Ri­cotta Gnocchi

Ri­cotta gnocchi is not a recipe spe­cial to my family. Alt­hough the dish is eaten in almost all parts of Italy, it is fre­quently unknown to some people. To me, it re­calls sweet me­mo­ries of my child­hood. It takes me back to my summer ho­li­days at my grand­par­ents’ in the moun­tains of Tren­tino, a place where I was simply just happy. A bit like Marcel Proust and his bel­oved Made­leine. These ri­cotta gnocchi awaken my mé­moire in­vo­lon­taire.

Unlike the big city where I was raised, in Tren­tino they still always use fresh pro­ducts sourced from local suppliers.

As a child, I loved going shop­ping with my nonna to buy fresh ri­cotta in the dairy shop. And then I’d often eat it straight away for break­fast. I’d spread it on bread with a bit of sugar – a great way to start the day.

I rang my nonna a few days ago to ask for her ri­cotta gnocchi recipe.

A very simple, yet tasty dish. Here’s the in­gre­di­ents you’ll need, and how to prepare it…

For 2-3 persons:

  • 250 g firm ri­cotta (al­ter­na­tively you can use ri­cotta bought from a su­per­market, even if the qua­lity is not quite the same)
  • 100 g wheat flour, type 00 (the kind you use to make pizza). You might have to add a little more flour to pro­duce a dough that is firm, but still elastic
  • 2 tbsp. grana padano cheese
  • 1 egg
  • A pinch of salt
  • Butter
  • Sage
  • Op­tional: grated truffle

Bring some water to the boil (salted to taste).

While the water heats, put the ri­cotta, egg, some of the flour, salt and grana padano into a bowl. Knead ever­y­thing tog­e­ther with your hands to make a dough. If it’s not firm enough, add some more flour.

Once the dough is ready, put it out on a work sur­face dusted with flour, and roll into medium-sized balls (or any other pre­ferred shape).

Sprinkle some flour on the shaped gnocchi, and im­merse them in the water.

Add the butter and sage to a frying pan, and heat until the butter turns brown.

As soon as the gnocchi have risen to the sur­face of the water, remove them from the water using a skimmer spoon, add to the pan and fry in the sage butter.

Sprinkle with grated truffle or grana padano ac­cor­ding to preference.

Buon ap­pe­tito!

Aus­trian-style Apricot Dumplings

Our recipe for this Week comes from Aus­tria, and it’s in­tro­duced to us here by Jes­sica May.

I can still cle­arly re­member how my grandma often made apricot dum­plings during the ho­li­days. I always found this quite spe­cial, and it seemed like grandma’s very own in­dul­gence routine.

No­wa­days, apricot dum­plings are usually eaten as a des­sert. They used to be thought of as a main course, as indeed were the ma­jo­rity of Austria’s other pastry dishes.

Did you know that this one-time luxury dish, which then became part of the menu of or­di­nary house­holds ever­y­where, is now pro­tected as part of the nation’s cu­linary he­ri­tage? Un­be­lie­vable, but true!

It is one of the tra­di­tional dishes to have its recipe kept in a safe in the Aus­trian Na­tional Li­brary in Vienna, so as to pre­serve it for posterity.

So, here is grandma’s very own in­dul­gence routine:

  • Pre­pa­ra­tion time: approx. 30 minutes
  • Res­ting time: approx. 1 hour
  • Cooking/baking time: approx. 30 minutes
  • Total time: approx. 2 hours
In­gre­di­ents for making 5 portions:
  • 500g quark (curds)
  • 100 g butter
  • 2 eggs
  • 250 g flour
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • some wheat se­mo­lina, to bind the dough
  • 10 apri­cots
  • bread crumbs
  • sugar
  • butter
  • op­tional: cinnamon

This is enough dough to make 10 dumplings.

Knead the curd, eggs, butter and salt into a smooth dough, add ap­pro­xi­m­ately 1 – 2 tbsp. se­mo­lina, and knead again tho­roughly. Chill for about 1 hour to allow the se­mo­lina to swell.

Pit the apri­cots You could use plums in­s­tead of apri­cots, if you prefer.

Shape the dough into a roll, and divide it into 10 equally-sized pieces. The dough can be a little sticky, so always dust your hands with some flour when en­ca­sing the fruit in the dough. The dough casing should be about 1 – 2 cm thick de­pen­ding on the size of the fruit

Steep in slightly salted, gently sim­me­ring water for about 20 – 30 mi­nutes (de­pen­ding on whe­ther you are using fresh or frozen fruit). The dough should rise nicely, and the fruit be soft on the inside.

At the same time, melt some butter in a pan, add the bread crumbs and sugar, and brown slowly over a gentle heat. You can decide how much butter, bread crumbs and sugar to add. It’s all down to your in­di­vi­dual taste.
Once cooked, drain the dum­plings, add to the browned bread crumbs in the pan, coat all over and serve hot.
If you like, you can sprinkle them with some icing sugar and cinnamon.

Enjoy!

Jiaozi – Chi­nese Dumplings

The New Year is just around the corner, so what better time for a very tra­di­tional Jiaozi recipe from our Aus­trian sis­ters, Qi­onglin and Yuru WU.

Jiaozi is a well-known dish th­roug­hout China. The recipe varies from one region to the next. There are also dif­fe­rent fol­ding tech­ni­ques, and the fil­ling can be pre­pared ac­cor­ding to va­rying tastes … using ve­ge­ta­bles or sea­food, for ex­ample. The Jiaozi we are showing you here, are made using mixed minced meat, car­rots and ox­heart cabbage.

