often poses as a problem in Prague (mostly the vongole). I bought beautiful vongole in the new seafood shop I wrote about in the previous post and some nice cherry tomatoes from a Vietnamese vegetable vendor and now I am ready to cook my favourite pasta.

All clams must be carefully washed and cleaned! You don't want sand between your teeth. BTW these clams were very clean, I only rinsed them under flowing water in a sieve. All clams that are already open before cooking and do not close if you tap them on the table (i.e. don't show any sign of activity) are dead, throw them away without remorse. Those mussels that don't open when cooked are also unedible and might cause severe food poisoning, throw them away too. If you buy clams and plan to cook them later or the next day, refregirate them but do not cover! Remember, the poor things are still alive and need air to breathe. Arrange them in one layer on a plate and put them into the fridge. When you take them out of the fridge many will be open, don't panic, leave them to stand for 2-3 hours and you will see, and most importantly hear, them ressurect. Those that don't close or move are dead so get rid of them. For me, the safest way to determine whether the clams are alive is to put them under flowing water, the alive ones will close immediately. Never freeze mussels or clams!

Ingredients for 2 people:

1 kg vongole clams

10 ripe and tasty cherry tomatoes

pasta, about 200gr in dry state - please use good pasta (I use DeCecco)

1 medium sized clove of garlic - cut into 4-5 pieces (NOT finely chopped)

2 tablespoons of parsley - chopped finely

1/6 red chilli - cut into rings (about 6-8 thin rings)

olive oil

Instructions:

1. Several hours or one day prior to cooking wash the tomatoes and make two cuts on them to form a cross. Pour some boiling water over them and remove skin. Cut the tomatoes in half and remove the seeds. Put the tomato halves in a bowl and pour olive oil over them (sounds complicated but takes 5 minutes). Leave. See comments below

2. Boil your pasta in salted water until al dente, strain and set aside.

3. Heat up some oil in a big pan and add the chopped garlic and chilli. Fry until fragrant and add the cleaned vongole. Pour in about 1/2 cup of boiling water and let evaporate for about 2 minutes until all clams open up. Add the tomatoes and the parsley let cook for another minute, add some more boiling water if needed. The smaller the clams the less time they need.

4. Add pasta and carefully stir. Stirring mussels may cause them to break and you will end up with hard pieces of shell in you pasta. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5.Serve and enjoy

This tomatoe/oil mixture is often used when the cook does not want the sauce to taste overly of tomatoe. In restaurants these tomatoes are made in bulks of several kilograms and used for several days. Marinating the tomatoe halves in oil makes them keep together and as the result the sauce contains pieces of tomatoe instead of mushy tomatoe puree. And please, don't throw away the leftover oil! It's been infused by the tomatoes and is a great salad dressing!

I bought the cherry tomatoes that are sold on the stem, they were round and all the same size. The price was ridiculous - 150kc/kg. I don't know why they're so expensive and who actually buys them for that price, but they are very good, ripe and sweet. You only need 10 of them so it won't ruin your budget, but you do need these very ripe tomatoes.

Sometimes white wine is added to pasta vongole, but IMHO the cooking time is too short for adding wine as it leaves the sauce too sour for my liking and overpowers the delicate vongole flavour. Also butter is often used instead of olive oil, it's tasty too, but more French style.

Cooking clams is not everyone's thing because they are...uhm, alive. Yes, they do move and they do make squeeky and cracking noises. Black mussels are a bit quieter but vongole clams really do show that they want to live. If you think you will not be able to cook something that's moving, don't waste your money and don't buy them. Sorry for the morbid details but that's just how it is...

What a loooong post! :)

New seafood store

2009-07-25T01:51:00.000-07:00

A new seafood shop opened up in Žížkov. It's called Pescheria Adriatico and is located in Bořívojova 11. The owner, who is Italian, brings the seafood from Italy. The stuff is fairly fresh, given that you go there when there has been a delivery recently, which is on Firday I believe. The shop is very simple and the variety of seafood is not as wide as at the Seafoodshop or Makro, however the quality/price value makes up for it. There were 2 Italian families doing their shopping when I came in and that's a good sign for me. The fish they sell is NOT scaled or gutted, I guess you could ask the shop assistant to do it for you. But especially the clams and mussels are very clean, even the black mussels.
I don't know why they display ungutted fish, the only thing that comes to my mind is that this is used as evidence of freshness. Ungutted fish goes bad much faster than gutted fish and maybe they do it on purpose so they can say "See, we don't gut our fish, it's so fresh and gets sold so fast that it doesn't have the time to go bad!" But maybe I'm just thinking too much and they are too lazy to gut and scale the fish in advance. :-)

I bought 2 seambreams, 1kg of anchovies and 1 kg of vongole veraci clams. This will make 2 lovely seafood dinners!

