The Roast Chicken Legs

Crispy-skinned roasted chicken legs you can eat like a barbarian!

Ingredients

• Four high-quality Hähnchenschenkel (whole chicken legs). Get them organic or from a local butcher. Believe me, you will taste the difference.
• 2 tbs coconut oil
• 2 tsp thyme (fresh is good, but out of the spice shaker is fine too)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cayenne powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Roast 'em

1. Make sure there are no feathers on the chicken. Pluck out any bits you see. But leave the skins on!
2. Mix the spices together in a wee bowl.
3. Pan method: Heat up the coconut oil on the higher end of medium and drop in the chicken legs. Sprinkle half the spice mix generously over the top. When one side is browned (maybe 5 min?) flip them over and sprinkle the other side. Cover them and turn the heat down so that they're just sizzling, no longer frying. Cook around 30 minutes, until the meat is pulling away from the bone (or a thermometer stuck in says 70 Celsius).
4. Oven method: Coat the chicken legs in melted coconut oil and lay on a foil-lined pan. Sprinkle spices generously. Bake at 180 Celsius for 45 minutes.

Super warming broccoli cream soup

Perfect for a cold winter's day!

Ingredients:

• A full kilo of broccoli (seriously, like three of those frozen boxes)
• Let's say a half-dozen medium-sized-to-small mehlige Kartoffeln ("floury" potatoes? You know, the kind that cook soft, which you would use for making mash)
• Chunk of butter for sauteeing
• One whole big white onion
• Three toes (hee hee) of garlic
• Ground black pepper
• A ton of hot chilis. In whatever form: chili powder, chili flakes, fresh chilis, dried chilies. I used like nine dried bird's eye chilis and they were absolutely divine: definitely very spicy and warming, but not painful
• 1.5 liters of water
• A few spoonfuls of salt
• Some kind of blender, like a stand blender or handheld immersion blender
• 100g cheese (cheddar or gouda would be perfect)
• 100g crème fraîche 

Make the soup:

1. Prep the broccoli: If using fresh, wash this and cut it into pieces, peeling the tough parts off the stems (such as the bottoms and maybe even a couple centimeters up the stalk with a carrot peeler). Then cut off the florets really high up, so that you have a pile of stalks and a pile of nothing but florets. Chop the florets really fine.
2. Prep the taters, garlic, and onion: Peel these and cut into hunks. Don't worry about being too fine about it, we're just pureeing it all in a bit.
3. Sautee the onions and garlic in a pan with the hunk of butter. 
4. Once soft, add the potatoes, broccoli stalks, pepper, and chilis, and stir around for a minute or so.
5. Pour the water over everything, add the salt, and bring it all to a boil. Then immediately reduce the heat and simmer until the potato chunks fall apart when you prod them with a fork, about 15 minutes.
6. Add half of the finely chopped broccoli florets and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.
7. Remove the soup from the heat and carefully (it's hot!) blend it so that it is fine and creamy. Take your time and be thorough about it.
8. Carefully transfer it back to the heat to simmer. Add the cheese, crème fraîche, and remaining broccoli florets. Taste to see if it needs more salt, and if it's spicy enough, mmm.

Serve with another dab of crème fraîche in each bowl and a sprinkle of parsley over the top, if you'd like. Crusty bread and a cold white wine are great with this. I'd suggest a fruity wine to counteract the chilis' heat – something more like a Sauv Blanc than a Riesling.

Thick n chewy chocolate chip cookies

Another cookie recipe for the collection! This one produces a perfectly textured, thick (not puffy!) cookie with a crisp exterior and a tender interior. Plus puddles of melted chocolate. Yes yes yes.

Lifted from the excellent recipe from smitten kitchen, adapted here for the Euro crowd.

• 115 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 115 grams white sugar
• 1 teaspoonful of dark molasses (this is key! do not skip)
• 1 teaspoonful of ground bourbon vanilla
• 1 large egg
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• Heaped 1/4 teaspoon (or, technically, 1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon) fine sea or table salt
• 200 grams medium-protein flour, e.g., Halbweissmehl or Weizenmehl 550
• 200-225 grams dark chocolate, chopped into roughly 1/2-inch chunks

Heat oven to 180C.

Beat together butter, sugars, molasses, and vanilla until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes with electric mixer or kitchen machine. Beat in egg. Beat in baking soda and salt. Turn off the beater and use a wooden spatula to mix in the flour until just combined (if the dough looks crumbly, that is okay). Fold in the chopped chocolate.

Shape into cookie sized balls and arrange on baking paper on a baking sheet. Make sure to leave a good 10cm between cookies (avoid them running together, amoeba-like).

Bake 8-12 minutes, until the edges are looking brown and crisp but the insides still soft. Don't overbake! They'll continue to firm up a little on the hot pan when removed from oven. Let rest on pan for at least 5 minutes before removing for cooling or eating.

