Coca de recapte

Hi!

Today I would like to share another typical Catalan dish, coca de recapte; it is a sort of catalan version of pizza, meaning coca (cake), de recapte ( for provision or to gather supplies).

The coca de recapte is nothing else but a bread olive oil dought with whatever you can find to put in top, most typically with escalivada and salted hearring or sausage. As the same words says, this was an easy food, that could be eaten during next days (it is as good cold than recently baked hot) and you didn´t need to refrigerate it. As well it is said that in the old days, in the small villages of rural Catalonia, the coca de recapte it was done by gathering some spare ingredients from few houses/families and going to the village bakery to cook it. So there is where the name comes.

Either the name comes from, this is a super easy meal, ideal for having many guests at home, or for a day out or picnic. As well, you can make a big batch of dough and freeze it and will stay perfect for few months.

Ingredients

• 10dl bread flour (we use flour with 11% protein)
• 3dl water
• 10g fresh yest
• 2tsp salt
• 0,75dl virgin olive oil

Preparation

Mix everything but the olive oil in a big bowl, use better slight warm water, work it with hands till it is a big dough, and then in a clean surface work it till you achieve an homogeneous dough. Keep in mind that this recipe it has low water content, so in the beginning might seem it is too dry, nevertheless, because not all flours are the same, if you can´t achieve a nice homogeneous dough, add bits of water.

Let it rest for 3h in a warm place covered with a clean cloth.

After the 3h, add the olive oil and work the dough again, let it rest for 30min.

Now the dough is ready to be cooked. You can cut the dough in four parts and, if you like it really thin, with this you will have 4 oven tray size coques (plural of coca).

If you want to freeze it, extend the dough and when it is ready for the ingredients, place it on top of a baking paper and roll it, then put it to a freezing bag and it can go straigh to freezer!

In the pictures you will see below, we cooked two coques, and froze the other two, one with spinach and tomato, and other one with onion. As I said earlier, the most typical way is with escalivada which it tastes amazing, but for me, the most delicious one is the one with onion but adding a bit of smoked pancetta.

For making the onion it is really simple, cut onions really thing and spread them around the dough, if you want add smoked pancetta, but otherwise just add salt, pepper and olive oil and 15 min at 200°C in the oven and it is ready!!

For the spinach, really simple too, in a hot pan with a bit of olive oil, saute the fresh spinach, when they start to shrink add salt and pepper and sunflower seeds if you have them. After saute the spinach for 3-5 min they will be ready so spread them in the dough and cut some tomato to put in top and 15min into oven at 200°C and it is ready too!

About the timing in the oven, it depens on the thickness of each coca, when the dough changes to slight toasted brown colour it is ready! Of course I rolled the dought really thin, and with that I did 4, but it depens on how thick you like it you will get more or less coques.

Hope you like it

Mr South 

Improvised panna cotta with homemade blueberry jam

Here it comes another super fast, easy dessert recipe. It was a bit of experiment, as to try to achieve a easy recipe that can save you from an improvised dinner or unexpected visit!

Ingredients

Serving for 4 

• 3dl double cream
• 2 tbsp quark
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1tsp gelatine powder 

Preparation

In a small sauce pan add the double cream, the quark, the maple syrup and a vanilla pod (opened in half with the seeds added to the sauce pan).

Start heating gently, mixing once in a while. You don´t want to boil it but to be warm, when is hot at touch, add the gelatine powder and mix thoroughly.

Pour into serving glasses and cool down for 30min or until firm (the smaller the serving the faster it cools)

Serve with a bit of blueberry jam; in our case it is homemade from the long summer days, we will post the recipe soon! 

Mr South

Caramelised pumpkin cake with black cardamom mousse

In the last fall, have been airing masterchef australia season 3 in a Finnish tv channel, we became huge fans of the series and bought the book. Since we got it, we didn´t try any recipe, so yesterday we tried Kate Brack pumpkin cake. We have changed few ingredients, and the mouse flavor, so we can say that we used her recipe to create something, for our taste, better. 

Ingredients

Serving for 6-8.

 Cake

• 300g butternut pumpkin (to caramelize 50g butter and 2tbsp sugar)
• 125g butter
• 1dl sugar
• 2 eggs
• 4 dl plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 50g toasted hazelnuts
• For the caramelize  (1 tbsp maple syrup, 2dl water, 1dl sugar)

 Mousse

• 0,6dl milk
• 0,6dl double cream
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon 
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 tsp black cardamom 
• 2 1/2 tsp gelatine powder
• 200g cream fraîche 
• 1 dl sugar

Preparation

 Mousse

To make the mousse, we start with adding to a small pot or sauce pan the milk, double cream, cinnamon and the black cardamom, heating gently till it almost boils to infuse the flavours. Let it rest till it cools down.

Place 4 of the egg yolks in a heatproof bowl over a pot with water (water has to boil gently, prevent to touch the bowl) and add 0,5 dl sugar. With a electric beater, whisk it for 5-8 min till thickens.

Add the gelatine powder to the infused milk and mix, move the mixture to the egg yolks and then add the cream fraîche.

With the remaining 4 egg whites, in a separate bowl, whisk them till soft peaks, adding gradually 0,5dl sugar.

Fold the egg whites to the mixture and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1h.

 Cake

Start with peeling and cutting the pumpkin to dices, once done place them in a oven tray with baking paper and paint the pumpkin with a mixture of 50g of melted butter and 2 tbsp of sugar. Place it into a 180°C oven for 30min. After that let it cool down a bit and smash it till smooth.

In a bowl, add 125g of butter and 1dl sugar and mix it if an electric beater. Once homogeneous, add 2 eggs, one at a time without stopping the electric beater. Then add the pumpkin puree and once again without stopping mixing add the flour, the baking powder and the hazelnuts (previously chopped).

In a cake tray, cover with baking paper, and add the dought and flatten. Place into oven for 30 min at 180°C.

When it is almost ready, add 2dl water and 1 dl sugar in a saucepan and bring it to boil as to prepare a syrup. When the liquid thickens, add 1tbps of maple syrup.

Once the cake is ready, paint the top with the syrup and let it cool down.

Next step is to cut, serve and enjoy!

Conclusions we have get from this recipe; it is surprisingly good and not so complicated. The black cardamom mousse is something else! but if you don´t like it just change the cardamom with cinnamon or orange zest.

In the original masterchef, Kate´s cake was too dense, with the recipe we used it is fluffy, so don´t know if for the book they already changed the recipe.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xk69oc_masterchef-aus-3-episode-76-part-2_shortfilms&start=984

Hope you like it as much as we did!
Mr South & Ms North

Butternut pumpkin cream

Hei guys! sorry for the long silence! During this christmas we have been in Spain, eating a lot, so we came back with few extra kilos!

So thought we could make a post of a light vegetable cream for those days after heavy xmas meals.

Ingredients

• Half butternut pumpkin
• 1 large leek
• 1 tbsp philadelphia cream cheese
• 1 tbsp cashew nuts
• olive oil, salt, pepper

Preparation

Easy preparation, clean and chop a large leek and saute in a casserole with a bit of oil. Meanwhile clean half a butternut pumpkin and chop in dices, when the leek is changing color, add the pumpkin. Saute it for few minutes and cover with water.

After 15 min, when the pumpkin gets soft, add the philadelphia and the cashew nuts and blend together.

For serving you can add a bit of salt flakes and sunflower seeds.

Hope you like it!
Mr South