Plum Dumplings (Silvas Gomboc)

Plum Dumplings are a real treat, its a potato dough surrounding a pitted plum juicy with sugar and cinnamon, and buttered bread crumbs. It's an absolute European delicateness.

Serving ; 6 person

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients;
18 Italian plums, washed, split, pit removed
10 medium sized Potatoes
2 egg beaten
4 cups of flour
1 tsp. salt
Buttered bread crumbs
Sugar
Cinnamon

Cooking Method;
Peel potatoes and cook in salted water till soft.
Drain and peel.
Mash potatoes and let it cool, add  flour and salt on a kneading surface.
Make a well and add egg and knead gently till all is blended.
On a clean floured surface, roll dough out to a 3"diagonal roll
Cut dough into 3/4"-1" slice and put a plum into center of each slice.

Place 1/2 tsp. sugar and a sprinkle of cinnamon in the hole of the plum.
Fold edgers of the dough to the middle and roll the dumpling in your hands till round.
Cook a few dumplings at a time in salted water for about 10 minutes.
Remove with a slotted spoon.
Place in a pan in which bread crumbs have been toasted in oil (one cup crumbs to 1/4 cup oil or butter)
Keep warm.
When all the dumplings have been cooked and are in the pan, gently spoon the bread crumbs, butter, sugar and cinnamon mix over all.

Serve warm with bread crumb topping and a more suggar with cinnamon mix or sugar icing if desired.

Garlic Salmon baked

Garlic Salmon
This salmon filet recipe is steamed in foil and cooked  in the oven . It's seasoned with minced garlic, spices for salmon , lemon juice, fresh ground pepper and garlic.
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds salmon fillet
salt and pepper to taste 3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp of spices for salmon
 lemon juice from one lemon
2 tsp olive oil

Directions Combine lemon juice, spices, salt, pepper, olive oil and garlic. Brush mixture onto fish and cover with plastic leave in the fridge for at least 3 hours to marinate.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Spray two large pieces of aluminum foil with cooking spray.
Place salmon fillet on top of one piece of foil. Cover salmon with second piece of foil and pinch together foil to tightly seal. Place on a baking sheet or in a large baking dish.
Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until salmon flakes easily.

Serve with rice and your choice of steamed vegetable.

Fettuccini Carbonara

I was looking for so long to find best Italian Carbonara recipe, from all read and tried by combining other version I came up with one that came almost up to perfection. Of course this recipe is best with home made pasta and best ingredients, you can always replace panceta with bacon and fettuccini with Spagetti, you can add extra cheese, but this so far is the best you will ever have.

Prep Time: 10 Minutes
Cook Time: 25 Minutes
Ready In: 35 Minutes
Servings: 6

INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 shallots, diced
/21 large onion, chopped
1 pound panceta , cut into small pcs
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 (16 ounce) package fettuccini pasta
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup shredded Pecorino Parmesiano cheese
1/4 cup shredded Parmesano Reggiano cheese
1/4 cup dry white wine(optional)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:
1. in a large skillet, cook chopped pancetta until slightly crisp; remove and drain onto paper towels. Reserve 2 tablespoons of bacon fat; add remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, and heat in reused large skillet. Add chopped onion, and cook over medium heat until onion is translucent. Add minced garlic, and cook 1 minute more. Add wine if desired; cook one more minute.
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente. Drain pasta, then return it to the pot.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together egg yolks, cream, and shredded Parmesan. Pour the bacon mixture over the pasta, then stir in the cream mixture. Season with salt and pepper.
4.Serve immediately with chopped parsley sprinkled on top, and extra Parmesan cheese at table.

Cheese cake (Túrós pite)

This cheese cake is one of our favorite cake, its easy to make and it will stay soft for couple of days.

