Updating.

Well, after leaving the blog alone for a couple of weeks, I'm here today to tell more about a culinary course I've done 2 weeks ago in argentina.
The course was focused, basically, on Sous Vide ( Vacuum ) cooking and Modern Cuisine.
Both were very usefull to me, teaching me techniques I haven't got much in contact before.
In a professional kitchen, where food has to be done in large scale, equipments such as Roners and a Vacuum chamber ( or machine ) are really helpfull. In my opinion, fish and vegetables get cooked to perfection without much trouble using them. But, everything has a bad side, in my opinion, beef, duck and other stuff don't get as good as they do when you old style cook them.

This is the roner, it basically keep the water in a exact temperature, without great cahnges, perfect for stuff that needs to be cooked for a long time, or requires an certain temperature.


This is the chamber to remove the air, you basically put the food in special bags and this chamber will remove all the air, maximizing the taste and the smell of the food.


Well, to avoid gigantic posts, later on I will post more about the so called modern cuisine.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed.

Orange Risotto and shrimp sautée

Been quite busy lately, so i have less time to cook and post.
But hopefully i will be back on here fully in a couple of weeks.

Well, this recipe came out better than i thought and the orange risotto is quite good, specially because I did it for the first time ever, so i didnt have time to adjust and modify it to make even better.



Well, here we go to the recipe then.

100g of arborio rice.
Juice of 2 oranges.
Zest of those 2 oranges.
50g of onions.
50 ml of olive oil.
Around 600 ml of vegetable stock (homemade preferably)
Salt and pepper as you like

Well, this Orange Risotto is basically the same as every risotto, but instead of using wine, we use the orange juice. So first of all, with around 20ml of olive oil, sautee the onions, and then the rice. Leave for about 5 minutes. Add all the orange juice and keep mixing untill it gets dry. Add the salt and pepper.
Add the stock every once in a while and keep mixing.
When its cooked to your taste, add the rest of the olive oil and mix, so it gets more creamy and tastes better.
For the shrimps, just sautee it as you like.

Salt Cod a la portugese style.

Well, this dish is a really traditional dish in portugal ( of course i had to chance some bits ) and I've learnt how to do it with my grandma, she is portuguese but moved to Brazil like 50 years ago.
Once again, this dish is pretty simple and it tastes absolutely nice.
I used Salt Cod, but if you want, you can do it with fresh cod. The result will be very simmilar.
If you using Salt Cod, you will have to put it in a bowl with water 24 hours before cooking it, to get rid of the excessive salt. Don't forget to change the water every 3 or 4 hours.
Now lets move in to the recipe.



What you need: ( to serve 5 )
1kg of salt cod
200g of chalots
300g of potatoes
200g of cherry tomatoes cut in half.
150g of aspargus
75ml of olive oil
50g of sugar

Method:
well, the salt cod gets cooked in 5 minutes, so that will be last.
First of all, cook the potatoes till they are nearly done ( i like to keep its skin, tastes nicer in my opinion). Then for the chalots, you have to boil water with sugar. Once the water is boiling add the chalots and leave there to cook for around 5 - 10 minutes. This will make them feel less acid and taste smoothier. Then, cook the aspargus in boiling water for around 5 min ( depends how big they are ). Once everything is cooked, put everything in a oven pan, with the potatoes on the bottom, then the cod, then the challots, then cherry tomatoes and aspargus on top. Put the olive oil on top of the apargus, in order to it fall everywhere, specially on the cod . Pre-heat the oven at around 160 degrees. Put the oven pan in for around 15 minutes, or till the cod is done.
There you go. Portuguese cod easy and simple.

Cherry Tomato Risotto

Well, i must admit. Risotto is what i like to cook the most. And this Tomato cherry risotto i mentioned in my first post, the Lamb Carre.
Risotto is a traditional italian food, therefore there are many steps that you have to follow in order to have a decent quality risotto.



First thing is the 'brodo', that means stock. It demands a homemade stock. My standard stock is 2L of water. 1 onion choped in 2 pieces. 2 carrots in pieces and any herbs you like.
Boil the water with those ingredients for 30 min and there is a good quality stock.

What you need for the risotto: ( serves 4 )

300g of risotto rice (arborio)
1/2 onion chopped into small pieces
100g of butter
50g of parmesan cheese
1L of stock
100g of cherry tomatoes cut in half.
50ml of white wine

Method:
Melt half of the butter. Add the onions and the rice. Saute it for about 5 minutes.
Add all the wine at once, and mix well. Keep mixing untill the wine evaporate completely. Now keep adding the stock every once in a while. It should take around 15 minutes to the rice gets cooked, but it still should remain a little bit hard inside. Turn off the heat. Add the cherry tomatos and mix well. Add the rest of the butter and mix it well. Add the parmesan cheese and mix it well.
There you go.

Truffled Spaghetti and Shrimp.

Well, after a long while I'm back on posting.
This recipe is very quick and simple, and has a wonderful taste.
It takes 20 minutes the most, and the final result is delicious.



To serve 4:

to the pasta
300g of spaghetti
10g of truffle paste
50g of butter

Cook the pasta as you like. Melt the butter and leave to cool down.
Add the truffle paste and mix well. Mix the pasta + the truffles with butter.

I recommend 2 big size shrimp/person. You basically have to remove it's skin? or crust, i dont know the name, but its the hard bit outside.
Then sautee it. Salt and pepper as you like.

Thats it, you should take max 20 min to cook this recipe.

"Rabada"

After a busy while, im back to the blog. These last 2 weeks of my culinary course took all my time, but now im back on posting.
This recipe can be considered traditionally from brasil, and also is very popular in my country.The brazilian name of this dish is "Rabada". The meat looks like the italian "ossobuco" but it's from the tail of the cow. The meat is very high in fat, wich make it taste even better.



What you gonna need:
1kg of cow tail cut in around 8centimeters
200g of chopped tomatoes
300g of chopped onions
200g of chopped carrots
salt and pepper as you like.

How to do:
Remove the excessive fat of the meat. Then in a hot frying pan, cook the pieces of meat untill its in a nicely browny-gold colour. Then add all the ingredients in a pressure cooker, add water to cover all the ingredients, and cook for about 1h30 minutes.
You can either serve with the juice the meat was cooked, or you can make a "pirao" wichs consists in add corn flour or manioc flour in to that juice, and cook for about 10min.
Also, serving with watercress is a good option.

Tambaqui Ribs in blueberry sauce with grilled banana and Brazil Nuts

Tambaqui is tipically a rainforest fish. This fish is very different from the usual fish because you can find much more fat in his meat than most of the fish.
Here is a picture of it


Another special thing in this fish is that his spines are harder and thicker than normal, and it does look like pork ribs, wich is very interesting. This fish can also be found by the name of Pacu. Tambaqui can get up to 1 metre length, and up to 30 kilograms.



What you gonna need:
500 grams of Tambaqui ribs.
For the sauce
100 grams of fresh blueberries
10 ml of vinegar
15 grams of sugar
For the side
2 bananas
50 grams brazil nuts

Salt and pepper as you like.

Well, basically, these ribs are sautee. So all you need to do is add salt and pepper as you wish, and sautee the ribs slowly, so all the fat melts down n gets mixed inbetween the ribs.
The sauce is simple aswell. Add all the ingredients, maybe you will need some water. Leave it cooking untill all the berries melt in to the sauce.
The bananas are just plain grilled, no salt, no pepper.
Chop the nuts in small pieces, and then put them on heat, so they get cripy.