Today's Picnic menu

To welcome the good weather today we decided to go for a picnic with some friends in the surroundings of Madrid... 

After 15 kms walk we enjoyed home-made Iberian gastronomy, the spanish prepared two typical Spanish dishes: Gaspacho and Tortilla and we prepared octopus salad and a kind of "meat cake", which recipe you can find here today...

You will need:

4 eggs

3 cups of flour

1 cup of milk

1 cup of oil

3 teaspoons baking powder

ham, smoked pork sausage and pepperoni 

salt

In a bowl mix all ingredients (flour, milk, baking powder, oil and eggs). Grease the vessel (I use a silicone one so I skip this step), place the dough and the filling in layers and bake it in preheated oven at 200 º C.

Enjoy!

Wine of the Week

And this week:

And this week an habitué in my glass that goes perfectly with traditional Portuguese cuisine. This time with an excellent Cozido à Portuguesa...

My first Steak Tartare...

If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you will certainly know that I am completely addicted to Steak Tartar .. So this Saturday as I didn't found the piece of sirloin that was looking to make a beef tataki I bought a couple of pieces of sirloin to prepare my first steak tartar...

You will need:

Beef sirloin or striploin

Gherkin

Capers

dijon mustard

Salt and Pepper

chilli

shallot

Egg yolk

parsley

Start by chopping the Gherkins, shallots and capers and let it rest. Then, with a sharp knife chop the beef patiently, resist the temptation of putting it into a grinder... In the end, you will see that the texture and taste of meat has absolutely nothing to do with what you've tasted before ...

In a bowl mix all ingredients, (the proportions may vary according to your personal taste): Gherkins, capers, shallots, dijon mustard salt and pepper, finely chopped chillies and finally the chopped meat. To finish mix one egg yolk and a bit of finely chopped parsley ...

I served it with a mix of vegetables (onion, carrot and courgette): I started by grilling separately due to different cooking times, and then just cook in preheated oven at 150 ºC with a drizzle of olive oil for 10 minutes.

Note: You may also serve it with fries

Enjoy!

Strawberries frozen Daiquiri

If you asked me what comes to my mind when I speak about strawberries the answer would surely be Variety because of the multiple ways we can use it: Simple, in a fruit salad, in a desert, ice cream, juice, smoothie, or... a cocktail!

Yesterday morning when I went to the market, It was not a lie when I was told I wouldn't regret if I bought these high quality strawberries. They were really good so I used it to prepare a strawberry Ice cream which recipe you can find here on the blog, and a wonderful strawberry daiquiri...

You will need:

rum

lime juice

strawberries

ice

Sugar Syrup

In a blender add strawberries, 50 ml of rum, juice of half a lime, ice and adjust the flavour to your taste with sugar syrup. Easy, quick and delicious ...

Enjoy it!

Bikini Operation...

This year, spring is particularly shy... either hides behind a typical summer day or immediately calls the winter again. Nevertheless we are now in the middle of  bikini operation season, so if you ran out of ingredients dor your salad just go to your kitchen garden and grab some...

Wine of the week

And the wine of this week is:

Quinta das Bageiras

An excellent discovery to celebrate the equator of the thirties of a very special person... Quinta das Bágeiras 2004 is undoubtedly one of the best Portuguese sparkling wines I've tasted till today, a great choice marriage with a salad, piglet or even with a cheese as an appetiser...

Wine of the Week

And the wine of this week is...

Agnus dei

This week a white wine from D.O Rias Baixas, a Spanish Denominated region, located almost on its fronteer with the north of Portugal with a very interesting value for money.