Posts Tagged ‘cheese’

Crustless pies and me are not good friends. I ignore their existence and they ignore mine, and in my eyes, this is a great relationship in this case. It’s just that a person that loves pastries in all shapes and forms such as myself, simply cannot enjoy just the filling of what could be a great quiche.

For Sharon’s (my sister in law as of last Wednesday) bachelorette party, I was asked to bring a crustless pie. Instinctively I started looking for a good quiche recipe. Since the primacy and recency effects work so well, I’ve decided to make this goat cheese and dried tomatoes quiche, which I last made only a week before that, when 2 very good friends of hours - Hadas and Yaron - came over for lunch.

This quiche recipe caught my eye in a very good Israeli pastry cookbook called “Sheshet pastries”. I was caught mostly because of its beautiful photo in the book, but also because of how simple it is to make it look so beautiful. Also, it tastes wonderful, and the recipe is very accurate, as are all the recipes I’ve tried from that book.

Some notes and tips about this quiche:

* Dried tomatoes - in Israel we have 2 kinds - marinated in olive oil or plain and simple dried tomatoes. Both are great for this quiche, but if you use the plain ones, marinate or brush them with a little olive oil before using them, so the ones that peek out from the filling will not burn during baking.

* Tips about making shortcrust can be found in the tips section of this post.

Goats cheese and dried tomatoes quiche / “Sheshet Pastries” cookbook
Makes a 10 inch quiche

Ingredients:
For the crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 flat tsp salt
150 gr cold butter, diced
1 egg
1-2 Tbsp water, if needed

For the filling:
250 ml heavy cream
3 eggs
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
salt
black pepper
1/2 cup dried tomatoes, chopped
200 gr soft goats cheese, sliced
cherry tomatoes brushed with olive oil, for decoration

Directions:
1. Prepare the crust: Process flour, salt and butter in short pulses in the food processor, until crumbly. Add in the egg and process in pulses only until a dough is formed. If the mixture is still crumbly, add in the water and process in pulses just until a dough is formed.
2. Flaten the dough, and form a flat circle out of it, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.
3. Roll out the dough to a 1/2 cm thick sheet, cover the tart pan with it. Using a fork, make even holes over the whole bottom surface. Freeze for 20 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350F (180C).
5. Blind bake the crust for about 10-15 minutes (it’s recommended to do it with some baking weights, for more info see tips here), until the crust only starts becoming golden.
6. Take the crust out of the oven and let cool. Meanwhile prepare the filling:
7. Beat the heavy cream together with the eggs. Sift the flour over the mixture, and beat until the mixture is uniform. Add in salt and pepper and mix them well.
8. Place the chopped dried tomatoes and sliced cheese onto the crust. Pour the egg mixture above it and decorate with the cherry tomatoes.
9. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the filling is firm and golden.

Like many other Israelis, we also traveled abroad during this long (and very welcome) holiday season. Only that half of the reasons that made us go were bureaucratic (to issue my Romanian passport), the other purpose was to show Avi where I grew up, and for me to take a trip there, after a long time that I haven’t been. The previous time I’ve been there was in 2001, and the feelings I remained with were ambivalent. I remembered a city full of unfinished buildings that seemed like buildings’ ghosts, I remembered poverty, and I also remembered gloomy people all over. Other parts of the country, mostly the mountain parts, I remembered as so very beautiful and with very clean air. And finally I remembered all the great Romanian food, that I love so much - Supa de Perisoare (a slightly sour meat ball soup) or Cordon Bleu (sort of a schnitzel filled with melting cheese in the middle), or Cascaval Pane (fried Caciocavallo cheese) or Papanasi (wonderful Romanian doughnuts, served with sour cream and jam - divine!).

Before going there I told Avi that he’s gonna taste one of the world’s best kitchens. He really took my word for it, loving my Mom’s food so much, part of it traditional Romanian. When we got there we realized that most of the dishes I told him about contained pork meat, which Avi doesn’t eat… Avi ended up giving Romania “The Schnitzel Country” title, and we indeed ate there some great schnitzels, about one of them I’ll tell you in a future post.
Every trip of ours, deliberately or not, eventually turns out being mostly about food. And of course - so did this one. So those of you who plan on taking a trip there, here are the things, the way we see them.

