Food

Sierra Leone Potato Leaves Plasa

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Today I tried my hand at Sierra Leone potato leaves seafood plasa for the first time. One of the companies I’m involved with in my day job is a money remittance firm with a focus on Sierra Leone, hence the connection. Plasa means stew or soup, by the way, and refers to a dish with a lot of rice on which some seafood and/or meat, vegetables and sauce are added. It is perhaps the most typical Sierra Leonean dish. Another very common variety of plasa is made with cassava leaves instead of sweet potato leaves. I believe this recipe to be reasonably traditional in terms of the preparation process. I watched dozens of youtube videos and read plenty of cooking blog posts. It is also traditional in that it uses a ton of Maggi, just like most people in Sierra Leone seem to. On the other hand I use readily-available […]

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Food

Garfield would kill for this Lasagna Recipe

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This recipe is for 4 persons. It involves 20 minutes of work and 40 minutes of baking, 60 minutes from start to finish. It requires only very basic skills, so everyone can do it. In Germany, where I grew up, most people make lasagna at home on a very regular basis. As a matter of fact, most German cooking books I’ve seen contain one or more lasagna recipes, just like they contain recipes for Viennese schnitzel, Hungarian goulash, or three dozen French dishes. While all Germans are aware of the foreign origin of these dishes, they consider them to be German dishes nonetheless. Perhaps a bit like us here in the UK (I’m a dual British-German citizen), when we consider chicken curry, Beef Wellington, or Mulligatawny soup to be British dishes.   Photos for illustrative purposes only. Ratios and amounts of ingredients are different from recipe. The following recipe is […]

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Food

Bacalhau a Bras – A Recipe for Portugal’s Premium Comfort Food

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When I spent a whole week in Portugal five years ago, I fell in love with Portuguese cuisine. Bacalhau or salt cod in all its variations is one of the staple foods of local cuisine, much more so than in Spain or, say, Venice, where it also enjoys huge popularity. Bacalhau a Bras is said to be named after Senhor Bras or Braz, the owner of a tavern in Lisbon’s Bairro Alto district. He is said to have come up with the recipe many moons ago. It is also sometimes called Bacalhau Dourado, or “golden bacalhau.” The dish is extremely simple, usually just containing flakes of salt cod, deep fried match-shaped potato crisps, onions, and eggs, garnished with black olives and parsley. While egg dishes might sound to most ears like breakfast dishes, Bacalhau a Bras can be enjoyed as breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight meal after a night out, or […]

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Food

Razor Clams – a basic Recipe for a Starter (45mins)

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Razor clams have been one of my absolute favourite types of seafood ever since I properly tried them for the first time as a grown-up at La Vache et Le Cuisinier in Paris five years ago. Their texture and taste remind me a bit of baby octopus, but they are much more delicate in my view. Usually I would, of course, buy seafood at the market. Now, with lockdown and all, I just went and bought a very nice-looking pack of 15 frozen Irish ones from the local Portuguese delicatessen. I also bought some baguette from our Italian-Indian corner store. They have the best French bread in our neighbourhood, as it happens. I defrosted the clams in the fridge over a 24h period.   We already had all the other ingredients in our fridge and storage cupboard: INGREDIENTS (Starter for 2 to 3 persons, in addition to 12 to 20 […]

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Food

Our Killer Californian Clam Chowder Cheat Sheet

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As most of my recipes (and my wife, who likes Jamie-Oliveresque, precise instructions, keeps reminding me), the following is not strictly speaking a proper recipe, more like a cheat sheet that mentions main ingredients that have worked well in the past, both mandatory and optional, and basic cooking procedure. I’ve been to San Francisco in March 2003 on a business trip. This is when I had my first clam chowder experience at Fisherman’s Wharf (I hadn’t even had anything similar before, like a thick, white, creamy, European-style clam or mussel soup or something) and I immediately fell in love and have been experimenting with various recipes ever since (not claiming to be an expert, though, far from it, and definitely not a purist, so: purists, please do not be offended by the liberties I’m taking). Ingredients (4 persons) 100g to 300g jar of high-quality, ideally whole/un-chopped, large canned clams (weight […]

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