Dough:

200gm shortening (Crisco) or butter/ margarine
125g sugar
2 spoon sour cream
350gm flour
4 egg yolks
1 baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp lemon extract (optional)


Filling:
500 gm cottage cheese

300 gm Philadelphia cream cheese

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 packets vanilla sugar
1 lemon peel
2 tbsp. lemon juice option

1/2 cup of semolina
Make Filling :
In a blender, combine cottage cheese, Philadelphia cream cheese, eggs, lemon peel and juice, vanilla, sugar and salt. Blend until smooth. Pour into first layer of prepared crust.

Make the dough:
Cream shortening and sugar thoroughly, then add beaten egg yolks. Mix well. Sift flour and salt with baking powder. Alternate adding flour and sour cream to the mixture. Mix well, The dough will be quite crumbly and hard to put together, don't mix it more than is necessary. Form into a big ball cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for an hour.

Heat oven to medium-high (190°C, 375°F).

Cake assembly;

Take half of the dough and layer with a spoon and level it, to fit the bottom of an 8 inch square baking dish which you have buttered. The mixture is crumbly and difficult to roll it if you chose another method to assembly the cake. Spread the semolina on the first dough layer and add the cheese filling and distribute it evenly over the dough. On top of the cheese filling spread  add the other half of the dough by grating it on top of the filling and level it slightly with a spoon, or try to roll the dough in a thin layer and put on top of the filling.



Bake it for 35-45min, remove from heat, add icing sugar on top, let it cool and cut in square.

Roast Pork Loin with Mustard sauce

Roast Pork Loin with Mustard sauce

This is a very tasty roast pork recipe the meat is very juicy and the mustard sauce is a perfect match for the dish.

Ingredients;

1kg boneless pork loin

3-4 garlic cloves sliced thin

Salt and pepper as desire

thyme/savory as per taste

½ cup of lard or 4 spoon of oil

1 cup of white wine

1 cup of chicken broth or water

Mixed vegetable – optional for roasting along the pork loin

Mustard sauce ;

1 medium onion

50ml white wine

200gm sour cream

Salt and peper

1 cup of the pork roast broth

2 tbsp mustard or per taste

1 tabelspoon of flour

½ tbs of delicat is optional

Preparation of the pork roast;

Four hours before cooking remove the roast from the refrigerator to bring to room temperature.

Wash the meat and dry with paper towels, sprinkle kosher salt and black pepper leave it to stay for 1 hour.

Next, make holes with a sharp knife across the entire loin, then insert the thin slices of garlic, sprinkle the thyme all over the loin and let it stand covered in a bag for 3 hours.

Heat oven to 300 degrees, adjust the oven rack to middle position.

Meanwhile heat a skillet over medium high heat with the lard or oil, When skillet is smoking about 4-5 minutes add the roast, fat side up if a single loin. Brown the roast on all sides about 2 minutes per side, fat side last, lower temperature if the roast is burning.

Optional at this stage is to have some cut vegetables cooking for 3-4 min at medium heat in the same oil from the skillet and transferring to roasting pan at the bottom of the pork loin.

Transfer roast to roasting pan on a rack set inside the pan, add the broth and the wine. Cook until the internal temperature reaches 145-150 degrees using an instant read thermometer inserted into the center of the roast. Approximately 25-30 minutes per pound should register about 145-150 degrees.

Remove roast from the oven, transfer to a cutting board and tent loosely with foil 15-20 minutes. The internal temperature will rise about 5-10 degrees while resting to a temperature of 155-160. For maximum tenderness do not cook past this temperature.

Cut the twine off the roast, slice thinly across the grain and serve.

Below is a cooking chart for pork roast. Remember you should always use an instant-read thermometer to check the doneness of a roast. The internal temperature will rise about 5-10 degrees during resting time, remove the roast 5-10 degrees before desired doneness.

Doneness            Description        Meat Thermometer Reading

Medium               Pink throughout               145-150 degrees

Medium-Well    Slightly pink in center     150-160 degrees

Well-Done          Beige-pink throughout  160-170 degrees

It is not recommended recipes for pork loin be cooked less than medium doneness.

