More Food from Istanbul

June 8, 2011 TEKST NA SRPSKOM

Big Bazaar

We are still in Istanbul. A city on two continents. Full of mosques, vendors and bazaars.

Big Bazaar

We walked the halls of Big Bazaar. Carpets, nargile, spices… And lamps.

Mosk

Ziya Baba

Ziya Baba

When it came to food we’ll eat while on the road, the idea was to skip the restaurants serving continental food for the less courageous tourists and try as much local, authentic food as possible. Therefore, we asked our host to recommended a place he likes to eat at and where the food is good. He was happy to recommend Ziya Baba slow food. There, he said, he eats almost every day.

Turski doručak

We wanted a kebab, but it’s only 11 am and they serve only breakfast till 12 :| OK, we take menemen – tomatoes, peppers, olive oil and eggs. We’ll finish it till 12 and then we can continue with the kebab. To go with it, we get ayran, a cultured milk product, very nice and mild.

Ayran

We finish our breakfast just a few minutes before 12, but on that day, October 31st 2010 was the daylight saving time and at that moment it was not 12, but 11. Damn!

Istanbul

We decide to take a walk through the neighborhood to kill the spare hour, but Mateja really wanted to go to the Taksim square and after about 15 minutes we decide to skip the kebab and go to the square.

By the time we got there, it was almost unaccessible. So many army and police. It was The Day of the Republic and the president was supposed to be there, so we thought that’s why there is so many security. What happened is that a suicide bomber blew himself on the center of Taksim and hurt many people. For a long time there were no terrorist attacks in Turkey due to the truce made by the government and the terrorists. That day was the day that the truce ended :( Good thing we went to Ziya Baba.

Istanbul Restaurant & Café

Istanbul Restaurant & Cafe

Istanbul Restaurant & Café exists since 1912 and serves traditional Turkish food in one of the streets near Big Bazaar. One of the waiters speaks Serbian and shows us inside to meet the cook, also from this part of Europe.

Istanbul Restaurant & Cafe

So many dishes. And they all look great.

Musaka

We had eggplant mousaka…

Sarma

…sarma (minced meat wrapped inside cabbage leaf) and lamb.

Kadaif

For the desert, we decide to skip the baklava (why, you’ll see soon) and we take kadaif…

Kemal Pasha

… and kemal pasha – one of the best deserts I’ve ever had. Later, when we got back home, I tried to find a recipe, but, it is made with pre-made store-bought dough soaked in syrup. The dessert comes from the town Mustafakemalpaşa and the dough is made with the local fresh cheese and it’s served with kaymak (although our came without it).

Karaköy Güllüoğlu

If you read the post about the Cannoli & Friends festival, you know that there I met the Turkish baklava champion. His baklava shop Karaköy Güllüoğlu was one of the must see places while in Istanbul. I had his business card that had a drawing of the Galata tower and don’t know why, but I thought it was just inside it’s dome.

When we got in front of Galata we found a mile long queue. Maybe the queue is for baklava? :P Yeah, right. No baklava shop inside the tower. I kept showing the card to the people around but nobody knew where it was. We kept circling around the tower until we found a local guy who showed us the direction. After about half an hour walk we finally got to the shop, but it was closed! Could not believe it. I wanted to cry.

Istanbul fishermen

When we decided to go back we saw a guy coming towards us holding a bag with the shop logo! Somehow he managed to explain to us that the shop has moved to another location. Oh, the happiness! it is on the other side of the city, never mind, we will see it :)

Karaköy Güllüoğlu

It’s a kind of self service. You go around, point with your finger and they put it on your plate.

Baklava

Here we got kaymak with one of the baklavas. Something between milk skin and heavy cream. Very heavy and not my kind of treat.