Pro tips:

• Get a cookie scoop thing! They are amazing.
• Don't chop the chocolate too fine! Big chunks make nice big pools of melty chocolate.
• White sugar + molasses can be replaced with American brown sugar if it's available.
• Consider sprinkling with sea salt before popping in the oven. If you're into that.
• You can either bake these straight away, or rest the dough in the fridge first (for 30 minutes up to a few days). I've done both and they turn out great. If resting the dough, scoop the batter into cookie-sized balls before nestling them into a plastic bag and tucking them into the fridge. Then no wrestling with hard, cold dough when you're ready to bake; can just arrange them directly on the pan.

NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from the famous New York Times cookie recipe, a.k.a. The Best Cookies Ever, a.k.a. All Hail the Great and Powerful Cookie!

• 280 g flour
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
• 285 g butter
• 520 g sugar
• drizzle of molasses
• 2 large eggs
• dash of vanilla
• chopped dark chocolate

Sift together dry ingredients and set aside.

In a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy (approx 5 mins).

Add eggs and mix in one at a time. Add vanilla.

Remove from stand mixer and gently add in dry ingredients until just combined.

Fold in the chocolate bits.

Spoon into a plastic baggie, seal it air tight, and wait at least 24 hours (48 even better!)

Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Spoon out cookies into golfball-sized balls and arrange on the baking sheet.

Make sure to leave ample space between the cookies so they can spread out without touching.

Bake 185C for 10-12 mins per batch.

Tips!

• Don't overmix the dough after adding the dry ingredients, as it will activate the gluten and make for a harder cookie. I prefer to do the final wet/dry combine by hand just to be sure.
• We baked up a batch of these after 72 hours of refrigeration and they were still nomnomnom.
• Careful not to overcook them; remove from the oven when they are just browning on the bottom but are still light (or even slightly doughy-looking) in the middle. They'll continue to cook on the sheet for just a wee bit after removal. They'll also look a bit puffy, but don't worry, will collapse into proper cookie shape as they cool.
• The original NYT recipe calls for part cake flour and part bread flour, but I just use all Halbweissmehl and be done with it. Texture still comes out great.
• Speaking of flour... if you're buying in Switzerland, make sure you get Halbweissmehl, not Weissmehl ;) Otherwise you'll get puffy little cakes instead of chewy cookies!

Pumpkin muffins

Adapted from Pumpkin Muffins II from allrecipes.com:

• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• dash of vanilla
• dash of molasses
• 1-1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp each of cloves, cinnamon, ginger
• dash of allspice

Beat together wet ingredients: pumpkin, sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla, molasses.

Sift together dry ingredients: flour, soda, powder, salt, spices.

Gently combine.

Spoon into paper-lined muffin tins.

Bake 175C for ~25mins.
Makes 12 muffins.

Ideas for variations: maple syrup! Bet that would be yummy.

Thai Red Curry(ish)

Thai Red Curry(ish)

Just put all this together in a pot one day, and it looked kind of like how I remember red curry looking. It was delish!!

Ingredients

Coconut oil
Beef - sliced
Garlic - half of a head, pressed
Red chilis - those little hard ones. 2 or 3 (to taste), finely diced
Mushrooms - handful of white button mushrooms, sliced
Coconut milk - 200ml or 250ml (something like that, didn't measure precisely)
Fish sauce
Red curry paste - generous spoonful
Lemon grass - a few (whole)

Thai basil - to taste, chopped
Green beans - heaping handful
Red bell pepper - one big one or two small

Lime - juice from one half during cooking, the other half for garnish
Cilantro - garnish

Rice

Method

Fry the beef in coconut oil until brown.
Turn down the heat and add garlic and chilis (and more oil if needed). Let them saute a little.
Add the mushrooms. Let them cook down a little.
Add coconut milk, a small dash of fish sauce, and the red curry paste. Stir well.
Add a little more water if necessary to thin, and add lemon grass.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer and let this stew for a while so the flavors blend.

At Time(to eat) - Time(to cook rice), start the rice. In a separate pot, of course.

To the stew, add thai basil, green beans, bell pepper, and juice from half of a lime. Cook until veggies are desired tenderness (10-20 mins, depending on whether you like crisp or mushy).

Serve with stew spooned over rice. Garnish with cilantro and juice from the other lime half.

Substitutions

• Chicken for beef
• Broccoli, carrots, zucchini for the veggies
• Soy sauce or tamari for the fish sauce (if you skip the fish sauce, consider adding shrimp)
• Reduced fat coconut milk for regular coconut milk
• Olive oil for the coconut oil (but you should get some coconut oil to have at home! Trust me, you won't regret it)

Notes

• Note that there's no separate listing for salt -- there's a ton of it already from the fish sauce! If you want to add more salt, go for it, but definitely wait until all the other ingredients are added first and then taste it, to avoid over salting.
• Thai red curry paste should be easily found at any sufficiently large or international grocery store. Something like this product.
• If you buy the right kind, you can one with get simple, natural ingredients.
• In spite of the name, there is no curry in it.