The first dinner featured the seabream and the anchovies.

I put some marjoram, thyme, dill and lemon inside the gutted fish, sprinkled it with olive oil, salt and pepper and baked them in the oven under the grill. The fish was beautifully moist and delicious. Nothing beats a simply prepared fresh fish for me.

The anchovies were battered in flour and deep fried. Oh man, did these smell when they were being fried. I had to open all windows to increase air circulation. Anchovies and sardines are the most smelly fishes, but this doesn't make them less tasty.

The dinner involving vongole clams is described here.

The horror

2009-07-24T02:42:00.000-07:00

I never buy premarinated meat or fish. I simply don't like the taste of the used marinades, they burn on the grill and there are too many chemical additives in them. I also suspect that the producers marinate meat that's beggining to rot and give it a "second life" by drenching it in a spicy and salty marinade.
Now, here is the proof - http://zpravy.idnes.cz/nalozene-maso-muze-znicit-zdravi-odrovnalo-i-ochutnavace-mf-dnes-pht-/domaci.asp?c=A090724_083957_domaci_lpo

Check out the attached detailed results - http://ekonomika.idnes.cz/specialni-priloha.asp?y=test/vysledky-testu-marinova-masa.htm

All I can say is OMG! Some of the samples were infected with salmonella and listeria, several were literally rotten. Horrible.

Chicken drummets with lemon, honey and rosemary

2009-07-22T03:25:00.000-07:00

I try not to cook heavy meals when there's such a heat outside but husband needs his proteins every evening, so my choice is most often chicken or fish. This recipe is dead easy plus you can marinate the chicken overnight and just shove it into the oven one hour prior to dinner.

Ingredients:

1 kg of chicken pieces - no breasts please

Marinade:

juice of a very big 1/2 lemon - about 5-6 table spoons

3 teaspoons of honey

1 big stem of rosemary - or 1,5 teaspoons of dried rosemary

dried oregano - optional

2 or more cloves of garlic - cut into pieces

3 tablespoons of olive oil

salt

pepper

Instructions:

Mix all marinade ingredients with the chicken, make sure the marinade is evenly distrubuted. You can do it all in the baking dish to avoid washing up. Arrange the chicken in one layer and leave to marinate for a couple of hours at least, but the longer the better. Preheat oven to 200C. Roast chicken for 45 minutes covered with alfoil, uncover and roast for another 15 minutes. My chicken drummets were not too big, but if you have bigger pieces increase cooking time to 1h 15min. You can also bake potatoes along with the chicken in the same dish.

I served the chicken with string beans I bought at the Holesovicka trznice today. I simply sauteed them with a chopped fresh tomato and some chopped dill.

Salad with ruccola, red beets, balkan cheese and pinenuts

2009-07-21T02:14:00.000-07:00

When it's hot, and it's very hot today, I try to live on salads. This salad is very refreshing and boosting with vitamins. There are 4 flavours and textures in this salad - spicy ruccola, sweet beets, crunchy nuts and salty cheese, combined by a dressing. They work together very well.

Ingredients -

2-3 small young beets - they are in season now

1-2 handfuls of ruccola

1-2 tablespoons crumbled balkan cheese - feta is even better

roasted pinenuts

olive oil

chopped dill or parlsey

pepper

salt

balsamic vinegar - optional

Preparation:

Boil or bake the beets. Peel them and cut into slices or whatever pieces you like. Put the ruccola on a flat plate, place the beets over it and sprinkle with the pinenunts and crumbled cheese. Prepare dressing from olive oil, chopped herbs, freshly ground pepper and a little salt, add balsamco if desired. Pour dressing over the salad. Enjoy.