Baklava

They make a damn good baklava. Especially the chocolate one :)

Obama Baklava

Unbelievably, the owner, my buddy from Sicily was there. We recognized each other and I wanted to have a photo of us together. As Mateja was about to press the button, the owner started to shout and wave his hand as if he wanted us to wait for something. He called for a waiter and the guy went inside the store and came back with a picture of Obama! Made out of baklavas! :) )))) Epic!

Gozleme, Manti & Salgam

Gozleme

One of the things you can’t but notice as you stroll the streets of Istanbul are gozleme. They call them Turkish stuffed pancakes and are made by women that sit by the window of the shops.

Gozleme

Thay can be stuffed with almost anything. We tried the one with carrots, potatoes, spinach and fresh cheese.

Gozleme

It’s amazing, but it’s not a pancake :)

Manti

We also had manti. There is something called mantije in Serbia, and it came here with the Ottomans, so we thought it will be similar, but it’s actually a cooked pasta, like Italian ravioli, stuffed with meat, with yogurt and garlic sauce, a bit hot. Perfect.

Salgam

In the previous post I told you how there were pickles to buy on the streets. Seemed gross and we didn’t try it. This must be even worse and I had it :P Salgam is made out of pickled black carrots, salt and juices from pickled radish. Absolutely impossible to describe how terrible it tastes. Just the taste of it will shrivel every single muscle on your face and you won’t be able to wash that terrible taste for a long time :)

… to be continued …

Categories: dessert, main course, restaurants, turkey, turkish food
by Marija

Foodbuzz 24×24: Restaurant City Food

May 29, 2011

restaurant_city_banner

Restaurant city is an online cooking game by Playfish. It is played on Facebook and it has about 5,6 million active monthly players! The concept of the game is: you have a restaurant, you decorate it and the main goal is collecting ingredients, learning and upgrading dishes. Currently, there are 302 different recipes in starter, main dish, dessert and drink. I have tried to prepare some of them for you.

I decided to focus on the looks of the dish – make it as similar as possible to the in-game original. Sometimes that meant that the dish is not made properly. And sometimes Playfish used different ingredients than those that should be used in the recipe.

Biscotti

Biscotti

Biscotti

(recipe is from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich)

170 g flour
200 g sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 Tbsp rum
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp anise seed, crushed
80 g almonds, toasted, then coarsely chopped

In a bowl mix sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl mix eggs, rum, vanilla and almond extract and anise seed. Stir the flour mixture into the egg mixture. You will get very sticky batter. Scrape it onto large baking pan lined with baking paper. Wet your hands and shape the batter into 10 x 30 cm log.

Bake in a preheated oven on 150°C for about 50 minutes. After it’s done let cool for 15 minutes. Leave oven turned on. Transfer the loaf onto a cutting board and cut it diagonally into 1,5 cm thick slices. Use serrated knife. Place slices into baking pan and return into the oven for another 40 minutes.

Notes: Mine batter was way too runny. When I put it into the oven it kind of spilled and I had to wrap it into baking paper that lined the pan.

Refreshing Pasta Salad

Refreshing Pasta Salad

Cooked fusilli tricolore, olive oil, sweetcorn, cherry tomatoes and basil. Not so refreshing. And not so nice :)

Steak Diane

Steak Diane

The base recipe is from here. I only made it without mushrooms. I made heart decorations by cutting out hearts from cooked carrots. The recipe in particular is amazing and even better with mushrooms, I’m sure. I just would never serve it with carrots, but with potatoes. You will notice the use of coriander leaves. Think Playfish made a mistake here. Proper ingredient would be parlsey.

Cinnamon Swirl

Cinnamon Swirl

Cinnamon roll as cinnamon swirl. I made a couple of batches in order to make something that resembled the one from the game. None of them looked like it. Funny, the one that you see is actually a failed one, but it was the closest to the original :)

Chocolate Milkshake

Chocolate Milkshake

Chocolate ice cream blended with some milk and powdered chocolate. Poured in a glass, topped with whipped cream and with a candied cherry on top.

