After the New Year’s bustle was over, we agreed that we were not going to make anything sweet until weekend. Tired of cooking, sated with our multi-layer cake, Austrian chocolate maroons and sweet sparkling wine, I spent the New Year’s morning fishing in the large can for lovely pickled baby cucumbers, reading and watching the lights twinkle on our Christmas tree.
This time-saving recipe has lived a long life in our family. I call it time-saving because we use store-bought tartlet shells. They are made of savoury pastry with a hint of Cheddar-like cheese and paprika. Of course you can make your own tartlet shells by your favourite recipe, or use our pastry for Cheese&Rosemary Halfmoons. Then fill your tartlets with the mix of sweet carrots, mild-flavoured cheese, and tangy garlic. Decorate with black olive rings, fresh herbs, or slices of pickles.
One more thing before we go to the recipe itself: we have launched a Slovak version of our blog! Please meet Stano (see picture on index page), who joined our “editor team” a few months ago and translated all of the posts from my questionable English to correct Slovak.
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These pleasantly salty and buttery Cheese&Rosemary Halfmoons are perfect to serve with root vegetable soup. They are made with a semi-soft to firm sort of cheese with a mild flavour – something like Havarti, for example. We used a sort which is called Russian cheese here. And the fresh rosemary that I bought comes from Israel. This rosemary grew on a sunlit land and made such a long way to be eaten here, in this small Northern country! Poor herb. I cherish the hope of planting my own tiny herb garden next year, although I’m not sure the delicate herbs would stand the Latvian weather. There’s a joke about Latvian weather which explains the difference between winter and summer: you wear your coat fastened in winter and unfastened in summer. That’s true. Not that it’s so freezing cold in winter - but it’s almost equally mm…fresh outside all year round. I’m very picky about choosing a coat for myself because I know I’ll be wearing it October to April. And April to June I’ll be wearing a jacket :) Then I’d be off to a warmer corner of the world - I hear, however, that some people go swimming here as well, in mid-July, when the temperature of water in the sea reaches whole 18C. Haha!
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As soon as I saw Baby Portabella & Mozzarella on Mini Toasts at Sunny-side Up Recipes, I knew I would be making these. The recipe seemed perfect: golden-brown mini toasts topped with melting mozzarella and mushrooms sautéed in rose wine, seasoned with Italian herbs… just perfect! I really wanted to share this treat with somebody, so when Grandmother said she was going to visit us, I know what we’d offer her as an appetizer ;-)
Of course I had to alter Sunny’s ingredient list a little bit – for example, I couldn’t find any Portabella mushrooms, so I took plain champignons. The bread slices I used were bigger in size (I wish they sold such mini-toasts here!), and I removed the crust as it seemed to be too coarse for such a delicate dish. But the bread was really flavourful and I even ate almost all of the crusts while cooking, hehe. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been going to post this recipe for ages but never had any decent photos! Today I finally wasn’t in a hurry (you know, Vyprážaný syr is a very quick dish to make, so it’s good to make when you’re short on time) so I made some shots for our blog!
Vyprážaný syr is probably my favourite recipe from Slovakia. I had eaten it a few times in my hometown before, but it was Slovakia where I first tried it as a main course – accompanied by pommes frites and vegetables. I have to say there is quite a limited choice of main courses for vegetarians in Slovak restaurants, so I always opted for fried cheese – and never regretted that, as it was equally delicious in all towns I visited. This summer I learned how to make it at home, and even though I haven’t yet mastered the technique of frying cheese so that it never leaks out of the crust (tips and suggestions are welcome!), I have made some useful notices about the process in general. The first one is to use a harder sort of cheese with few holes – Gouda cheese is pretty perfect in this respect. Another thing I consider crucial is the breadcrumbs. Do not use any store-bought breadcrumbs; make your own for an extra-crunchy, extra-flaky crust. The smell of fried home-made breadcrumbs mixed with eggs is so cosy and warming!
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There’re many ways to make this traditional Georgian dish. We make Khachapuris of filo pastry with cheese filling inside – we find this the best way to preserve the softness and moistness of cheese and curd. Khachapuris can also be made in the form of small open boat-shaped pies, or filled and folded like envelopes, or even topped with a raw egg.
So, this recipe is more of a “Fantasy on a theme of Khachapuri”. We adapted it from a range of different (and quite controversial) recipes, but the essential ingredients remain: salty cheese, curd, and egg.
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