Sauteed zucchini and black olives

Garlic
Zucchini - 2 big ones or 3 little
Black olives - pitted
Cherry tomatoes - just a handful
Some herbs - I like a herbs de provence mix.

Chop zucchini into coins, and halve them so you have little half-moons. Chop the olives and tomatoes in half. Dice the garlic.

Start the garlic in some olive oil, in a large frying pan on medium heat. When it's starting to soften, add the zucchni and herbs and a little salt and toss it all together.

Let it all cook until the zucchini is about halfway done, i.e. starting to soften and maybe even brown. Add the olives and toss again. Let them cook for a couple more minutes. If the zucc's and garlic are browning too fast, add a little water to simmer it all (just making sure it's enough to all boil away in the end). When very close to finished, add the tomatoes and just let them soften a little (but not mush).

Swiss engineered chocolate chip cookies

This is what I came up with using the ingredients available in local grocery stores:

1 large stick butter + some extra: approx 225 g
1.5 c white sugar: Feinkristallzucker is about the right texture for this volume
2 tsp molasses (approx; just dribble it in until it's the right color)
vanilla: some tsps of ground bourbon vanilla powder
sea salt
1.5 tsp baking powder (approx, I just scoop with a small spoon)
2 eggs

2 c flour: Halbweissmehl (not Weissmehl! That is cake flour)

70% dark chocolate bars: 2
optional nuts: walnuts, sliced almonds

Cream together butter and sugar (do NOT melt the butter! Leave it room temperature, or just soft enough for mixing but no softer). Mix in molasses. Mix in vanilla. Sprinkle in sea salt and mix. Shake in baking powder and mix. Scramble the eggs and mix in. Stir in flour.

Chop up chocolate bars with a large knife and fold in. Fold in optional nuts.

Cover dough and chill in fridge for at least 30 mins. Chilling gets the butter back to a nice place; cold butter will melt at the right speed in the oven, warm butter might melt too fast and spread, giving a flat hard cookie instead of soft and chewy.

Heat oven to 185C.

Spoon out cookies onto baking paper. Spread them out far enough so they don't run together, and don't make them too big. The more spherical the scoops the better. Bake 8-10 mins. Take them out when they're just brown on the edges; they'll harden as they cool, so if they look just a little gooey when pulled out, that's good.

Try to wait before eating one until they're at least cool enough to have a little structural integrity, and the chocolate won't scald the tongue. If they're still moist the next day, it is a success!

Butterflied Rosemary Roasted Chicken

Ohmygosh, butterflying is amazing! The chicken cooks SO well. Fast, even, and all skin is exposed for crisping.

We made this the other night and it's heaven; definitely joining the regular rotation:

http://www.inspiredtaste.net/21410/butterflied-rosemary-roasted-chicken-recipe/

Tip: if you're not getting your potatoes crispy-on-the-outside-tender-on-the-inside, try parboiling them first. Boil; drain; return to empty-but-hot pan and shake around to get them dried out on the outside; toss with a smidgen of olive oil. Then scatter around the prepared chicken before popping it into oven. Crispy taters, I guarantee you.

Pressure-cooker potroast

We get a little fancy with our potroasts. :) Mmmm, Sundays!

1 beef roast (we acquired ~600g of ribeye. The Swiss don't mess around!)
onions, garlic
veggie broth
red wine
carrots and potatoes
rosemary, thyme, parsley

salt, pepper

flour (for gravy)

Add a little oil of choice to pressure cooker. Saute chopped onions and garlic. If using dry herbs: stir them into the veggies a minute or so before the veggies are done, just to get the herbs moist and fragrant, but still green. Scrape out of pot into a bowl, and return pot to heat. Turn up heat.

Drop meat into pot. Brown on all sides. And brown! Not grey, browwwwn. Very dark and crispy. Getting close to burnt is okay.

Turn down heat and add some water. Add back sauteed veggies, plus veggie broth and red wine. Add chopped carrots and potatoes. Salt and pepper. If using fresh herbs: now is the time to add them.

Cover and turn up heat to bring to pressure. Once at pressure, turn down to low, enough so that it stays at pressure but doesn't go crazy. If it's hissing, it might be too much.

Cook 30-45 mins, depending on the size of roast.

Remove from heat and depressurize. Remove roast and veggies. Return the liquid to the heat to make gravy: boil it to reduce to desired water level, then reduce heat and whisk in flour using the cold water trick, until desired thickness.

Dish up veggies and roast and served with generous gravy. And the rest of that red wine.