Fried Codfish with garlic sauce

FRIED CODFISH WITH GARLIC SAUCE

Garlic sauce (skorthalia in greek)

Ingredients

600 g. potatoes

100 g. olive oil

5 cloves garlic

Salt to taste

2 TB of vinegar

Instructions

Peel the garlic and cut it in small pieces.

Peel the potatoes and wash them.

Put 1/2 liter of water in a small pot and place it over medium heat.

Cut the potatoes into pieces the size of a walnut.

Once the water boils, put in the pieces of the potatoes.

Water should be enough to cover them.

If it isn’t, add boiling water until it does.

Let the potatoes boil until they soften completely.

Remove the pot from the heat and leave it to cool.

Put in the blender the oil, the garlic and the vinegar.

Beat them for 2 min.

With a slotted ladle take half of the boiled potatoes and put them in the blender.

Take half a cup stock from the pot in which you boiled the potatoes.  

Put some salt and the stock in the blender.

Beat them all together for a while.

Open the blender, look at the potatoes and try them.

If they are too thick, add more stock in the blender and beat again.

Put in the blender the remaining potatoes. Add 1/2 a cup of stock, some salt and beat again.

Try them again and if necessary correct seasoning.

Fried codfish

Ingredients

1 k. fillet of salted codfish

200 g. flour

150 g. olive oil

50 g. corn oil

Instructions

Cut the cod into portions 3x4cm each.

Wash them very well to remove the external salt. 

Place the salted codfish in a pot. Fill the pot with water and put it in the fridge.

Change the water three times each day.

It is better for codfish to stay two days in the water in the fridge.

The third day the cod is ready for frying.

Put a nonstick skillet over medium heat and pour in both olive oil and corn oil. Warm up the oil until hot.

Put flour on both sides of every piece of the fish.

The fish is wet and the flour sticks to it.

Place some pieces of codfish next to each other in the skillet.

Fry them until a light brown crust is formed.

Turn them on the other side and cook until a light brown crust is formed.

Cover a plate with paper towels and take the fish from the pan and put it on it.

Paper towel absorbs the excessive oil. That way the fish becomes easier to digest.

Continue this way until you cook all the pieces.

Serve with garlic sauce.

Mush

Instead of the flour you can make a special batter and use it to fry the codfish.

Put in a bowl 330ml of beer.

Add flour while stirring with a wire, until you get a thick batter, but thinner than a cake batter.

Put a skillet over medium heat and pour in the oil. Let it warm up until hot.

Dip a piece of codfish in the batter and put it in the hot oil.

Fry it until its crust gets a light brown color.

Turn it to the other side and fry it the same way.

Cover a plate with paper towel.

When the pieces are cooked on both sides, remove them from the skillet and place them on the paper towel.  

The towel will absorb the exessive oil.

Cream Caramel (custard and caramel)

CREAM CARAMEL

This recipe is for a pudding mold 26 cm in diameter.

Ingredients

800 g. evaporated milk

7 large eggs

1/2 cup cognac

Zest from two lemons

3/4 cup sugar for the custard + 1 cup sugar for caramel

Instructions

Caramel

Put the sugar in a large Turkish style coffee pot.

Place the pot over low heat.

Stir the sugar constantly with a wooden spatula.

The sugar at the bottom of the pot begins to melt .

With the spatula bring the melted sugar on top and put the rest underneath.

It takes about 15 min to melt all the sugar.

The caramel is ready when all the sugar has melted and got a light brown color.

Do not overcook it, because it burns very easily.

Pour the thick brown syrup into the mold.

The caramel is extremely hot. It is very easy to burn yourself.

Use it with caution.

Tilt the form left to right so the caramel goes everywhere.

With the spatula smear with caramel all the uncovered spots.

Smear with caramel around the tube, which is in the center of the form.

When the caramel is hot, the liquid is sparse, but as it cools it becomes thicker and thicker and finally solidifies.

Custard

Put in a pot the evaporated milk, the brandy and the zest from two lemons.

Place the pot over medium heat and wait for the milk to warm up.

Remove the pot from the heat when milk is hot but not boiling.

Put the whole eggs in a bowl and beat for 3 min with a wire. Add sugar and beat again.

Fill a tea cup with hot milk and pour it in the eggs while stirring.

Continue until all the hot milk has been poured into the eggs.

Pour the egg mixture into the pudding mold, over the caramel.

Place a big cooking pan in the bottom rack of the oven.

Pour 4 liters of water in the pan.

Put the pudding mold in the cooking pan in the middle of the water.

Bake the custard at 175 Celsius degrees for an hour.

When the custard takes a light brown on top, it is ready.