Maiale in Latte

2009-07-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

The holidays are over and I'm back in the kitchen. We wanted a hearty homestyle meal after all the restaurants and seafood. I decided to try one recipe from one of my Italian cook books. It's called pork in milk (Maiale in latte) and we liked it, even though it's more like a winter meal...

Ingredients:

1.5 kg whole piece of pork chops with bones (I couldn't find a whole piece so I used 2 smaller pieces)

1 litre of whole milk

4-6 cloves of garlic (I prefer Czech garlic to Chinese, it's got much more flavour)

1-2 rosemary stems (sage should be added as well, but I didn't have any)

juice of one lemon

zest of one lemon

some olive oil

Instructions:

Heat up oven to 200C.

Preferably use a cast iron pan or skillet with a lid, or at least a heavy one made of other metal (I hate thin walled cook ware). Heat up some olive oil and sear the meat until it has a brown crust. Remove some of the fat and put the halved garlic cloves and rosemary on the bottom of the pan, put the meat on top.

Pour the milk over meat and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Bring to boil, remove from fire and add lemon juice and zest, stir, cover and put into the heated oven. Bake covered for half an hour, uncover and cook another hour until the liquid reduces to form a sauce. I also added some rosemary infused olive oil, but I don't think it actually made a difference.

Milk and lemon sound weird together because milk products naturally clot when mixed with acid. This sauce is supposed to clot. You can reduce the clotting effect by adding the lemon much later or even just before serving, but the taste will not be the same in my opinion. You might also strain the sauce through a strainer.

I served the meat with pommes fondantes, which are coming up in the next recipe.

Barcelona, Figueres etc.

2009-07-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

When we were planning our holiday I was very optimistic regarding local trips like Barcelona, Montserrat, other seaside towns etc. Unfortunately it wasn't that easy. We only visited Barcelona, Reus (which was not really interesting because we had no map or guide) and Figueres on our way back. Figueres houses the Salvador Dali museum which is part of the Dali triangle. Everyone who visits the area should take the time and visit this place. It's unbelievable. I'm sure I will try to explore the whole Dali triangle in next few years because I was amazed by this museum.

We also took a one day trip to Barcelona. I have been to Barcelona once before but also for one day and I loved the place. But this time I was a bit confused. It's huge and very crowded. The town centre is enormous, with wide and long boulevards and big squares. One needs at least 3 days to explore this city, there are just too many things to see and visit. I do not recommend one day trips. we felt like we were lost in a huge megapolis and even though we had a guidebook we haven't managed to see even a fraction of what we intended to see.

BUT there are still some pictures of food! :)

Boqueria Market -

The photos didn't turn out too well. What can I say? Boqueria is beautiful, but to me it looked more like a tourist attraction than a real place where the locals shop. They do their shopping in different markets like Mercat san Antoni or Mercat del Ninot or others. I wanted to go there but alas...

Still, Boqueria was an amazing place! Beautiful stalls, incredible variety of all kinds of things, a few fully occupied tapas bars. Everything there is so pretty and perfectly arranged and at least the fruit stalls really do seem a little artificial. I always look out for seafood, here the array was unbeatable and hands down the best I have ever seen in my life.

We sat down to have lunch in a Japanese style noodle restaurant called Udon. It's very popular among travellers and is featured in many tourist guides.

This is the Nabeyaki udon. It was a nice change after all the grilled seafood and fish we had in the previous week. I know that sounds nasty :)))

This is it from our Spain trip :)

Great thanks to my inlaws for inviting and taking us on that beautiful holiday!!!

More and more goodies

2009-07-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

The day when we arrived in Cambrils was the final day of a series of religous holidays dedicated to San Joan (St. John). This holiday is very popular in Catalonia and celebrations last for several days. During these days people party in the streets, fire fireworks, dance and of course eat eat eat. There was a local produce market in the port of Cambrils set up for the holidays and selling traditional foods and crafts.

This couple is baking traditional bread. They made the dough on the spot and baked the loaves in a traditional stone oven. It tasted heavenly.

There was also a stall selling dozens of varieties of pickled vegetables and olives.

Fuet and cured meat.

We bought a loaf of bread, some olives, some of the cured meat shown above, 1 fuet and lots of wine and had a very pleasant late night snack.