The first thing I looked for were traditional Romanian restaurants. Actually, most restaurants there are traditional Romanian, except a few ethnic restaurants - we saw 2 Italians and 1 Chinese. A great traditional restaurant we’ve been to several times was “La Mama” (meaning “At Mom’s”), it’s a chain and has several restaurants in Bucharest, and everything we ate there was great. Especially recommended is their wholemeal bread (in the photo below), a wonderful meat balls soup, and an awesome schnitzel topped with corn flakes instead of bread crumbs. You will see mostly locals when you go there, they really love it since the portions are generous and the prices - reasonable.

Another restaurant that I couldn’t wait to get there already was “Carul cu Bere“, a restaurant located in a beautiful gothic building, and that is open for 129 years. I remembered it as a very good restaurant from when I was little. We actually found there a great Romanian eggplant salad and an oh so tasty mamaliga dish, served with cream, yogurt and chees (it was the second time Avi tried to taste and like mamaliga. The tasting part went ok, but he failed to like it, again…). Other than that, the rest of the dishes were pretty mediocre. But I think what dissapointed me most in this trip was to discover that I no longer like the Romanian kebab. I tasted it twice, and it seemed too salty in both.

After fulfilling my hunger to traditional Romanian food, I started wondering where does the pastry world stand in Romania. When we left Romania, in 1989, there really wasn’t much of anything, but the pastry shops there were very good and updated to the current world’s pastry trends. I was dissapointed to discover that the pastry shops there, most of them anyway, are still stuck in the 80s’. One great chain we’ve found there though is called “French Bakery”. We ate a perfect butter croissant and a wonderfully fluffy and rich chocolate chips muffin.

2 Recommendations we have regarding street food are the “Fornetti” chain and the little windows behind them stands a woman selling delightful Romanian doughnuts. On our first day we began seeing a lot of little Fornetti shops, a small line of people standing outside of each one. We didn’t get the fuss, but decided to try it, thinking that if it makes so many people happy, it can’t be that bad. We found there the most wonderful cheese filled puff pastry we’ve ever tasted (better even than the best burekas I’ve eaten in Israel), although there are various fillings, even sweet ones, all of them great!
The doughnut shops I knew from when I lived there back then, their divine taste hasn’t changed, just many various filling options have been added.

Coffee-wise Romania was a bit dissapointing. In other European countries such as Spain, France and Italy, every single espresso we drank was marvelous. In Romania we had a wonderul espresso on our second day there, at “Cafe Geisha”, a small coffee shop designed in a japanese style. We’ve tried in vain to recreate the success again.

I almost didn’t see any ice-cream shops in Romania. In the beautiful old city of Brasov though, I ate a wonderful ice-cream near the black church, a little over-priced but great.

We spent our last day there at Anca’s house. Anca is a very good friend of my Mom. While drinking our morning coffee we saw on TV a live broadcast from a bread market held in a park, not far from where we were. Of course we rushed over there! A lot of stands were arranged all over the park, selling bread and many related products. There was one stand where a lot of people stood in line for. Obviously I joined the line, thinking that the best bread is right there. Was I right! After a short period of about 5 minutes, and 4 RON (the Romanian coin) later, I had a wonderful bread in my hands!

You can find more photos from our trip on Avi’s blog. He wrote one post about street photography there, and there are 1 or 2 more to come.

Yesterday I started my patisserie course! I’m so excited, and it was so much fun, eventhough the whole day was theory only. Next time we’ll start doing the real things! I never imagined a class schedule can be so much fun!

And for dessert, I’ll leave you with a traditional Romanian cheese cake. The cake is very easy to make, doesn’t require a mixer or food processor, you can make all of it with just a wooden spoon. I made it for our good friends - Guy and Lisa, that came to visit.

