My mum's barley soup

The taste of my childhood... simple soup that will warm you up on cold winter days. Its secret lies in the delicious vegetable stock and coarsely-ground barley groats. The soup is at its best when it's cooked by my mum of course :)

We start cooking barley soup with the preparation of vegetable stock:

2l water
1 onion, peeled
3 carrots, whole or chopped
1 parsnip
1/2 leek
1/2 root celery
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 grais allspice
around 15 grains black pepper
1 bay leaf


In a big stockpot bring to boil all the ingredients, then lower the heat and cook under the cover for about 20 - 25 minut until carrots and celery are soft. Then take out the vegetables and you'll have ready clean vegetable stock which can be a basis for many delicious soups.

Barley Soup "Krupnik" 

vegetable stock prepared according to the recipe above, BUT:
Add 2 - 3 dried boletus / porcini mushrooms to the stock's ingredients. Don't take them out as well as don't take the carrots out.
around 6 medium size potatoes, cut into cubes
125g - 150g coarsely-ground barley groats
chopped parsley leaves
pepper and salt

Add the potatoes cut into cubes & barley to the boiling stock. Cook for around 25 minutes until the barley and potatoes are soft (but don't overcook them!). Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with chopped parsley leaves.

The Easiest Sourdough Rye Bread

As I am very very beginner when it comes to bread baking I was looking for a the simpliest and easiest recipe possible for a bread with sourdough. My taste preference is rye over wheat, and dark/ whole grain over white. Any seeds - sunflower, pumpkin - or nuts are more than welcome. I found a dream recipe for a novice like me on a fantastic Liska's blog (not surprising, is it?) :) Since that time, I've baked it at least 4 times and every time it was excellent (you can see it for example in the pictures of hummus).

Even though the bread is made purely of rye flour it's soft and delicate and toasted sunflower seeds add a nutty sweet aftertaste to it (which I love). As Liska's writing, the secret of a success with this bread is feeding your sourdough / starter / levain 10 to 12 hours before using it. I fed mine with 100g whole rye flour and 100g water.

The Easiest Sourdough Rye Bread

with Sunflower Seeds

Fits rectangular loaf  form 25cm long.

1 day before baking:
1 tablespoon rye levain/ sourdough (fed 10 - 12 hours before)
150ml water
150g rye bread flour, type 720*

*in Hungary 720 is not available (or at least I have't managed to find it yet). You can buy though and use with great results light rye flour - "vilagos rozliszt" RL-90.

All ingredients mix in a bowl, cover with plastic foil and put aside. I usually do it in the evening and use it for baking the next day in the morning.

After 12 - 18 hours I add:
380g rye bread flour, type 720
1 1/1 teaspoon salt
200ml water
50g toasted sunflower seeds**

Mix all the ingredients apart from sunflower seeds using a wooden spoon or a mixer. Don't mix too long. At the end add toasted sunflower seeds. Cover the pan with the vegetable oil and sprinkle with bran. Put the dough in the baking pan, sprinkle the flour onto the top or cover with a bit of oil . Cover with the plastic foil and the leave in a warm place to rise. Depending on the temperature it will take from 2 to 6 hours - it took 2 hours for me. The volume of the bread should double - only then it can be baked.
Put the bread into a cold oven and set the temperature to 230°C. After 30 minutes lower the temperature to 210°C and bake for 30 minutes more. If the bread's top is becoming too dark, cover it with aluminium foil.
Take the bread out from the pan immediately and let it cool down on the rack.

**Warm up the teflon frying pan - don't use oil. Fry the sunflower seeds till they're golden, stirring constantly. Should take around 3-5 minutes.  Let the seeds cool down before adding to the dough.

Red Lentil Soup

Red Lentil Soup is one of the first soups that I learnt from my mum... (the memory makes me feel warm and makes me smile immediately to Her). It's nourishing in every meaning of the word. As I already wrote yesterday, this soup is my favourite for cold winter days -- together with home-baked bread, it makes a whole meal that will satisfy even a meat eater (I mean P. of course ;) ). I cooked it countless number of times and every time it tastes a bit different (though it's yummy every time). Feel free to change the proportions of the vegetables -- add or take away some potatoes, carrots, play with the amount of celery root etc.