Paella

Paella is served in all restaurants. It's not possible to order it for one though, only for 2 people or more. I would love to learn how to cook paella, I'm not good at cooking rice though.

Grilled baby squid

Mussels mariniere

Fried small fish. A perfect snack to go along with beer.

We sat down in a bar serving vermouth and were served 2 tapas like this. It's a pitted olive, anchovy fillet and pickled oyster with some hot sauce. It was salty, sourish, hot and briny at the same time. Vermouth is quite popular in Cambrils and many bars serve it in a peculiar way. There are buckets with ice with a bottle of vermouth and water inside and a bottle of hot sauce on the table. You order vermouth and they bring you big glasses with ice, pieces of orange, olives and a small plastic syringe. If I got it right you should mix yourself a drink with the vermouth and water and use the syringe to pour some hot sauce into the glass. Another interesting thing is that it's not charged by glasses. You are charged by the bottle and by the person. That means that if there are two of you you pay 4,5 euros per person as long as the first bottle lasts and no matter if you drink 1 or 5 glasses. In other words for 2 people a bottle of vermouth costs 9 euros, for 3 people 13,5 euros. If you start another bottle it's 4,5 per every person on the table again. I'm not sure if I got it right though :)

Lobster and seafood combo. The photo is blurred because the photographer's hands were shaking with fear. The people by the table were threatening to eat him if he pursues to hold them back in order to take pictures. Yes, it did look that appetizing and it was divine.

Husband posing as the background of this spectacular looking prawn/calamari "spear". Fried baby octopus are served along with it, it's the plate on the right. We love prawns and found this place to serve the best prawns in terms of price/quality because prawns are really quite expensive in Cambrils. This "spear" costs 21 euros and has 10 very big and juicy prawns, 10 big calamari rings and this plate of freshly deep fried baby octopus. We have had prawns in more expensive places but somehow they weren's that good. These ones were perfect.

Grilled baby octopus.

Hake with prawn and wild mushroom sauce. At first this looked ridiculous to me. A cream sauce with mushrooms on fish on the seaside in summer? But the waiter explained to us that wild mushrooms are very popular in Catalonia, even by the seaside. Apparently lots of mushrooms grow in the surrounding mountains. And indeed I have seen porcini mushrooms being sold on a market later as well as canned wild mushrooms in supermarkets. Surprisingly, Catalan cooks add nuts to almost all cream sauces, I'll have to do some research on this. This dish was fabolous. Hake is considered a somewhat low quality fish in Europe, but it's a favourite in Spain and I can see why now. Here in Prague it's sold in the form of frozen fillets that are full of water and taste very dry and fishy. This freshly caught fish was moist and delicate. Another interesting thing is that no sidedishes or garnishes are served with cream sauces. Nothing to mop up the sauce with, except bread.

Cambrils - the seafood paradise

2009-07-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

Cambrils is known as the town with the best seafood in all Costa Daurada and maybe even Catalonia. The food there is superb and we have not had a bad meal during our holiday. There are 2 restaurants here that received a Michelin star. We have not visited them though and it was not because they were expensive, they were just slightly more expensive than the rest, but because they were always booked.
Miramar restaurant:

We went there for my mom in law's birthday and it was the place everyone liked the most. Great service, great wine, superb food.

Tuna carpaccio in a cava jelly.

Grilled prawns.

Grilled razor clams and scallops. I have never eaten razor mussels before. They look gross, like big fat white worms but they are really tasty. The essence of the sea. The scallops were incredibly fresh and perfectly grilled.

Vongole clams and scallops.

Pulpo a la Gallega, a famous Spanish dish. Octopus is boiled with spices and then served with olive oil, salt and paprika.

Steamed mussels. Nothing added except lemon and these mussels didn't need any seasoning anyway, they were delicious.

Grilled calamari and cuttlefish. Again, these were grilled to perfect softness without being dry.

Grilled angler with escalivada and a potatoe. Angler is one of the most common fishes in Cabrils, along with seabass, hake, sea bream and sole. Escalivada is a mix of grilled or baked vegetables flavoured with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Here eggplant, pepper and tomatoe were used, but sometimes oinion and garlic are added.

Grilled halibut with the same sidedishes as above.