Turn off the oven and leave the custard inside.

When the water in the cooking pan cools, take the mold out of the oven.

Let the custard cool completely before trying to remove it from the mold.

Using a thin knife to unstuck the cream from the walls of the form.

Let the cream 3-4 hours out of the oven to cool, before attempting to turn it upside down.

Put a round serving platter, larger than the mold, above it.

The platter should have some depth to be able to hold the syrup of the custard, when you reverse it.

When you turn the cream up side out, the caramel comes on top of the custard.

Some of the caramel remains stuck on the walls of the mold.

Take a spoon and collect it and put it over the custard.

Put the cold cream 1 hour in the refrigerator to set.

The cream thickens in the fridge and is easy to cut it into slices and serve it.

With a spoon, put syrup over each piece.

Cream caramel in individual cake pans

With the same recipe you can make individual mini custard.

Put in each cake pan caramel to cover its bottom.

Pour in the cake pan proportional amount of the egg mixture.

Put the cake pans adjacent to one another in a big cooking pan.

Place the big cooking pan in the bottom rack of the oven.

Put water in it and bake. Continue as above.

Chicken with noodles

CHICKEN WITH NOODLES

Ingredients

1 large chicken 1.5-2 kg

1 pound of noodles

300 g whipping cream 35% fat

200 g. grated Gouda cheese

200 g. grated Edam cheese

150 g. Feta cheese

1 pound white mushrooms

Salt, pepper,

A sprig of rosemary

1 TB coriander grains

30 g. margarine

 

Instructions

How to prepare the chicken

Wash the chicken thoroughly.

Remove the skin from the chicken. Do not use it in the food because it is full of fat.

Rub with salt and pepper the inside of the belly, and the bones of the chest.

Leave the meat with salt and pepper for 5 min and then rinse.

This procedure reduces the smell that the chicken has got from its offal.

 Put the chicken in a large pot.

Add water until it covers the chicken and reaches four centimeters above it.

Put in the pot salt, pepper, 1 sprig of rosemary and the coriander grains.

Put the pot over high heat to boil.

Just before boiling,  foam rises to the surface of the water.  

Collect the foam with a soup ladle and discard it to the trash.

After skimming the chicken, reduce the heat and let it cook uncovered for an hour.

The chicken is cooked when, unsticks from bones.

If it isn’t soft enough in an hour, let it boil longer.

With a slotted ladle take the chicken of the pan and put it in a serving platter.

Salt it lightly and leave it to cool.

Strain the broth of the chicken and pour it in a clean pot.

Put the pot with the broth in the freezer.

Leave it there as long as the fat of the broth needs to solidify.

When the broth is cool a layer of fat floats on its surface.

Remove with a spatula the fat and discard it in the trash.

Put again the pot in the refrigerator.

How to cook the noodles

Wash the mushrooms and cut them into thin slices.

Put a deep frying pan over high heat.

Place the margarine in the pan and stir it until it melts.

Put the mushrooms into the pan and salt the slightly.

Stir often until they soften and their color becomes light brown.

Remove them from the heat.

Cut the cheeses in the food processor.

Clean the meat of the chicken.

Remove the bones, the fat and the tendons and discard them in the trash.

Cut the cleaned meat into pieces that have the size of a gross almond.

Remove from the refrigerator the pan with the chicken broth.

Put in a large clean pot six cups of broth.

Place it over high heat and wait to boil.

Keep in the freezer the leftover broth for another recipe.

When it starts boiling, pour in the cream.

Again wait the broth to boil and then put in the noodles.

Stir the noodle often so they won’t stick.

Let the noodles cook for eight minutes.

The noodles should not stick, they should be slightly uncooked. .

Put in the noodle half of the cheese and all the mushrooms.

Let the noodles boil two more minutes.

 Remove from heat.

Stir in the noodles the trimmed pieces of chicken.

The noodles should not be too dry.

If it seems to you that they have absorbed all their broth, add a cup of broth.

Use a deep ovenproof dish or deep pan.

The Pyrex must have dimensions 36CH24CH7 centimeters.

Put the noodles in this dish and stir so the ingredients mix well.

Spread the noodles evenly in the pan.

Sprinkle the surface of the food with the remaining cheese.

Put the Pyrex in the bottom rack of the oven.

Bake for 30 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

After that time open the oven and check.

If you see that the noodles on the top are dried, use a spatula an turn them upside down.

Look, if the cheese has melted. If not, wait until it melts.

Once the cheese melts remove immediately the noodles from the oven.

Open the oven door and leave it to cool slightly.

Cover the noodles with foil and put them in the oven again.

This way they will keep warm until served, but will not dry out.