Restaurant Day Poznań

On Sunday (February 16) two of my friends are cooking for Restaurant Day Poznań at the Judo Academy on Głogowska street starting 2pm. They have chosen my barley soup as part of the menu so I'm delighted with that. So I hope to see you there if you are in Poznań on Sunday afternoon!

For more information:
https://www.facebook.com/events/583533088400489/585225744897890/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pyszki-z-widelca-i-%C5%82y%C5%BCki/212126935647707

Laverbread and dillisk

Ireland V Wales (source: theguardian.com)

It's Ireland v Wales in this year's Six Nations rugby tournament today. With that in mind I've decided to try my hand at a Welsh national dish as well as throwing in an Irish delicacy to balance the books. The Welsh dish I'm talking about is laverbread. Technically speaking it is not a bread at all as its main ingredients are laver (nori) and oatmeal. The Welsh would include it in a Welsh breakfast, with seafood or as a spread on bread or toast.

Source: goweruk.com

Laverbread spread

 I wanted to keep in line with Welsh tradition so I used streaky bacon in my recipe. For a healthy alternative vegetarian dish click on the following link: http://www.ehow.com/how_2316069_make-laver-bread.html

Laverbread cakes
Ingredients:
50g dried laver (nori)
Oatmeal - I used up about 200g, recipes on the net suggest using 25% oatmeal to laver. I used more than that to make it less sticky.
2 crushed cloves of garlic
1 pack of streaky bacon
Pepper

Laverbread mix

Roast Laverbread

I broke up the dried nori sheets into pieces and boiled them in water until they had a texture similar to mushy spinach. I cut up the streaky bacon into small bits and fried it. I then mixed all of the ingredients listed above in a bowl and rolled the laverbread into small cake shapes before frying the first batch in the bacon fat. The rest of the laverbread cakes were oven roasted. I prefer the oven roast ones though the tradition is to fry them.

Roast dillisk crisps
This is very simple to make. Rub some olive oil lightly into dillisk which has been chopped into small pieces. Sprinkle with linseed and sesame seed and roast in high temperature for a few minutes.

Fried dillisk crisps
This is also a simple and quick dish. Fry the dillisk in sesame oil in a pan for a few minutes until it turns brown. If you over fry it, it will turn black so avoid that. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and pepper if you wish.

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Sweet Kelp Brown Bread

A loaf of brown bread with sweet kelp seaweed

I've just finished baking my first loaf of seaweed bread. I based it on a recipe I found here and added some sweet kelp.

Ingredients used:

400g of wholemeal flour
100g of plain white flour
7g packet of dried yeast
1 tbsp of soft butter
8g of dried sweet kelp
A mix of linseed, sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds
About 300ml of lukewarm water

I followed the instructions by mixing together the flour, yeast, butter, seeds and seaweed in a large bowl before adding most of the water. I then kneaded the dough for about 8 minutes, adding a little water to pick up the dry dough from the surface of the bowl. I set it aside covered for an hour for the yeast to do its job. I also kneaded it briefly at this stage to remove any large air bubbles and again left it for another hour. I added some more seeds to the top before baking in the oven at 230C for about half an hour.

The first slice

A few minutes later

Homemade seaweed sausages

Fried seaweed pork sausages

Fried seaweed veggie sausages

I have always wanted to try to make homemade sausages. The biggest problem in getting it right was the need for sausage casing. I've never liked sausage casing and would typically remove the casing before frying or grilling the sausages. Carrageen Moss has fixed that problem. Due to its natural gelling properties I concluded that casing wouldn't be necessary and so it has transpired. I also added generous amounts of kelp and wakame for a real seaweed flavour. I decided to prepare two batches of sausages. The first batch being for traditional meat eaters followed by a separate seaweed veggie batch.

Seaweed Pork Sausages Ingredients:

Half kilo of pork shoulder and half kilo of pork loin (the original recipe I was following calls for equal amounts of shoulder and back but the only available back bacon in Polish shops was smoked so I took a risk on the leaner loin but it worked out just as well).

10g dried carrageen moss

10g mix of wakame and kelp

Spices: savory, sage, allspice, white pepper, Salt
Breadcrumbs (more or less 10% by weight)

Ingredients

Mincing the pork

Soak the wakame and kelp and leave to rehydrate.Boil the carrageen in a pot containing about a liter of water until half of the water has evaporated off. Strain out the remaining liquid. There will be enough for both batches of sausages. Mince the meat. Put the meat through the mincer a second time if you prefer finer mince. 
Remove the kelp and wakame from the water and put it through a food processor to cut it up into small pieces. Add about half of the seaweed and spices to the meat. Add some salt and about half of the carrageen liquid.
Mix in the breadcrumbs until you have a good consistency. Finally roll the meat into sausages. A fine layer of breadcrumbs over the rolling surface will keep the meat from sticking to it. The sausages are ready for frying, baking or grilling. If kept refrigerated these sausages will stay fresh for a few days.

Rolled seaweed pork sausages

Seaweed veggie suasage ingredients (click here for the original recipe):

350g peeled carrots
1 small onion
175g cheddar (I used both kinds finely chopped using a food processor)
Wakame and kelp finely chopped (also in the food processor)
220g breadcrumbs
Carrageen (the original recipe used a large egg instead)
2tbsp finely chopped parsley
2tbsp finely chopped sage
Pepper
Flour for dusting

Rolled seaweed veggie sausages

The preparation of the seaweed veggie sausages is not dissimilar to the method described above for the seaweed pork sausages. Salt is not really needed because of the cheddar. I also added savory and allspice in addition to the parsley and sage. I found that the flour was very much needed in rolling the sausages.

Asimov przewidział, że będziemy jeść wodorosty

Z okazji Wystawy Światowej w Nowym Jorku w 1964 r, Isaac Asimov, amerykański pisarz science-fiction i profesor biochemii, opublikował w New York Timesie artykuł, w którym zawarł swoje przewidywania na temat tego, jak będzie wyglądać życie na Ziemi za 50 lat - czyli w roku 2014, który właśnie się zaczął. Wiele z jego proroctw się spełniło, jak m.in. urządzenia bezprzewodowe, komunikatory audiowizualne, automatyzacja przemysłu.
Asimov przewidywał również problemy z wyżywieniem rosnącej populacji i przepowiadał wykorzystanie alternatywnych źródeł żywności, w tym wodorostów. Pisał o tym, że dostępna będzie przetworzona żywność z drożdży i alg - zapowiadał, że na Wystawie Światowej w roku 2014 otwarty będzie Bar Algowy, w którym podawać będą niby-indyka i pseudosteki. Przewidział również opór konsumentów przed takimi nowinkami ;)

Więcej na temat proroctw Asimova można przeczytać w tym artykule na onet.pl