Grilled seabass.

Moments in Spain...

2009-07-13T16:34:00.001-07:00

Back home from Spain!

2009-07-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

We are back home form a 2 week holiday in Spain. We are lazy tourists actually and spent the whole holiday in one town called Cambrils, we went on a couple of trips though.
To start off here are some things I brought home. I would have loved to buy more things if only there was some more space in our car, but it was totally cramped.

From left to right -

1. Torres Esmeralda white wine - I liked this wine a lot. It's fairly local, it's light and refreshing. Torres is a big multinational company and I never liked its wines until I tried Esmeralda.

2. Pinord La Nansa sparkling white wine (blue bottle) - also fairly local and very light.

3. 3 kinds of infused olive oils by Borges (Ferran Adria line) - 3 peppers, rosemary, soy sauce and ginger. Those are available in the Czech republic (with the exception of the soy sauce ginger variety) but cost about 3-4 times as much. Borges is a very mainstream olive oil producer but has managed to get Ferran Adria to design a product line for them.

4. Baro de l'Albi olive oil - reccomended by the staff of the De'Gusto gourmet shop in Cambrils. Haven't tried it yet.

5. Mestral olive oil produced by the Cooperativa Cambrils - This oil is apparently unique, it's being made exclusively from arbequina olives. It has been been named the best olive oil of Spain of 2006 and 2008 by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and has collected numerous awards on fairs all over the world.

6. Walmer salsas - Olivada (tapenade), Alli olli (garlic sauce), Salsa Brava (spicy hot sauce used for Patatas Bravas). Bought on a food market in Cambrils on the first day of our stay and not seen anywhere afterwards.

7. Arbequina olives - in brine. Arbequinas are small and look unexciting, but they are a favourite among the locals. In the previous post there is a pic of a pickle stand at the local market with dozens of different olive sizes and flavours. Tourists were buying the big fat spectacular looking ones while the locals stuck to small and humble arbequinas. The best Spanish olive oils are made from arbequina olives.

8. Local honey

9. Tuna fillets in olive (glass jar) - very high quality tuna. Delicious and impossible to buy in Prague, for a fair price at least.

10. 1 pork sausage of some kind - bought in a butcher shop

11. 1 fuet salami - bought in a butcher shop

12. another can of my beloved tuna.

Marinated pikeperch with cherry tomatoes

2009-06-18T05:05:00.000-07:00

My father in law is a passionate fisherman and he goes on fishing trips quiet often. Several months ago he and his friends made a trip to Rio Ebro in Spain. This river is well known for its huge population of pikeperch and my dad in law caught some of them, froze them and brought about 8 fishes home. Pikeperch is considered to be the best fresh water fish, it's also the most expensive one. It's meat is very delicate and is best when prepared in a simple way. I found this recipe on this website - http://mlsnakocka.blog.cz/. Another Czech food blog I enjoy. Thanks for the recipe Pavlina! The combination of the fish, tomatoes, bacon and crusty bread is delicious!

Ingredients:

Pike perch

Marjoram

Garlic

Olive oil

5 -6 slices of bacon

Cherry tomatoes

Bread

salt

Instructions:

Filet the fish and cut into portions. Make cuts on the skin, but don't cut through, we do this to prevent the fish from twisting when heated. Chop up the garlic and the marjoram, add some olive oil, add salt and marinate the fish in this mixture. Let stand in the fridge overnight.

Heat up a pan. Don't add oil, there is already oil in the marinade. Fry the fish skin down first, then turn and add the bacon.

In the mean time heat up another, smaller pan with some oil. Make cross like cuts on the cherry tomatoes and put on the pan, sautee until soft and sweet. Put some bread in the pan along with the tomatoes.

Serve!

Stromovka and the new "fur cut"

2009-06-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

We had our dog taken to the groomer today and he now has a new summer style "fur cut" or what do we call it???

Doesn't he look cool??? I bet he doesn't care about his looks though, as long as he gets his piškoty :))

We also met a duck and her ducklings...nature in the city

Afterwards we went to Stromovka for a walk and stopped by a fairly new place called Vozovna.

We have been there once before and liked the beer and the concept, the food was so so but pricewise it was ok. The same happened this time...We weren't hungry at all so we ordered a grilled paprika with smoked mozarella (pečená paprika s uzenou mozarellou) and one párek v rohlíku (hotdog).