Red Lentil Soup

Serves 4 portions as a main dish, 8 as a side dish.

1 big onion
4 carrots
1/2 celery root / knob celery
5 potatoes
1 parsnip
250g red lentils
300ml tomato purée (passata di pomodori)
3 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon marjoram
around 4-5 tablespoons olive oil
salt, freshly ground pepper, fresh parsley leaves

1. Prepare the vegetables: wash them, peel and cut into cubes.
2. In a big stockpot warm up the olive oil and fry the onion until transparent. Add the remaining vegetables: carrots, celery root, potatoes, parsnip and fry for 4-5 minutes, stirring from time to time.
3. Add boiling water - around 1,5l, cover the vegetables with two times their volume. Stir.
4. Place the lentils in sieve and rinse them well under cold running water. Add to the soup, bring to boil, then lower the heat to medium and cook for around 15 to 20 minutes until lentils are soft. You might need to add more hot water.
5. At the end add tomato purée and season the soup with salt, pepper, marjoram and pressed garlic. Serve with chopped fresh parsley leaves. Bon appétit!

Pumpkin obsession continued...

This time I would like to present something very different from the gingerbread-like Butternut Squash - Cottage Cheese Cake. It was the first pumpkin cake I've ever made and I've been baking it all over again as it's light, healthy (yeast and olive oil, no baking powder, no sodium!) and goes perfectly with a glass of milk for a quick breakfast or late supper. Pumpkin yeast cake is more like a bread than a cake which makes it so special for me. The recipe comes from one of my favourite cooking blogs which has been an inspiration and an example to follow since the very beginning: Kwestia Smaku written by Asia. For the Polish speakers - have a look at the original recipe. I haven't made any changes apart from adding more pumpkin seeds as the cake was simply perfect.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour (around 470g)
25g of fresh yeast
1/2 cup of white sugar (around 60g, you can use also brown demerara sugar, goes very well with pumpkins in general)
a pinch of salt
4 really full tablespoons of pumpkin puree (I used this butternut squash puree)
1 glass of milk (250ml)
90ml olive oil extra virgin
1/2 glass of pumpkin seeds

Fits a medium size bundt pan.

Preparation: 
Prepare the yeast leaven: crush the yeast into a mug, add 1 teaspoon of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of white sugar and 2 tablespoons of warm (not hot!) milk. Mix everything together, cover with a clean cotton kitchen towel and put aside into a warm place (for example: near the radiator or the oven) for 15 minutes or a tiny bit longer (the yeast need to start growing).  In the meantime measure and prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Sift the flour through the sieve, add the yeast leaven, sugar, salt, pumpkin puree (at a room temperature) and warm milk. Use the dough arm attachment when using a vertical mixer or simply your hands to mix (knead) all the ingredients until you can see air bubbles in the dough. Then add warmed up olive oil (up to around 30°C) & pumpkin seeds. Knead the dough for at least 15 minutes.  It's necessary to equally distribute yeast and to give time to develop the gluten. If the dough is too liquid add some more flour - it will depend on how moist the pumpkin puree is. The dough shouldn't be too sticky, it should come off from your hand. Once ready, cover the surface with oil to prevent a crust from forming. (This may not be necessary if humidity is high.) Cover the bowl with a cotton kitchen towel and let the dough rise at a temperature of about 26 - 27°C. Fermentation is complete when the dough has doubled in volume which should take around an hour.  Punch the dough with your fist - it expels carbon dioxide, redistributes the yeast for further growth and relaxes the gluten.

Preaheat the oven to 175°C. Place the dough in the bundt form greased with olive oil, oil the surface and leave for a few more minutes to grow. The time varies from 10 to 30minutes, depending how much the dough has risen previously - if it more than doubled, then none of it might be necessary. Bake for around 60 minutes. Insert a toothpick into the cake - it should come out clean. If the crust is becoming to brown, cover it with the aluminium foil during the baking. (In my oven it's usually after 45minutes.) Remove the cake from the baking form and let it cool down - it will allow the excess moisture and alcohol formed during the fermentation to escape. The cake is supposedly the best the second day after baking.