Carrot Milkshake

Carrot Milkshake

Carrot Milkshake

(adapted from here)

3 carrots
3 cardamom pods
500 ml milk
2 Tbsp light brown sugar

Boil milk with sugar and crushed cardamom pods. Strain and let cool. Cook carrots. Puree in a blender with some milk. When it’s well pureed add the remaining milk. Chill before serving.

Everything made specially for Foodbuzz.

All photos by me, illustrations by Playfish.

Categories: appetizer, dessert, drink, main course, restaurant city, salad
by Marija

Istanbul Street Food

May 13, 2011 TEKST NA SRPSKOM

Last year, Mateja and me went on a trip through Asia. We saw a lot, experienced a lot, and of course, ate a lot :) In the next couple of posts I will tell you all about it. Mostly about food, less about sights, as this is, after all, a food blog, and the food in Asia is so exciting.

Istanbul Street Wendors

Our first stop – Istanbul. What a city! So many people, shops, food, sweets, carpets… All in all, colors everywhere. Sellers literary drag us into the shops, serve tea and by all means try to sell us carpets for special discounted prices. They explain how their carpet is an essential and necessary item on our journey :) It is a carpet, but it can also be a blanket, or a pillow, and it can be bundled so small that it will fit into a backpack.

Istanbul Street Wendors

Cats everywhere. Walking completely relaxed, like dogs in our country. A very few dogs though.

Back to the food. Turkish cuisine is very similar to all other Balkan cuisines and generally, you can make no mistake, whatever you have. Everything is very delicious.

Today I will tell you about street food of Istanbul.

Istanbul Chestnuts Street Seller

First thing we tried were roasted chestnuts. Twice the size of the chestnuts I am used on the streets of Belgrade. Neatly placed on a vendor cart, perfectly opened so you don’t bother much peeling them, but way undercooked. What a disappointement!

Pomergrantes in Istanbul

Gigantic pomergrantes! Everywhere a small store or a street vendor that will prepare fresh juice.

Pomergrante Juice, Preparation

A glass of juice is 3 Turkish liras (about 1,5 euros or 2$). A guy with the surgical gloves squeezes it out on a special press and even strains it. Very nice.

Pomergrante Juice

Hakiki Sicak Salep

A guy that worked at the hostel we stayed at told us there is a drink we must try. He couldn’t remember the English word for it and said it’s served with lots of cinnamon and that it’s made out of a kind of flower. And indeed, it was an orchid drink. Salep is made from orchid tuber flour and water (or milk), sweetened, then flavored with rose water. Served very very hot and to me tasting like a rice pudding. The sign at the cart says “genuine hot orchid”. Apparently, the drink was so popular throughout the country that it endangered certain species of orchids. Export is prohibited and many artificially flavored powders appeared.

Istanbul Street Wendors

Turkish Churos Street Seller

Don’t know the name of this one but it was amazing. King of a deep fried dough, something between tulumba and churo, soaked into sugary syrup and sprinkled with dessicated coconut and ground pistachios.

Istanbul Farmers Market

We’ve been to the markets also. Basically, everything you can find in Serbia, but most of the fruits way bigger.

Islak Burger

Inside Islak (Wet) Burger is a meatball in tomato sauce. Then the whole bun is soaked in that sauce too. Sooo good! But too small to be called a burger. I could eat 3 or 4 without blinking.

Tarihi Osmanli

This is Macun – an old Ottoman candy. I’m not a great fan of sweets and this one seemed like a melted lollipop. No way I’m gonna lick melted sugar from a screwdriver! At least that’s how I felt at the moment. But just a couple of days later I was eating way more gross stuff and loved it. Feel kind of sorry now that I haven’t tasted this one.

Pickles Drink Street Seller

Another one we didn’t have :) Imagine a liquid from pickled vegetables, poured in a cup then stuffed with all kinds of pickled vegetables! We make sauerkraut in Serbia. At home. It’s pickled cabbage, for those who don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I love sauerkraut! I adore it! But some people like to drink the liquid that cabbage ferments in. And that’s bittery and sour and to me not tasty at all!