We ordered the hot dog simply because we were intrigued by the description in the menu. It wasn't spectacular but better than most. The grilled paprika with smoked mozarella wasn't bad either. The mozarella had a chewy brown crust and was fine when it was warm. We finishend it off before it got cold, but i bet it's not so good when cold. The prices are unbeatable however, very acceptable. The service is incredibly slow here, but not because the servers are lazy, but because there are too little of them. They are very friendly though! I guess they didn't expect such a big demand when they were opening the place. Bet how long we waited for our párek v rohlíku and pečená paprika! It was about 40 minutes :) I hope they get themselves together, but i don't know if that's of any use because the place is full all the time anyway.

Still, my P7 favourite in the Vystaviste/Strossmayerovo namesti area is and probably will be Bohemia Bagel, they don't have a garden but they've got wi-fi ;-)

Pesto ala Genovese

2009-06-17T01:06:00.000-07:00

It's rich, it's intensive, it takes 5 minutes to prepare and no cooking, it looks great and is very nutritive and healthy. Plus you can keep it in the fridge for about a month and always have it ready for a quick lunch.

Ingredients:

2 bunches of good quality fresh basil (about 80-10 leaves)

100 gr roasted pine nuts

100 gr parmesan cheese

2 cloves if garlic

salt

olive oil

Preparation:

The best was to do it is grind it up in a mortar, but if you don't have one use your electric chopper. Blend it all well together and add enough olive oil to make it a smooth but thick paste.

Alternatives:

Use walnuts instead of pine nuts. Use sundried tomatoes with half of the basil to make red pesto. Use parsley or ruccola instead of basil.

Use:

Toss some pesto with freshly cooked good quality pasta. Add it to your salads, especially good on a Caprese salad. Smear it on Italian style sandwiches, you may want to grill them afterwards. Pizza. Use it as a dip for vegetables, crackers, meat or fish. You may add it to bread or foccaccia dough. Coat potatoes with pesto and bake or add to other warm baked dishes. It is very versatile and yummy!

New book

2009-06-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

I bought a really cool book today! It's called Ingredients and is currently sold for only 199 krowns in the Levne Knihy shops.

It has pictures and brief descriptions of any edible ingredient you may think of. Dairy products, dozens of cheese types, meat, fish and seafood, fruits, vegetables, spices, condiments, drinks...everything! It's like a food encyclopedia.

I especially liked this photo...lamb eyeballs featured in the offal section :))

A simple appetizer

2009-06-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

Bliny (Russian pancakes) with sour cream and salmon caviar. The bliny dough contained yeast and buckwheat flour, which is a very old fashioned way to make traditional bliny.

Lamb shank with rosemary potatoes and grilled vegetables

2009-06-15T14:27:00.001-07:00

I cooked this as the main course for dinner on my birthday. The Husband wanted me to cook these lamb shanks for a long time already and now we had the occasion. Lamb shanks are not easy to find in Prague, I bought these frozen in Makro and they came from New Zealand. Shanks are the less expensive pieces of lamb but they are very juicy and tender when cooked properly and they look very impressive on the plate. Serve one shank per person, they are about 300-400gr each including the bone.

Ingredients for 5 people:

5 lamb shanks

150gr of each, diced roughly - carrots, celery, parsley, onions

1 tbl spoon of honey or cranberry jam or apricot jam (I prefer apricot jam, but you can use anything that's sweet and sticky except sugar)

olive oil

herbs - optional

1 whole garlic bulb

salt pepper

1.5 kg potatoes

2 tbl spoons of fresh rosemary leaves

3 peppers

3 pieces zuchinni

balsamic vinegar

Instructions:

Skrape the skin and tissue from the upper end of the shank bone, this will make the bone stick out when cooked. Drizzle generously with salt and pepper, leave to marinate for a couple of hours.

Heat up some olive oil in the pot/dutch oven that you will use for baking the shanks. Roast the root vegetables on medium heat until they become soft, turn up the heat and add the jam or honey, let caramelise until the vegetables are slightly brown. Place the shanks along with the whole garlic bulb and herbs onto vegetables, pour some more olive oil on top, add more salt and pepper if needed, cover and place in the oven. Cook for 2.5-3 hours. Remove lid, turn up the grill onto highest temperature and let a crust form (optional).