Romanian Cheese Cake / Recipe from a Romanian recipes site
For a 20X30 cm rectangular pan

Ingredients:
For the dough:
7 Tbsp milk
7 Tbsp vegetable oil
6 Tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 flat tsp baking soda
350 gr (2.5 cups) all-purpose flour

For the filling:
500 gr ricotta cheese
2 eggs
200 gr powdered sugar
80 gr butter
2 flat Tbsp semolina
20 gr vanillated sugar (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)
grated zest of 1 lemon
100 gr light raisins (optional)

Directions:
1. Prepare the dough: in a small saucepan heat milk, oil and sugar. When it starts to boil, remove from heat and let cool until just warm.
2. Move the mixture into a bowl, and add the egg, baking soda and the flour. Mix until a dough is formed.
3. Divide the dough into 2 parts. Roll out both of them on a floured surface into a rectangle of the pan’s size. Don’t worry, the dough is easy to work with.
4. Place one of the dough parts on the bottom of a pan lined with a baking sheet.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).
6. Prepare the filling: Melt the butter and cool it until just warm.
7. Add in all the rest of the filling’s ingredients, and mix until a homogenic mixture is formed.
8. Pour the filling onto the dough in the pan, and spread evenly.
9. Using a fork, make holes on the other half of the dough, then place it on top of the filling.
10. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the top part turns golden.
11. Cool, powder with powdered sugar before serving.

Ok, I know, I’m so late with this post for Shavuot! It’s been 3 weeks since my favorite holiday has passed, and I haven’t got the chance to blog about the little cuties I’ve made.

This Shavuot went by without a decent dairy celebration, a thing I like so much. My mom was abroad, and we had a not so dairy dinner with Avi’s family. We’ve been invited by my friend, Hadas, who is a great cook by the way, for a Shavuot brunch at her and her husband’s place, but unfortunately we weren’t able to make it.

With all that being said, I couldn’t let this wonderful holiday go by without even mentioning it with a little something I made. Yet another problem here - there’s no oven in our current apartment (at the end of this week this will be solved by the way, we’re moving to our new apartment! Yay!!), and also I still don’t have my mixer back. So it got to me finally, that about the only thing I COULD do is some truffles, well not exactly the old fashioned truffles, made from chocolate ganache, but truffles adapted for Shavuot - containing ricotta cheese and chocolate. You can call them chocolate-cheese spheres if you like.

Those of you who like the taste blend of chocolate and cheese will love these little spheres of goodness. Those of you who don’t - there’s a good chance you’ll love them too :). The cheese’s taste is quite mild, and won’t overwhelm you there, what you’ll feel mostly is the chocolate, with a hint of refreshment - that’s where the cheese kicks in. So easy to make, and they so helped me ease the urge of mentioning the holiday in making something sweet and dairy.

The recipe calls for petit beurre biscuits, if you can’t find them where you live, you can easily substitute them with Graham Crackers or something similar.

Cheese and Chocolate Spheres / Self Recipe
For about 50 spheres of the size seen in the photos

Ingredients:
250 gr Petit Beurre biscuits (or Graham Crackers), coarsely crashed
250 gr Ricotta cheese, at room temperature
100 gr biterweet chocolate, melted
4-5 Tbsp milk
4 Tbsp powdered sugar
1 Tbsp chocolate liqueur (or any other)

For Topping:
Coconut shreds / Powdered sugar / Cocoa powder

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients together into a uniform mixture.
2. Form spheres of the preferred size.
3. Roll them into a bowl containing your chosen topping.
4. Let cool in the fridge for 4 hours.

כדורי גבינה ושוקולד / מתכון עצמי
עבור כ - 50 כדורים בגודל הנראה בצילומים

רכיבים:
250 גרם ביסקויטים, מרוסקים גס
250 גרם גבינת ריקוטה או טוב-טעם, בטמפ’ החדר
100 גרם שוקולד מריר, מומס
4-5 כפות חלב
4 כפות אבקת סוכר
1 כף ליקר שוקולד (או כל ליקר אחר)

לציפוי:
שבבי קוקוס / אבקת סוכר / אבקת קקאו

הכנה:
1. מערבבים יחדיו את כל הרכיבים.
2. יוצרים כדורים בגודל הרצוי.
3. מגלגלים בשבבי קוקוס / אבקת סוכר / אבקת קקאו.
4. מקררים למשך 4 שעות.