Turkish Pickles Drink

You would be surprised how many people buy this! Like you would buy and ice cream. Looks beautiful though :)

Midye Dolma

Midye Dolma – Turkish stuffed mussels. Rice is first fried with herbs and mussels slightly cooked. After, the mussels are stuffed with rice and eaten sprinkled with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Very, very tasty.

Turkish Coffe & Nargile

Finally, no visit to Turkey is complete without Turkish coffee and nargile :) We sit in a coffee shop for a coffee, tea and nargile. The owner approaches to take the order and tells us whispering that he’s got beer also, it just isn’t on the menu. Are the taxes too high or it’s something else, I don’t know, but it is not common to find beer in a coffee shop and it’s much more expensive than in Serbia. Even in the stores.

Coffee is exactly as we drink it in Serbia – strong and black. It will always come with a piece of Turkish delight that tastes as it’s been made five minutes ago and melts in your mouth.

Nargila

The waiter brings us nargile, lights it up and leaves. With coffee, a real treat!

Turkish Tea & Nargila

Turkish people drink black tea more than coffee. And it’s always served in a specific glass. Turkish çay is traditionally prepared with two kettles stacked one over another. In lower, bigger one, is first boiled some water. Than the top one, smaller, is filled with tea leaves and filled with the previously boiled water. This produces very strong tea that is later diluted with the remaining water to taste.

To be continued…

Categories: bread & co, dessert, drink, preserves, snack, street food, turkey, turkish food
by Marija

Rustic Buckwheat and Pear Cake

May 5, 2011 TEKST NA SRPSKOM

Rustic Buckwheat and Pear Cake

Rustic Buckwheat and Pear Cake

(recipe is from Sale & Pepe magazine, Serbian issue for November 2010)

2 Williams pears
100 g flour
120 g dark buckwheat flour
100 g butter, on room temperature
1 bag vanillin sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
3 eggs
120 g sugar
1,5 Tbsp Port
1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1,5 Tbsp apricot marmalade
a pinch of salt
grated zest of 1 lemon

Sift regular flour with baking powder. Add vanillin sugar and salt. In a separate bowl mix butter with sugar until fluffy. Add 1 tablespoon of previously sifted flour and 1 egg and mix until incorporated. Repeat for the remaining 2 eggs. Add the remaining flour, buckwheat flour, lemon zest, 2 Tbsp Port and mix. Pour batter into 20 cm (8 inch) diameter spring form pan lined with baking paper.

Peel and core pears. Cut into thin slices and press them onto the batter (thin side up). Mix marmalade with lemon juice and the remaining Port and brush over the top of cake. Bake in a preheated oven on 180°C/350°F for 45 minutes.

Rustic Buckwheat and Pear Cake

Note: This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Paulchen’s Foodblog.

Categories: dessert, Sale & Pepe
by Marija

Bronhi Toffee Slices

May 2, 2011 TEKST NA SRPSKOM

Bronhi Toffe Slice

Bronhi toffees are legendary all over the former Yugoslavia. A soft toffee with the extracts of liquorice, anise, fennel and a number of medicinal herbs has been on the market for over 90 years. The recipe that follows uses them inside the cream, making extraordinary and a unique taste and comes from a foodie friend of mine, Bojana, the author of Cake^2. It’s a bit time consuming, but definitely worth the effort.

Bronhi Toffee Slices

(original recipe)

Bronhi Cream, the first part

1 l milk
100 g white chocolate
200 g (2 bags) Bronhi Toffees
2 bags vanillin sugar
100 g continental flour
100 g corn starch

Heat 800 ml milk with Bronhi toffees, white chocolate and vanillin sugar. Stir and cook until everything melts. In a bowl mix warm remaining milk (200 ml) with flour and starch. Add to the milk with melted candy and chocolate and cook on low heat, stirring continuously until it thickens. Transfer into a large bowl, cover with cling film and cool completely.