In the mean time wash some potatoes, wash them well as we will not peel them, and cut them into same size pieces, place in a baking dish. Remove some liquid/fat/juice from the pot in which the lamb is cooking, 5-6 tablespoons is enough, pour over potatoes. Add fresh rosemary leaves and salt, toss, cover with alfoil and place in the oven along with the lamb one hour prior serving time.

Cut the peppers and zucchini into same size squares and fry in some olive oil on high heat until soft but still with a crunch. Add salt, pepper and finish off with some honey and balsamico to balance out the taste.

Serve the lamb and the potatoes hot and the vegetables cold. We like it like this, but the vegetables are just as good when served warm. The root vegetables that were cooked along with the lamb should not be served, they have already given all they had to the meat and moreover they don't look good.

This makes a very filling main course, so if you are serving many appetizers then some diners will may want to split one shank between themselves. Between 5 people we had 2 whole pieces left untouched because there were many appetizers.

The recipe comes from the Chef Gurman magazine.

Vietnamese style glass noodle salad

2009-06-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

A very light and refreshing salad, best served chilled.

Ingredients for salad:

Cooked shrimp - I used about 300gr of shrimps that were cut in half along the spine

Glass noodles (soaked in hot water and drained)

Bean sprouts or snow peas or any other springy vegetable

Ingredients for dressing:

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 of a chilli, chopped

2 tablespoons of minced ginger

2 tablespoons of sesame oil, fish sauce, canola or sunflower oil, water

Chopped cilantro (coriander)

juice of 1/2 lime

1 tablespoon of brown sugar or honey

Instructions:

1. Mix together the dressing ingredients. Season to taste. It should be sweet, salty, hot, sour and garlicky at the same time.

2. Combine shrimp and noodles and toss with the dressing

Lesvos holiday 2

2009-06-15T01:54:00.001-07:00

Again grilled sardines and greek salad, sardeles pastes already eaten (hence the empty plate). Lamb kleftiko in the clay pot. It's usually baked in a parcel made of baking paper, but in Lesvos they serve it in pots for some reason.

Husband jumping into the water.

The harbour of Molyvos.

Me and the flag.

There are turtles living in many ponds across Lesvos.

This is the village/resort town we lived in. It's called Anaxos. Next time we go to Lesvos we will stay in another town, either Molyvos or Skala Erressos. Anaxos is a new village and is too touristy for my liking, but the beach there is one of the best on the island.

There is one interesting thing about Anaxos and that is that there are several restaurants, not hotels, with big swimming pools. If you have a breakfast/lunch/dinner or drink there you are free to use the pool. I have never seen that anywhere before.
For more info about the island visit http://www.lesvos.com/. Mr. Barret did a great deal of work to present the island to us, it was the biggest source of information for me!

We are going on our this years's summer holiday in 2 weeks. We are going to Cambrils in Spain. It's a small resort located on the Costa Dorada in Catalonia. Barcelona is a 1 hour drive away and I hope we will visit this amazing city at least a couple of times. So in two weeks it's paella, tapas, sangria and seafood time for us :)

Lesvos holiday

2009-06-15T01:19:00.000-07:00

I'd like to share some pics from our last year's holiday. We visited Lesvos, a Greek island located closer to Turkey than to Greece actually. It's a very beautiful place, not too spoiled by tourists yet and so still has an authentic feel to it. Lesvos is presumingly the birthplace of the poet Sappho. To tell the truth there is not much to do there, although the island is very big. So we spent our time swimming, riding a moped all over the island and eating...
We enjoyed this holiday a lot!
First, meet some locals :) They probably belong to the restaurant owner, or just live by the restaurant. The dog was amazing, when it got hot outside he dug himself a hole in the cooler soil and slept there.

This a speciality of Lesvos called sardeles pastes and it may well be my favourite food in the world. They are sardines that have been gutted and cleaned and put into salt. Apparently they are caught in the morning, salted and served in the evening or the next day. Never later than that. Sardeles pastes are very delicate and very tasty. And of course a Greek salad.

