Your Dreams Coming True In The Kitchen

T he rooster, the cock, cockerel, or the Gallus gallus, has a tough meat.  It takes a long time to   braise  over the stove with the cover on at low heat.  So you have to prepare it with special care. I would like to share this recipe with you today because it is the weekend. This is a traditional French dish usually prepared in the countryside for special occasions.  Now however, Coq au Vin is served in the best of restaurants in the city. For a Coq Au Vin that respects itself you will need:

Ah! So you had some leftover chopped liver (my recipe dated March 13th) and you don't feel like eating it the next day or the day after. So you can deep freeze it for a maximum of one week. The day you feel like eating it, you could do the following: Step 1:  Thaw. Step 2:  Depending on the quantity leftover, boil an equivaltent quantity of butterflies (farfalle) or any other pasta you haven't eaten for a long time. Step 3:  Have 500 ml of Fresh Cream on hand (full cream 35% fat; none of that "light" stuff). Step 4:  Put the liver in a wide and deep pan, heat. Add the pasta mix well, add the cream to make a nice, rich, liquid sauce. Step 5:  Top with freshly ground pepper,  freshly grated parmezan cheese,  and sprinkle some finely chopped parsley for decoration. Serve quickly because the pasta loves cream as it will suck it up real quick and you may end up with dry pasta. A t...

H appy St. Patrick's Day Everybody ! I had Orata Al Cartoccio in Milan, Italy once and fell in love with it. So I will share it with you today. The Orata or  Sea Bream  is one of the most delicious fish...

G ood ol' " English School" of Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt fed us many a time this shepherd's pie because it is cheap, filling, and has lots of vitamins from the meat and the potatoes. I was a "day boy"meaning I had lunch at school but returned home for the night. When I made "prefect" I ate with the professors at "Head Table" . I remember I belonged to the Amazon House. Wow good old days. British habits. Shepherd's pie is made with meat and potatoes not beside each other but one on top of the other, potatoes on top, and baked till the potatoes brown on the surface. Easier even if it is made with left over mashed potatoes, and left over ground meat sauce (omitting the juices) Life has become so fast nowadays that we sometimes do not feel like cooking or do not have the time to prepare complicated stuff so we can use leftovers to make up new dishes. However, if you feel like making a decent shepherd's pi...

I love mashed potatoes. Some call this very important side dish, pure, others call it cement because as you serve yourself from the bowl, you have to literally shake it off the serving spoon onto your plate just like with cement when laying bricks. And sometimes when you are clumsy, as I am, it may land on your neighbor's head or lap! Mashed potatoes are not just potatoes which are mashed. They should be treated with love and care in order to produce a delicious velvet texture that has a few lumps inside to show that they are made from fresh potatoes. I will share with you the general way to make this special delicious texture. You will need: Potatoes, milk or fresh cream, butter, salt, white pepper, and nutmeg. Method: -  Peel the potatoes and wash them well -  Cut and boil them till they practically fall apart. -  Drain,  return to the pot. -  Use the special utensil as shown...

S pringtime is the time for baby lamb in Greece.

T he infamous saying "What am I....chopped liver?" meaning "doesn't anybody like me", is an old saying before modern gastronomy came into being...before science discovered that calf's liver is an iron rich ingredient and generally very good for the health. Wikipedia is talking about liver and bacon. I suppose the bacon is included to improve the taste. The other thing going for calf's liver is that it is inexpensive and very affordable specially nowadays. Fresh Calf's liver is one of the healthiest foods you can eat especially when you eat it with spinach which is also rich in iron....remember Popeye the sailor?? Today I would like to share with you a way I can eat liver because it has a rather strong taste. I will be frank with you, I do not like liver, and never liked it specially when my mother used to force me to eat it because it would make me big and strong....Yes, it made me BIG! I marinate it for about 2 hours in lots of oregano, oil, sa...