The cream will probably get lumpy, but it’s OK. You’ll mix it more later, and it won’t be noticed while eating.

Biscuits #1 and #2

(The ingredients are for one biscuit. You should prepare 2 of them.)

4 egg whites
a pinch of salt
100 g sugar
45 g continental flour
30 g corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vinegar*
1 Tbsp rum
80 ml oil

*I have prepared the biscuits with white and red vinegar and it made no difference.

Beat egg whites with salt stiff. Add sugar and beat more until shiny. Sift flour, starch and baking powder two times and then carefully fold into egg whites. Finally, whisk in oil, vinegar and rum. Line large oven pan with baking paper (I use 30 x 40 cm pan) and distribute the batter evenly over it. Bake in a preheated oven on 150°C/300°F. Baking time depends on your oven. Biscuit should remain pale in color. Mine took about 17 minutes.

Again, you should bake 2 of these biscuits.

Biscuit #3

4 egg whites
a pinch of salt
100 g sugar
45 g continental flour
20 g corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vinegar
3 Tbsp rum
80 ml oil
30 g cocoa powder

The method is the same as for the previous biscuits. Cocoa is sifted and added with the dry ingredients.

Chocolate Coating for the Biscuits

170 g dark chocoalte
70 g butter
3 Tbsp sunflower seed oil

You have baked 2 white and 1 dark biscuits. Remove baking paper from them. Take one white biscuit and place it on a large tray where you’ll assemble your dessert.

Melt all the ingredients for the coating in a double boiler. Spread it evenly over the two white biscuits. Let it cool and harden completely. It’s best to make some room in the fridge and put the biscuits there.

Bronhi Cream, continued

150 g butter, on room temperature
300 ml + 3 Tbsp heavy cream
4 gelatin leaves
70 g dark chocolate

Soak gelatin into cold water. Beat butter foamy with a mixer. In a separate bowl, beat 300 ml heavy cream stiff. Take the previously cooked cream with toffees out from the fridge and beat it with a mixer until fluffy. First, mix the butter into the toffee cream, then add heavy cream.

Take the gelatin out from the water, squeeze out the excess water with your hand and melt it on low heat with 3 Tbsp heavy cream. Mix into the cream. Divide cream into 3 parts equally. Melt dark chocolate and mix it into 1 part of the cream.

Assembling

You have: 2 white biscuits, 2 white creams, 1 dark biscuit and 1 dark cream.

Spread 1 white cream over the white biscuit that is on a tray. Carefully put dark biscuit on top, press slightly and spread the dark cream over. Put the remaining white biscuit over, press, and spread it with the remaining white cream. Leave in the fridge overnight.

Chocolate Glaze

230 g dark chocolate
9 tbsp sunflower seed oil
2 Tbsp locust honey

The next day, melt all the ingredients for the glaze in a double boiler and pour over the cake. Spread evenly quickly. You can slightly lift up the tray and tap carefully on the table. It will help it distribute evenly.

Return to the fridge until the glaze thickens. Cut with a warm knife.

Categories: dessert
by Marija

Strawberries & Cheese Mille-feuille

April 27, 2011 TEKST NA SRPSKOM

Strawberries & Cream Cheese Mille-feuille

Strawberries & Cheese Mille-feuille

(recipe adapted from Sale & Pepe magazine, Serbian issue for May 2011)

Pastry

30 g flour
125 g sugar
60 g ground almonds
50 g butter, melted
3 Tbsp port

Mix port with sugar, butter and almonds. Stir in flour and transfer into the fridge for an hour. What you will have is a runny batter, not a hard dough. Do not worry, it will harden a bit in the fridge.

