Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Matzo ball soup

Every now and then I've seen this soup on food blogs and wondered what it's like. Since I didn't know where to get some matzo meal, I couldn't make it until now.
When I went to the Passover celebration, they were selling matzo boxes and for the first time (for me anyway), packs of matzo meal. I had to get my hands on that!

The pack of crushed matzo sat in my cupboard for almost a month, until I finally decided to give it a go. The recipe itself is fairly simple, and requires few ingredients.

Matzo balls
1 egg
30ml water
20ml oil
1/4 tsp salt
dash of pepper
60ml matzo meal

Whisk the egg with oil and water, add salt and pepper and mix in the matzo meal. Cover with plastic wrap and let it stand in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight.

Matzo ball soup
750ml stock (vegetable or chicken or whatever strikes your fancy)
2 medium carrots, sliced
some sweet potato (I have no idea how much I used, perhaps 60g?), cut into sticks
Fresh dill, if you wish

Bring the stock to boil. With wet hands, roll little balls (2-3cm diameter) out of the matzo ball dough and drop them into the boiling stock. Boil for about 8 minutes, then add the carrots. After 4 more minutes, add the sweet potatoes and let everything boil for another 8-10 minutes. Garnish with dill. Enjoy.
Serves two.


To me, it tasted similar to meatball soup, something I haven't eaten since I became a vegetarian and what used to be one of my favourites. Definitely a keeper.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Sweet potato soup

I've had this kind of soup once before, in France. All I remember about it is that it tasted absolutely amazing, so I've been waiting for the chance to make it myself.

Yesterday, while in a shop, I stumbled upon a crate of these magical vegetables and bought one of them. In Estonia, sweet potatoes are worth their weight in gold. Figuratively. They're actually a little cheaper than that. I almost felt like I should dress up for the cooking.


At first, my mind was blown - every time I'm dealing with a new kind of vegetable, I look it up on Wikipedia. I like to learn about the cultural background and different ways of preparation. This time, it was different. I thought they were from the same genus as normal potatoes, but they're not. Silly botanist. They're from the genus Convolvulaceae, which means they're closer to bindweed. How strange, I never would have guessed something edible came from that genus. I even forgot to look up the culture bit.

The recipe I found was with cauliflower, but since I didn't have any, I made it with carrots instead. Feel free to try it out the original way.

Sweet potato soup
3 tbsp oil
1 small onion chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 level tsp turmeric powder
2 medium carrots, cut into rough chunks
1/2 sweet potato (350g), cut into rought chunks. Yes, they're humongous.
1l veggie stock, or chicken stock if you wish
50ml milk, or coconut milk
pepper, cayenne pepper


In a large pot, heat the oil and fry the onions and garlic until soft, then mix in the turmeric. Add chopped carrots and potatoes and cook until they're a bit softer too. Pour the stock on top of the vegetables and cook until they're soft. Puree with a blender, then bring it to boil again and stir in the milk. Adjust seasonings and enjoy.
Makes 4 servings.

Personally, I think it came out really nice, but I think it will be better with cauliflower. I still have half a potato left, so I'll try that next. Coming soon on this blog... or something.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Chocolate chip cookies

Who doesn't like cookies? And wholewheat flour makes them *sound* healthy, right?

160g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 egg
160g brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
150g flour
150g wholewheat flour
100g dark chocolate, chopped
100g white chocolate, chopped

Preheat your oven to 170C. Whisk together butter, egg and vanilla sugar. Add sugar. Add all other ingredients except the chocolate chips and mix well. If you want, you can add 2tbsp cocoa powder to make them even more chocolaty. Finally, add the chopped chocolate. Roll into balls (~3-4cm diameter) and slightly flatten them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Make sure they are spaced well apart, about 4 cm, because the cookies will expand.
Bake for about 13 minutes, or a little longer if you want them extra crispy.

Renew your gym membership.
Enjoy.