Sole meuniere

The weekend usually brings along the farmers market in my city. Every Saturday the city center is filled with stands with fresh produce from around the Utrecht area. Beside the mushroom stand, one of my favourite buys is fresh fish. Few weeks ago I bought some beautiful Dover sole and since then I am totally hooked.  Every Sunday for the past few weeks I am preparing sole meuniere for dinner. I think this is one of the easiest and the best dishes ever. Served along with some sautéed veggies, some french fries and some garlic sauce this makes one of the most delicious meals out there.  According to Wikipedia meuniere refers to both a sauce and a method of preparation, primarily for fish. The word itself means “miller’s wife”. Thus to cook something à la meunière was to cook it by first dredging it in flour. A meunière sauce is a simple preparation — brown butter, chopped parsley, and lemon — and the name refers to its unelaborate rustic nature.

sole Meuniere

1 cup flour

6 fresh sole fillets

butter

salt

pepper

lemon juice

freshly chopped parsley

In a large skillet heat about 2 tablespoons of butter until it starts browning slightly (clarifies), this will give it a nutty flavour. Mix flour, salt and pepper and dredge the fish fillets through the mixture. Place 2 sole fillets in the hot skillet and lower slightly the heat. Cook the fillets for about 2-3 minutes and carefully turn on the other side with a spatula.  Add fresh lemon juice, parsley, salt and pepper (if needed).

Repeat the same procedure for the remaining fillets and serve immediately. 

Papoutsaki, the most delicious shoes ever

The greek flavours are coming come back to my blog. This time in the form of papoutsakia. The little fancy shoes are great either as main dish or as an appetizer. This dish came to mind when I have seen the September challenge of the  Dulce Romanie Project . unfortunately, I couldn’t participate to this contest during the previous months even though I would’ve loved to do it, the proposed ingredients were simply great. This time, the dishes had to contain one of the following ingredients: eggplant and/or pear. As I couldn’t find any pears at the market and all the greek flavours that I encountered during my holidays in Greece were still fresh in my mind, I made some papoutsakia.

Papoutsakia consists mainly of stuffed eggplants topped with bechamel sauce.

The name – little shoes come from the fact that the eggplant sliced in half and stuffed with aromas, veggies and meat resembles some pretty shoes. Ok, ok  – not really Manolo Blahnik material, but pretty damn tasty ones.

papoutsakia

serves 2

Stuffed eggplants

2 large eggplants

1 big onion

2 garlic cloves

2 chicken breasts chopped in small pieces or 250 grams ground meat

one can of tomatoes or 300 grams chopped tomatoes

olive oil

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

salt, pepper, oregano

graviera or kefalotyri cheese

Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise and scoop out most of the eggplant flesh using a spoon and a knife. Sprinkle the eggplant shells with salt and let them “sweat”for 10 minutes, Meanwhile chop the scooped-out eggplant flesh and cook them olive oil, in a pan over medium fire, until browned and wilted.

Separately, pat dry the eggplant shells and then grill them until they soften slightly without loosing their shape.

In a pan, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil and over medium high heat, cook the onion until golden brown and soft. Add the garlic, cook it for 30 seconds and then add the ground meat and continue cooking for about 5-10 minutes, or until the meat is cooked. Add the cooked eggplant flesh, season everything with salt and pepper and then add the chopped tomatoes. Add the cinnamon, oregano, sugar and balsamic vinegar. Cook for 30-40 minutes until sauce has thickened. Remove pan from heat and set meat sauce aside.

 

Bechamel sauce

30 grams butter

30 grams flour

250 ml milk

1 egg

125 grams graviera or kefalotyri  cheese

1 half teaspoon nutmeg

salt, pepper

Melt the butter in a pan, over low heat, and as soon as it starts bubbling stir in the flour,  whisking constantly until the flour gets slightly toasted. Add in the milk and continue whisking for about 8–10 minutes until the sauce starts to thicken. Remove from heat, add 125 grams of graviera or kefalotyri  cheese and the egg. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Pre-heat the oven at 170-200C. Set the eggplant shells in a baking tray, spoon the meat sauce in the shells.  Spoon bechamel sauce over the shells, sprinkle graviera or kefalotyri  cheese (gouda  and parmesan cheese in my case, since I couldn’t find any greek cheese around) and bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the top of the eggplants reaches a golden brown colour and the eggplants are tender and cooked throughout.

Mushrooms & pasta

I love the idea of easy dishes, especially in the summer when you don’t want to spend all your time in the kitchen but you would rather be outside, enjoying a glass of cava or proseco and some sun.

One of my favourite summer dishes is pasta with mushrooms. It takes less than half an hour to make this dish, it is full of flavours and very tasty as well.

pasta with mushrooms and pine nuts

serves 4

500 grams of pasta

3 garlic cloves

6 big ripped diced tomatoes or 2 cans of diced tomatoes

2 chilli peppers

600 grams mushrooms

bacon

pine nuts

parmesan cheese

salt, pepper

1/2 teaspoons sugar

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Start by making the sauce for the pasta. First, fry some chopped garlic and chilli peppers in a pan with 2-3 tablespoons olive oil, infused with thyme. Add the mushrooms into the pan and fry them for few minutes until the mushrooms are cooked throughout. Add the tomatoes and cook them for about half an hour (add water if the sauce if reducing too much). Add the sugar and the vinegar to the sauce – this will bring out flavours of the sauce and will prevent it from turning sourish). When the sauce is almost done, add some basilicum cut in thin ribbons. Meanwhile cook the pasta according to the instruction on the package. Drain the pasta and add them to the sauce. Usually, I like to cook the pasta with the sauce for few minutes to get them well mixed.

Serve the pasta with a lot of parmesan cheese and some pine nuts.