This is simply a grilled sea bream. Very fresh and well grilled...what more would you want from fish? Great!

Grilled sardines. Lesvos is famous for it's sardines and olive oil (I brought home 4 litres of olive oil). Again, very fresh and well grilled. Sardines actually cost half the price of the other fish (4 euro pro the portion you see), but are just as good although a little messy to eat.

The shrimp were not good, they were frozen. While in Greece or Cyprus carefully study the menu because they have a law that tells them to indicate food prepared from frozen ingridients. You will be amazed at how much some restaurants use frozen stuff like seafood. A restaurant located virtually by the beach and port uses shrimp imported from Vietnam. Weird IMHO. This mainly applies to "touristy places" though. Most fried calamari rings are frozen, most shrimp too. I read that there is some kind of local lobster or langoustine sometimes available in Lesvos restaurants, but haven't seen any.

Pannacotta

2009-06-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

An easy to make dessert, one of my favourites. Pannacotta means boiled cream and is basically a cream jelly, but a very smooth and delicate one.

200ml of 12% cream

300 ml of whipping cream (smetana na šlehání)

6gr of powdered gelatine (1/3 of a Dr. Oetker package)

1/2 vanilla pod

Sugar to taste

Cut open the vanilla pod and scrape out the insides, add to the cream. Heat cream and sugar in a small pot. When almost boiling add gelatine and take the skillet off the burner. Mix very well until the gelatine dissolves. Come back in a couple of minutes and mix again. If the gelatine is not dissolved try heating the mixture again, but not too much. Pour mixture into a serving bowl/bowls and let it cool it the fridge.

Pannacotta should be served with a fruity sauce like coulis. To make coulis just puree/blend any very ripe berries or fruits. If they are not ripe enough add sugar to taste.

Strawberries

2009-06-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

My mom planted some strawberries in the garden of our weekend house...

The harvest

The weekend house

2009-06-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

We have a weekend house (chata, дача) in Southern Bohemia, near the beautiful town of Pisek. We don't go there as often as I would wish to, but we did this weekend!

After we took care of the overgrown lawn we settled for a traditional Russian style dacha/weekend house/chata meal called Shashlyki. Shashlyk is basically something grilled on a scewer. It can be meat, fish, vegetables etc. The word does not only resemble a dish but is also used to describe a favourite pastime of all people living in the former Soviet republics. "Let's make some shashlyki this weekend" usually means "Let's go out of town, light a fire, eat, drink, have fun". A mangal is something like a grill or barbeque, but not quite. It's shape is fitted to grill food on scewers.

So we had a small fire in our small mangal/grill...

We threw some eggplants, tomatoes and peppers onto the mangal

The vegetables were grilled until totally charred on the outside (but well cooked and juicy on the inside), the charred skins were removed. Then the still hot vegetables were mashed up in a bowl, salt, pepper and butter were added.The result is a heavenly tasting dip/salad. The recipe has a presumingly Georgian/Armenian origin.

Then we grilled some shashlyki and some sausages and bbq wings.

Our shashlyk is pork neck marinated with salt, pepper and onions. Lamb would make a better shashlyk, but good lamb is difficult to find in Prague and it's expensive. When we want some good lamb we go to some Arabian Halal store. Many people marinate their shashlyk with wine, vinegar, lemon juice or some other acidic liquid. This is barbaric in my opinion, it destroys the meat texture and flavour. A classic shashlyk should be made of meat that has some fat on it and should not be marinated too long because we are trying not to overpower the flavour of the meat itself. Onion, salt and pepper are the classic ingredients. The only acidic ingridient I ever (but rarely) use is yoghurt or kefir.

This is what we got at the end of the process.

The start!

2009-06-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

This is my first ever blog post :)
I am a 27 year old Ukrainian girl living in Prague since childhood. I could blog in either Russian, Czech or English, but chose the latter because it's the most universal language.
I will blog mostly about food , as the name suggests. But there may be also some posts about life in Prague in general, traveling etc.
I am not a very good photographer, but I hope to improve in the future!
Some info about me - My name is Lidia. I came to the Czech Republic with my parents in 1994 and I love it here. I am married, no children yet. We have a dog that takes up a lot of our time. I love to cook and eat and I am generally interested in everything concerning food.
So...let's start :)