Winter salad with mustard and vinegar #189

It's time for a winter salad, it's simple tasty and let's you use some of the delicious vegetables that you might not use for salads that often. It's very simple, peel and wash root vegetables. Slice them thin and make a vinaigrette with mustard and red wine vinegar, combine with the vegetables and serve. 

Here it is served as a tapas but this is almost better as a side for that fatty Christmas food or Sunday roast with the relatives, since it's quite acidic the salad could also replace pickled vegetables, maybe put on a burger?

Winter salad with mustard and vinegar

root vegetables, use your favorites, I used yellow beets, purple carrots, carrots and celeriac

mustard

brown and yellow mustard seeds

parsley

olive oil

red wine vinegar

salt, pepper

Peel and wash the vegetables and then slice thin using a potato peeler, combine in a bowl. Combine olive oil, mustard, vinegar and mustard seeds, chop the parsley and add to the vinaigrette. Season and adjust the flavors to your own liking, I make it a bit more acidic than a normal vinaigrette and quite a bit of mustard so the salad gets a little sting, add salt and pepper and combine the vinaigrette with the vegetables, serve.

New Years recipe ideas for meat lovers

New Years Eve is coming up and if you haven´t decided on what to serve I have picked some of my own favorite recipes from Delicious Tapas and have some great suggestions for you!

This is part five in this series and for this post I will focus on all you meatlovers out there.

All recipes can be found in their original post that I have linked for each dish. I haven´t suggested any dessert but since I´m not that much into desserts. But if I have to recommend something I would go for any great ice cream, because who doesn´t love ice-cream?

New Years menu for meat lovers

Appetizers - for the appetizer we have some seared beef, duck breast, bacon with potatoes and Italian breasola, all to get your hands on a lot of different great tasting meats.

Duck breast with apples and mustard

Potatoes with bacon and sour cream
Breasola with Parmesan cheese, arugula and pumpkin seeds
Beef with dijon mustard and red onion

Starter

Whipped ricotta cheese with proscuitto, figs and truffle honey

After indulging in a few different meats as appetizers it´s time to move on to some Italian ham with figs, honey and truffles. The ricotta is actually the star of this dish but it would be nothing without the ham.

Main course

Slow cooked leg of lamb with potato cream
Onion rings

The main course is a bit heavier, but slow cooked meats are great tasting and always appreciated plus you´ll get a great chance to open up that old heavy red wine that´s been sitting in the cellar for a while. Some onion rings on the side completes it.

Lobster tail with caper aioli #131

When it comes to lobster there is no need to complicate things, you divide it in pieces and serve it with a good sauce. I bought my lobster cooked so all I did was to split it up, if you are serving it for a lot of people you can put some different part on each plate for example each claw on seperate plates and each tail split in four pieces, that way you can serve each lobster in tasty bites to six people and have a bunch of shells that you can use for soup some other time.

Lobster tail with caper aioli

cooked lobsters
eggs
oil (neutral tasting, I usually use rapeseed)
capers
lemon
chives
mustard
vinegar
garlic
salt, pepper

Split the lobsters in bite size pieces. Blend garlic, chives and capers into a fine paste and put in a bowl together with a little bit of mustard, egg yolks and a dash of vinegar. You´re basically making a mayonnaise with some extra flavors so use the same proportions. Whisk the mix and add a little bit of oil at the time until it thickens. When it´s thick enough adjust the flavors with more capers and chives if necessary. Season with salt and pepper and lemon juice.

When you are making a sauce with strong tasting flavors like capers and garlic then start by adding just a little bit, it´s much easier to add a little bit more than to end up with an overpowering sauce.

Crab claws with aioli & salt #89

Not much to it, if you can´t find raw crab claws then it´s fine to use cooked if you have a good place to buy shellfish, and if you´re feeling extra lazy go ahead and buy the aioli as well. If not the follow the recipe below.

Crab claws with aioli & salt

raw crab claws
salt
dill (optional)
water

People like to put beer, sugar and all sorts of things in the water when they cook shellfish, I prefer salt, water and dill. Bring water to the boil, salt it and if you´re using dill then add it. Taste the water, it should have about the same saltiness as sea water. When the water is boiling add the claws and bring the water to boil again. Then remove from heat and let cool in the water. You can serve them warm or cold.

Now time for aioli, you´ll need

egg yolk
Dijon mustard
garlic
vinegar
neutral oil for example grape seed or rapeseed oil
salt, pepper

I use half a teaspoon of mustard and a small clove of garlic for each egg yolk but adjust according to taste. Whisk the egg yolks with the mustard, vinegar and crushed garlic, add some salt and pepper right away. Add the oil slowly and whisk during the whole process, stop adding oil when the aioli is thick enough. Season with mustard, garlic, vinegar, salt and pepper according to taste. Good luck!

Nürnberger sausage with fennel coleslaw & mustard #70

The Nürnberger sausage is a small almost white German sausage that dates back all the way to 1313. It´s usually small and you´ll need to serve three or four of them for a main course. I usually serve them together with other meats as well like roasted chicken or with other sausages. Since it´s small in size it´s great to serve as a tapas.

The Nürnberger is protected be EU-law and it must be produced in Nürnberg to have to right to be called a Nürnberger, but don´t worry this recipe works with most sausages with a good pork taste.

Nürnberger sausage with fennel coleslaw & mustard

Nürnberger sausages
mayonnaise
fennel
lemon juice
salt, pepper
cracked mustard seeds

With a potato peeler shave the fennel into thin slices, add a few drops of lemon juice and mayonnaise, combine and season with salt and pepper.

Fry the sausages in a pan, serve a spoonful of coleslaw with one sausage and sprinkle with cracked mustard seeds.

Duck breast with apple & mustard # 20

Duck breast with apple & mustard

Duck breast
Apple
Dijon mustard
Salt, pepper
Olive oil

Fry the duck breast and leave to cool. Cut the apple in strips, blend with dijon mustard, olive oil, season with salt and pepper.

Beef with dijon mustard & red onion # 2

Seared beef with dijon mustard and some fresh sliced red onions, sometimes that´s all it takes to make a great tapas. Make sure you pick a high quality meat, since it´s served as a small tapas it won´t cost a lot to get a higher quality piece.

Beef with dijon mustard & red onion

Some good quality beef
Dijon mustard
Red onion
Parsley
Olive oil
Salt, Pepper

Seare or grill the beef and then cut into small slices, put som dijon mustard on each piece. Slice the onion and chop the parsley finely. Arrange on top, season with salt and peppar and some olive oil. Serve as a great tapas.