Mussels in white wine sauce

Lovely mussels recipe and a typical Belgian/dutch way of serving them. Good quality seafood, some vegetables, seasoning and a splash of wine....that's all it takes!!

This is a dish for 2 persons, so about 1.5kg per head. We're big mussels eaters but you can count about 1kg. per person normally!

Estimated preparing time: 30 minutes

Ingredients: 

• 3kg. of mussels
• a big glass of dry white wine, +/- 20dl
• 2 big onions, cut in rings
• 3 celery stalks, chopped roughly
• 2 carrots, chopped in thin rounds
• 1/2 bush of flat parsley, chopped up
• 2 chillis, chopped finely and deseeded
• a pinch of dried chilli powder
• salt and pepper
• 6 spring onions, chopped roughly
• handfull of cilantro, chopped finely   Keep this aside together with the spring onions

Prepare the mussels in 2 pots, so divide them in 1.5kg servings. Divide the greens and wine in 2 equal amounts.

heat up some olive oil in the pots and throw in the onions, carrots, celery, parsley and chillis.

Add the mussels, dried chilli powder and the white wine and turn up the heat. Put the lid on the pot and let this cook for 5-8 minutes, add the spring onions and cilantro and season with salt and pepper, shake well and serve!

Enjoy,

Kev

Halloween pumpkin risotto

A nice rich and creamy pumpkin risotto to be served as an appetizer or as main dish. Ideal for cold fall weekend days ;)

Ingredients:

• 600gr. of pumkin, cleaned and seedless and diced in small cubes(+/- 1cm)
• 1,3lt of chicken stock
• 300gr. or risotto rice - Arborio or carnaroli
•  about 50gr. of grated parmesan cheese and some slices for decoration
• a couple of sage leaves
• 1 challot, finely chopped
• a glass of white wine
• couple knobs of butter
• salt and black pepper
• olive oil

Make sure the chicken stock is warm.

Heat up some olive oil in a pan and fry the diced pumpkin until soft. Keep about a third apart for later and put the rest in the blender.

 Blend until you get a fine pumpkin puree, add some water if necessary. Season this puree with black pepper and salt and keep aside.

Heat up a couple of drops of olive oil in a large pan and fruit the challots.

 Add the risotto rice and stir firmly. As soon as the rice starts to get translucent you add the glass of wine and just let the alcohol cook out, this won't take long.

 Then you start to add the stock, ladle by ladle. You add one ladle and when the risotto starts to get dry you add another one. This takes about 15mins to get the rice 'al dente'. Make sure to taste from time to time, you don't want this to be overcooked and mushy but not undercooked neither. The grain should be soft but still with some bite. Now add the grated parmesan and let it melt under the rice.

 Add the pumpkin puree and diced pumkin and stir well. 

Throw in some knobs of butter, taste and season with salt and black pepper to your liking.

Heat up some olive oil in a small pan and fry the sage leaves shortly.

Take a big ladle of risotto and plate it on a dish, decorate with slices of parmesan and some sage leaves.

Enjoy,

Kev

Chocolate mascarpone cake

An easy Chocolate cake recipe, based on a creamy masacarpone and fresh cheese filling. The chocolate is flavoured with powdered ginger but you can also buy chocolate with ginger allready in it if you can find that!

Ingredients:

• 250gr. mascarpone
• 200gr. fresh cheese
• 150gr. dark chocolate
• 50gr.melted butter and some more for greasing the form
• 150gr. JulesDestrooper butter waffels (or ginger bisquits or any type of hard cookie...)
• 2 eggs
• 35gr caster sugar
• 1 tsp. powdered ginger
• Springform of 20 Ø

Preheat your oven at 190°.

Break up the waffles in pieces and put them in the blender, pulse and grind to a fine crumble.

Mix the crumble with the melted butter  and spread this in the springform. Press well with the back of a spoon, certainly on the edges. Bake this in the oven for 5 minutes. Take it out and let it cool down and turn down your oven to 170°.

Mix the mascarpone with the fresh cheese to a smooth cream. Break the eggs and put them in the cheese/mascarpone cream together with the sugar.

Melt the chocolate 'au bain marie' and add the ginger to it.

Add the melted chocolate to the mascarpone/cheese mixture and pour it in the form. 

Put in the oven for 50-60 minutes. Take it out and go around the edges of the form with a thin knife to cut the the cake loose from the side of the form. Let the cake cool completely down in the form. 

Don't worry if the cake collapses a bit, that's normal.

Enjoy,

Kev