Preparation for the Mustard sauce

In a sauce pan using the oil from the roasting pan, fry an onion until soft, add the flour mixing continuously, add the broth, wine, sour cream, mustard, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil on a small heat, simmer for 3 min, remove from heat.

Diplomat cake with Yogurt

This is a delicious Romanian dessert called Diplomat, it’s a refreshing light version of the original, as the filling is with yogurt and whipping cream, no eggs, no cake pound.

This cake is great idea to have for parties, hot summer days or new year eve, but not only.


With a little creativity you can replace the lady fingers with the cake pound, you can substitute the can fruit with real fruits or other fruit cans whatever you like.

Prepration Time: 30-45min
Servings: 8

Ingredients;
10 lady fingers for a 9" pan
Filling:

400 g yogurt ( greek is best and optional with vanilla flavor)
500 ml Whipping Cream liquid
1 pouch 10gr. stabilizer for whipping cream Dr. Oetker
3 pouches Gelatine “Knox”
1 small can peaches small bits
1 small can pineapple small bits
250 gm sugar if use vanilla yoghurt or 300gm sugar if use natural yogurt
Decorations:1 large orange, optional kiwi, grapes, banana and Whipping cream

Drain the pineapple and the peach fruits from cans, keep 7/8 of the total juice for the gelatin mixture, and 1/8 for the lady fingers, cut the fruits in small pieces and let it drain while you prepare the pastry cream.

In a bowl, mix the 3 gelatin with ½ cup of cold pineapple juice, then add ½ cup of hot peach juice and stir constantly until completely dissolved.

In a bowl prepare the filling, beat the yoghurt with sugar about 3 minutes, in a separate glass bowl beat the whipping cream with the stabilizer until stiff, then fold in the yoghurt mixture slowly. Gradually, slowly poor the gelatin mixture an continue to fold the mixture smoothly. Add the drained fruits and fold into the cream slowly.

Cut the orange and kiwi in thin slices for decorating the cake.

Press a sheet of plastic wrap directly onto a round cake pan and arrange slices of orange and kiwi at the bottom and walls of the pan on the plastic wrap. Pour the cream in the cake pan over the fruit slices. Put each lady finger in the fruit juice with one side to get moist and place with the dry side on top of the cream, arrange the lady fingers to cover the cream surface. Cover the cake pan and refrigerate for about 5 hours or overnight, until it is thoroughly chilled.
After the cake is completely chilled remove from the fridge and turn upside down the cake pan, remove slowly the plastic wrap, and you can ornate with more whipping cream if you like but it is not necessary.

Tripe Soup (Pacalleves)

Tripe Soup (Pacalleves /Ciorba de Burta)

Recipe Type: SoupAuthor: JoPrep time: 30 mins Cook time: 3 hours Total time: 3 hours 30 mins Serves: 8

Ingredients

2-3 lbs beef tripe

10 cups water

4-5 piece beef bones for soup

2 carrots

6 cloves garlic minced

1 celery root

1 large onion

1 cups sour cream

1 cup of milk

100 ml vinegar or to taste

2 egg yolks

salt and pepper to taste

parsley

Instructions

You can find tripe and beef bone pretty much in any grocery store. First thing you have to do is wash the tripe really well, when it’s clean it should be white.The purpose of the beef bone and all the vegetables, excluding the garlic, is to flavor the soup, so we will take them all out later.

In a big pot put the tripe and water to boil, add salt and boil untill tender, drain and cut small slices about 1 cm wide by 2 cm long.

In another big pot put the beef bones to boil, when the meat is almost tender add the uncut carrots, celery root, onion and boil until the vegetables are tender. After vegetables are done remove them along with the bones and strain the soup, add the cut small slices of boiled tripe in the beef bone soup.

In a small bowl mix the sour cream and the eggs yolk together with the garlic minced, mix really well and add cold milk and 1 cup of the broth than add all to the soup. Add the vinegar to the soup as well, add salt and pepper and parsley and let it come to a boil again. Make sure you taste it and if you require more vinegar feel free to add more.

Garnish with parsley and serve hot.