One of my preferred Italian side dishes is Peperonata. This dish is often accompanied by homemade Polpette (Italian meatballs)mmmmm. In this post I will explain you how I make the Peperonata. Of course like every recipe there are 1001 ways to do it. Again, if you feel like adding something, leaving something out… be my guest. Cooking is a feeling. I rarely follow an entire recipe, I just start with the big lines and color it myself.

 

Hope you’ll like it (FYI, I will post the polpette in one of the following posts)

 

Ingredients:  (4 people should be able to eat from this)

 

•  5 to 6 paprika’s (depending on their size) I take red and yellow ones, but if you feel more like taking the green (nooo problem)
• 1 clove of garlic (or 2 if you like it garlicky)
• 1 little to average carrot
• Some Oregano, salt , peper and red paprika powder
•  Bouillon cube (chicken or vegetable)
• Eventually some fresh basil
•    Olive oil
•  1 can of pelati tomatoes (tin can peeled tomatoes)  (if you would want to use the peperonata as sauce and let your polpette set during the night you’d better use 2  or even 3 cans)
•  1 onion (or if little, 2)
•  Half a glass of wine (regular wineglass)

 

 Get Started:

 

1.  Peel your paprika’s (I usually just use the peeler for it, but if you prefer doing it over the stove, that’s fine) and remove the seeds from the inside.
2.   Cut the paprika’s in long thin strips ( thickness by preference)
3.  Peel the carrot, garlic and onion. All cut them in little pieces (besides the garlic, as then you can remove it before serving)
4.  Take your pot and put some olive oil on the bottom. Throw in all the paprika, carrot, onion and garlic. Turn on the heat  (little bit less the max) and let everything bake until you see that the vegetables start to “stick” at the bottom of the pot.
5. You then extinguish (blussen) with the wine  and add the tomato can.
6. Stir it all, don’t throw away your can yet, put some water in it, so all the tomato that is still in there can also be used. Poor the water in the pot
7. Add the bouillon cube, pinch of salt, peper, oregano and paprika powder (and if you might have it some fresh basil.
8. Let it cook until a more firm consistence (not to liquid)
9. And there is only one thing left to do, eat it ….

 

Hi guys!! This cake is an all-time favorite ….

You can also use this recipe as base for another. Leave away the chocolate and replace it by apples and cinnamon… or maybe add some nuts, etc… let your imagination go wild!

 Ingredients:

• 180g  sugar
• 10g vanilla sugar
• 100g real farm butter
• 80g margarine (regular or soya)
• 180g self-raising flower
• 200g dark chocolate (fondant)
• 3 eggs
• Pinch of salt

Material:

• Springform (bakeware) 20cm or 7,9 inch
• Bakery paper

Get started: Time to get dough made: 10 -15 minutes

•  Melt the butter and margarine (don’t put the heat to high).
•  Brake the dark chocolate in small pieces and let it melt, in the micro wave, I always do it put it 2 times 1 ½ minutes in a microwave (750W). Why 2 times, because after the first time you stir the chocolate a little bit (after the second time, leave it in microwave until you need it).
•  You then split the eggs and put the yolk and the egg white and put them in a separate bowl.
• First you put a pinch of salt in the egg white and whip the egg white until it is nice and rigid (you when it is ready, because if you write something in it with a spoon, it will stay).
•  After that is done you take the bowl with egg yolk and add the sugar. Whip is until you get a creamy consistency.
• Add the melted butter. Stir this until you see that everything is nicely mixed .
• Pre-heat the oven (I usually put it on the convention option./ hot air) at 180°C or 356° Fahrenheit.
• Add the flower and again stir until it is a nice thick dough. You then add the whipped egg white and gently stir it… until it becomes a nice smooth/thick consistence.
• The last thing that you should now  add is the melted chocolate (make sure all pieces of chocolate are melted), stir it until your whole dough is brown.

 Take you springform and put the bakery paper on the bottom piece and close the form. Grease the form with some butter and put some flower (that you need to spread) around the whole form and it should look the picture bellow.

  

 Put the mixture in the form and  then put the form in the pre-heated oven.  You will have to leave the cake around 40-45 minutes in the oven. When you take it out, let it cool down for a while and be careful then taking it out of the form.

 

! Some tips to pimp it !: you can cut the cake in half (horizontally) and can put some chocolate mousse in-between. And/or you can put some ganache (120 gr chocolate (dark, white or milk) , 100 ml full cream  & 15 gr unsalted butter. Put it on the heating and let chocolate and butter melt. Stir and put on your cake; let it cool down) on top of the cake.

 Enjoy 😉