Line large oven pan with baking paper. Pour batter on the middle of the pan and cover with another piece of baking paper. Flatten it over the paper to the thickness of just a dew millimeters. Bake in a preheated oven on 180°C/350°F for about 10-15 minutes. It will bubble and look kind of strange, but it’s OK. Take it out from the oven as soon as you notice that the edges start to brown. When it’s out of the oven, cut it quickly into 12 equal rectangular shapes. You need to cut fast as the pastry will be impossible to cut when it starts to cool down. When cooled, pieces will be very fragile, so work carefully.

Cream

400 g cream cheese
2 Tbsp honey

Whisk honey into the cream cheese enough to be incorporated well. Leave in the fridge until you prepare the sauce.

Sauce

200 ml red wine
2 Tbsp port
45 g sugar
200 g strawberries

Boil wine with port and sugar. Continue to cook on low heat until it reduces to the half. Remove from heat, puree strawberries and add them to the reduction and let cool.

You might want to strain pureed strawberries to get the finer texture of the sauce.

Assembling

250 g strawberries
mint
cinnamon

Pipe cram cheese on each pastry with a pastry bag. Dust with a bit of powdered cinnamon. Arrange a couple of slices of strawberries on top of each and decorate with mint leaves. Pour some sauce on each serving plate and place 3 pastries with the cream on each.

Categories: dessert, Sale & Pepe
by Marija

Grissini

April 13, 2011 TEKST NA SRPSKOM

Grissini

The legend says that the first grissini were made in the 17th century in Turin. Apparently, a young duke Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy had problems with digestion and the court doctor commissioned court baker Antonio Brunero to make a bread as light as possible. The bread cured the duke, of course :) , and soon, he became a king. It is still told that the king’s ghost haunts his castle leading his horse and holding a breadstick in his hand.

Another fan of grissini was Napoleon himself. He called them les petites batons de Turin.

Grissini

Starter:

140 g flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry yeast
100 ml water

Knead all the ingredients into dough. Cover and let rise until it doubles in volume.

Dough:

140 g flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry yeast
100 ml water
1/2 tsp olive oil

Combine all the ingredients except oil with the starter. Knead for about 10 minutes. Shape into ball and transfer into a bowl greased with oil. Let double in volume.

Flatten the dough into a 25×22 cm rectangular shape. Cut into 10 long thin strips (by the thinner side). Roll each strip on a damp kitchen cloth to make it cylindric. Transfer onto a large baking pan lined with baking paper. Sprinkle with salt and bake in a preheated oven on 240° for about 8-10 minutes.

If you like, you can add some dried rosemary into the dough and/or sprinkle it with powdered garlic before you put it into the oven.

Note: I am sending this to Susan for YeastSpotting.

Categories: bread & co, food history, italian food
by Marija

Lorenzo & Kakalamba

April 7, 2011 TEKST NA SRPSKOM

LK - Interior

Whereyoueatwell LORENZO and KAKALAMBA is the original space with the unique concept based on the fusion between Florence and Pirot. This impressive amateur venture of a gourmand enthusiast got it’s outcome that surely won’t leave you indifferent.

If you don’t trip up at the entrance onto one of the clumsily hidden cables, or God forbid, fall down the hole in the floor directly to the kitchen into the pot simmering delicacies, you will find your way to one of the unusual chairs and order some of divine specialties from the Florentine or Pirot cuisines.

Once you satisfy your appetite you will notice a multitude of interesting details all around – from sheep peacefully grazing on the ceiling, through the reproductions of the famous Florentine sculptures, to the fantastic paintings of Botero.

Lorenzo & Kakalamba

LK - Interior

I understand how very little is known about Belgrade food scene. Therefore, I’ve decided to shed some light on the matter and post more about Belgrade places to eat. Here, you’ll see the first in the series of honest and objective posts about Belgrade restaurants. The post and impressions are a joint work of my friend Sanja, a real foodie and an editor for Sale & Pepe magazine and your’s truly :)

It took us a while to concentrate on the menu as there’s so many thnigs around that distract and fascinate.