Avi’s birthday was a week before Shavuot - a Jewish holiday during which, among others, it’s common to eat dairy products. So that’s why, in the spirit of the holiday (and because Avi really likes them) I decided to make 2 cheese cakes. The first one, the one I’ve told you about in my previous post, was supposed to be the pretty one (let’s, for a moment, ignore the fact that it didn’t come out pretty as I hoped for in the end…), and this one I made because it’s the best cheese cake there is! Seriously, it is, try for yourself and see!

I baked both cakes at my friends’ house, and I had only a very limited period of time to make them both. Since assembling the mousse cake took me longer than I expected, I didn’t have enough time to wait for this one to finish baking. What do I do? I thought to myself, worried that all the work was for nothing, and that the cake is going to be ruined. Knowing that they always say that cheesecakes are better off cooling inside the oven, I decided to take my chances and estimate how much longer it needs to be in the oven for, set the timer, and left the house. I came back after 3 hours - and was surprised to find out that the cake was just perfect. That being said, when Avi’s friends from work came to our house in the evening, I was still stressed out that it wouldn’t be as good as always - until I tasted it and relaxed All was peaceful again.

The cake has a really mild taste, and the eggs in it aren’t felt at all (something that bothers me sometimes about baked cheesecakes, the emphasized eggish taste), and the sour cherries simply complete it. It’s also very light in texture. 
Usually I make a baked crust for it, but this time, as I was short on time, I used the same base as I used with the mousse cake, it’s a wonderful base that I use regularly since I’ve discovered it, and it was great with this cake as well.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to take many photos of it since there were people here, so here are the leftovers

Cherry Cheesecake / Adapted from Hans Bertele’s recipe
For a 9 inch cake

Ingredients:
For the base:
150 gr Graham Crackers, ground
100 gr butter, melted
zest of half of a medium sized lemon

For the filling:
500 gr low fat cheese (9%)
10 Tbsp sugar
3 medium sized eggs
2 medium sized egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of half of a medium sized lemon
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
120 gr butter, melted
1 cup milk
350 gr sour cherries (fresh or canned)

Powdered sugar

Directions:
1. The white cheese in Israel is quite runny, in order to deal with that and prevent my cheesecakes from being too moist, I drain the fluids. Place the cheese on a piece of clean cloth or on an absorbent paper, and let it stay for half an hour, or until most of the liquids are out.
2. Prepare the base: mix the ingredients of the base to a uniform mixture. Spread the mixture out evenly on the bottom of the cake pan. Place the pan in the freezer until finishing making the cake. Preheat the oven to 338F (170C).
3. Prepare the filling: Whisk together the cheese and sugar.
4. Whisk eggs and egg yolks together with the vanilla extract, and gradually add into the cheese mixture. Add in the flour, butter and milk and stir well.
5. Take the crust out of the freezer, spread the filling on top of it. Scatter the cherries evenly upon the filling, they will sink in a bit, and it’s ok.
6. Bake for 40 mins, or until the cake firms up and starts to get golden.
7. Let cool and powder with powdered sugar.

עוגת גבינה ודובדבנים / עיבוד למתכון של הנס ברטלה
לעוגה בקוטר 24 ס”מ:

רכיבים:
לבסיס:
150 גרם ביסקויטים, טחונים דק
100 גרם חמאה, מומסת
גרידה מחצי לימון בינוני

למלית:
500 גרם גבינה לבנה 9%
10 כפות סוכר
3 ביצים מס’ 2
2 חלמונים מס’ 2
1 כפית תמצית וניל
קליפה מגוררת מחצי לימון
1/2 כוס קמח
120 גרם חמאה מומסת
1 כוס חלב
350 גרם דובדבנים חמוצים מגולענים (משומרים או טריים)