Of course, it was much easier to concentrate on the wine card :) , so we easily begun our evening with a bottle of wine. After the toast, everything became easier, as well as navigation through an enormous menu.

We eased ourselves the choice by agreeing not to order the typical Serbian meals we are accustomed to, but to try out some new combinations. Also, we agreed to order more dishes that we’ll share (so everything you see on the plates are actually the halves of one portion), so we could get better impression about what this place has to offer.

LK - Vurda

Not long after the waiter refilled our glasses, starter arrived. It was vurda – a kind of cream cheese from the south of Serbia, with strong and soury taste with pieces of pickled yellow bell pepper, hot paprika and parsley. The bread basket was filled with 3 types of breads, all warm, wich was very nice.

LK - Antipasto

Our eyes adjusted to the fantastic colors, we relaxed and our appetizer – Lorenzo antipasto arrived.

Clockwise from the top: spicy strawberries (basicaly, it was a wild strawberries jam, with the addition, we suppose, of chilly, but nice idea anyway), cherry tomatoes on arugula, pecorino, homemade chicken liver pate bruschetta, bruschetta with tomatoes and basil, prosciutto San Daniele and baby mozzarella.

LK - Chicken Liver Pate

The strawberries were superb. Went well with everything on the plate, but there was too little of them.

Pate was so tasty and perfectly blended; texture reminded of fois gras. Tomato and basil bruschetta was bland.

LK - Interior

LK - Tagliatelle

Next up were tagliatelle with porcini and fresh sage pesto. Pasta was freshly made, pesto was nice, although it could have been more intense, and there was a lot of porcini, luckily :) Whole dish was generally fine. If you exclude the fact that there were enormous pieces of dry sage stalks :)

LK - Interior

Next dish was veal with prunes in Marsala sauce accompanied with mashed potatoes. The mash was delicious and it paired perfectly with the meat. This dish was definitely our favorite. Veal was extremely tender, prunes soft and juicy and the sauce reminded of a softer version of a demi glace. Simple, but tasty, cooked perfectly and well balanced dish.

LK - Veal With Prunes

As we waited for our next dish we figured it was probably kind of funny, the fact that two girls are eating so much. This is very unusual in Belgrade. Most of women will probably order one salad dish or pasta.

LK - Beef Tenderloin

Next up was Chef’s Beef tenderloin, aka beef tenderloin in red wine sauce with rose scented onions.

We asked for medium done meat.

LK - Beef Tenderloin

Overcooked :| What we didn’t like at the first glance was the fact that this dish came with the mashed potatoes also. Some other mash maybe, or potatoes done differently would go better, we think.

The sauce itself was very interesting. The rose scent came from, I suppose, rose water, and complemented the meat and the onions perfectly.

LK - Interior

At the point the waiter asked if we wanted a dessert, Sanja was full already, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to taste my favorite – Tulumba.

LK - Tulumba

Tulumba is my favorite dessert and the fact that this one was dry is simply unforgivable.

LK - Interior

Lorenzo & Kakalamba
Cvijićeva 110
+381648087806
+381113295351

Categories: restaurants, serbia
by Marija

Dates Cupcakes

March 16, 2011 TEKST NA SRPSKOM

Dates Cupcakes

Dates Cupcakes
(adapted from here)

120 g pitted chopped dates
175 ml water
80 g powdered sugar
60 ml oil
1 bag Bourbon vanilla sugar
100 g flour
50 g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

Put dates and water into a bowl and boil. Let cool, then add oil, powdered sugar, Burbon vanilla sugar and puree in a blender. Sift in flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa and whisk.

Bake in a preheated oven on 180°C for about 20 minutes.

Chocolate Ganache

100 g dark chocolate
40 g butter

Melt chocolate with 20 g butter in a double boiler. Wait until it cools a bit, then add the remaining butter. Cool a bit more (but is needs to stay soft enough) and spread over baked cupcakes.

Note: This is my entry to Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Mele Cotte.

Categories: cupcakes & muffins
by Marija

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