לזריה:
אבקת סוכר

הכנה:
1. מסננים את הגבינה בתוך בד או נייר סופג למשך כחצי שעה.
2. מכינים את הבסיס: מערבבים כל חומרי הבסיס לתערובת אחידה. שוטחים בתחתית התבנית ומפזרים באופן אחיד. מכניסים למקפיא עד לסיום הכנת המלית. מחממים תנור ל - 170 מעלות.
3. מכינים את המלית: טורפים או מקציפים גבינה וסוכר במהירות נמוכה.
4. טורפים ביצים וחלמונים עם תמצית וניל וקליפת לימון, ומוסיפים בהדרגה ותוך כדי טריפה לתערובת הגבינה. מוסיפים קמח, חמאה וחלב ומערבבים היטב.
5. מוציאים את הקלתית מהמקפיא, יוצקים עליה את המלית ומפזרים את הדובדבנים. הם ישקעו חלקית בתוך המלית, וזה בסדר.
6. מחזירים לתנור ואופים כ - 40 דקות, עד שהעוגה מתייצבת ומתחילה להזהיב.
7. מצננים ומאבקים באבקת סוכר לפני ההגשה.

Last weekend we were at my Mom’s - a chance to bake that I wouldn’t miss for the world! I asked Avi what he felt like eating, and as expected, he said “something salty”. I knew that my Mom would most definitely prefer a salty pastry as well, and so I went for it (Can you imagine how hard it is for a sweet tooth like me to be surrounded with people that sweets aren’t their favorite food?).

I remembered that a few weeks ago, I saw on Maya’s Romanian food blog, a picture of these beautiful salty cookies, that are very common in Romania. They reminded me of the same cookies that my Grandma used to make back then, and so I thought it would be a great opportunity to try them. I took the recipe from a Romanian food site, since on Maya’s post they were a part of a very big dinner she made for her birthday (Happy belated birthday, Maya!!), and a small part of the recipes weren’t there, including the one of these salty goodies.

It’s sooo easy to make them - no long kneading, no egg separating, almost nothing. 5-6 minutes and you got yourselves a beautiful dough that goes into the refrigerator for a while. Then all you need to do is roll it out and shape the cookies. Their taste is great! I really recommend using a cheese that has a strong taste - that will enrich the taste of the cookies. Unfortunately I didn’t have nigella, so I used sesame, but nigella would have taken these cookies even higher.

Romanian salty cookies / A Romanian website
Makes about 80 cookies of the size seen in the photos

Ingredients:
For the dough:
300 gr all-purpose flour
200 gr semi-hard cheese (yellow or white) with emphasized flavor
200 gr butter, soft
100 ml sour cream
2 eggs
salt

For finishing touches:
1 egg, beaten
sesame / nigella / caraway

Directions:
1. Knead all the dough ingredients just until a uniform dough is formed. Refrigerate for 90 mins, or overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 356F.
3. Take out the dough of the refrigerator, roll it out to 0.2 inch width, brush with the beaten egg, and scatter sesame or nigella or caraway. Cut the dough into stripes with the length and width you prefer.
4. Arrange the cookies on a pan lined with baking sheet.
5. Bake for 12-15 mins or until golden.

עוגיות מלוחות רומניות / אתר אוכל רומני
עבור כ - 80 עוגיות בגודל הנראה בצילומים

רכיבים:
לבצק:
300 גרם קמח
200 גרם גבינה חצי קשה צהובה או מלוחה בעלת טעם מודגש (השתמשתי בקשקבל)
200 גרם חמאה רכה
100 מ”ל שמנת חמוצה
2 ביצים
מלח

להברשה ופיזור:
1 ביצה, טרופה
שומשום / קצח / קימל

הכנה:
1. לשים את כל רכיבי הבצק רק עד לקבלת בצק אחיד. מקררים למשך שעה וחצי או למשך לילה במקרר.
2. מחממים תנור ל - 180 מעלות.
3. מוציאים את הבצק מהמקרר ומרדדים אותו לעובי חצי ס”מ, מורחים בביצה, מפזרים שומשום או קצח או קימל וחותכים רצועות בעובי ובאורך הרצויים.
4. מסדרים את רצועות הבצק על תבנית התנור מרופדת בנייר אפיה.
5. אופים כ-12-15 דקות, או שעד העוגיות מזהיבות.