Hen­dian (Yuru WU)

Jiaozi is a dish tra­di­tio­nally pre­pared and eaten tog­e­ther by the whole family at New Year – and that’s how we do it in the WU home, too. Our grand­par­ents and par­ents, and we the children, all gather round the dining table, and ever­yone has a part to play:

Papa, head chef of the WU family, pre­pares the fil­ling, while Mama gets the dough ready. Then, once it’s all ready, Grandma rolls out the dough in the tra­di­tional manner, while we siblings fold the Jiaozi into their dum­pling shape.

As a family, we all really enjoy it, and it’s a great way to start the New Year together.

In­gre­di­ents

for 4 – 6 people

Dough
  • 750 g flour (type 450)
  • 2.5 tbsp. salt
  • 400 ml lu­ke­warm water
Fil­ling
  • 500 g mixed minced meat
  • 250 g chopped carrots
  • 250 g chopped ox­heart cabbage
  • 3 tbsp. soya sauce
  • 1 tbsp. dark soya sauce
  • 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
  • 1 tbsp. salt
  • 2 pin­ches of pepper
  • 3 pieces of scallions
  • 30 ml of oil
  • 20 g ginger
  • 4 garlic cloves

Pre­pa­ra­tion

For the dough, simply mix the flour, salt and water. When you see lumps be­gin­ning to form, knead the dough well with your hands. To test if the dough is soft enough, press it with your finger. If it re­gains its shape wi­t­hout any indent forming, then it is ready. If this is not the case, simply moisten your hands with some water, and con­tinue kne­a­ding the dough. Once it has been kne­aded, allow the dough to rest for a while. Do this by spre­a­ding a cloth or some cling film over the dough to pre­vent it drying out.

NOTE: The longer the dough re­mains wrapped in the cling film, the softer it will become, BUT don’t let it get too soft, so keep a close eye on it!

Now, let’s turn to the filling.

Add the car­rots and ox­heart cab­bage to the minced meat, and season ever­y­thing with the soya sauce, oyster sauce, salt and pepper. Mix the fil­ling well. Now, heat the oil and add the finely chopped garlic and ginger. After 30 se­conds, or once you can smell the aromas, mix the garlic and ginger, tog­e­ther with the oil, into the filling.

The fil­ling can be varied ac­cor­ding to your own par­ti­cular pre­fe­rences. For ve­ge­ta­rians and vegans, we re­com­mend sub­sti­tu­ting the meat for ve­ge­ta­bles with low water content.

Now it’s time to shape our dum­plings. Sprinkle some flour onto your work sur­face, and put about a third of the dough onto the sur­face. If your work sur­face is large enough, you can put all of the dough out in one go. Cover the rest of the dough. You need small round discs of dough to make the dum­plings. There are two ways of doing this:

  1. The quick method: roll out the dough until it is about 2 mm thick, and cut out the discs using a large cir­cular cookie cutter (approx. 10 cm in diameter).
  2. Tra­di­tional method: shape the dough into a roll, and using a knife, cut it into equally-sized pieces about 4 cm long. Using your hand, press down the small lump of dough until it is flat, and roll out into medium-thick discs (approx. 2 mm). The discs should be about 10 cm in dia­meter. Make sure that the edge is a little thinner than the centre, so that after sha­ping the dum­plings, they have the same thic­k­ness all over.

Now for the filling.

Place about 1-2 te­as­poons of fil­ling into the centre of the disc of dough, and seal. Take a look at the video to see how to fold the dum­plings pro­perly. You’ll soon get the hang of it with a little practice.

https://videopress.com/v/0u6HNL3S?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata

Place the sealed dum­plings on a tray dusted with some flour, and cover with cling film to stop the dough drying out.

Now you just have to cook the dum­plings in boi­ling water for about 7 to 9 minutes.

Fi­nally, serve with a small bowl of soya sauce. And they’re ready.

As we say in the WU house­hold, 请慢用 [qíng màn yòng] and 新年快乐 [xīn nián kuài lè]!

(Bon ap­petit and a Happy New Year!)

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Christmas Coo­kies

Christmas is just around the corner and for all of us who enjoy a sweet treat or two, Eli­sa­beth Feulner has just the very thing for those grey, rainy days … strea­ming Christmas songs while baking yummy coo­kies. A sure way to get in the Christmas spirit, and you won’t be able to wait for the fes­tive season by the time you’re cut­ting out these cookies.

The recipe I’m sug­gesting is one that I’ve been using for a long time now. There are two things going for it. First, you don’t ne­ces­s­a­rily have to be a baking ma­estro to make these coo­kies, and second – and the main thing, of course – they taste truly de­li­cious. Just be sure to re­serve enough time, be­cause de­pen­ding on the size of the bis­cuits you cut out, it can take a while to spread out each of the layers. I always tend to use re­la­tively small cookie cut­ters, be­cause I find this makes the coo­kies taste even better, and it looks like there’s more of them too.

Happy Christmas and happy baking!

In­gre­di­ents:
  • 150 g flour
  • 40 g sugar
  • 75 g butter
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 100 g mar­zipan paste
  • 50 g cho­co­late coating
  • 50 g apricot jam
  • Walnut ker­nels
Pre­pa­ra­tion:

Com­bine the flour, sugar, butter, egg yolk and a pinch of salt, and knead into a dough. Roll out thinly and cut out the coo­kies. Bake in the oven at 200 °C for 5 – 10 mi­nutes. Remove and allow to cool.

Spread some apricot jam on the coo­kies, and add a piece of mar­zipan. Then cover with the cho­co­late coa­ting and de­co­rate with a walnut kernel.

Tip: You can use up the white of the eggs by making some mac­a­roons later on.

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Munich White Sausage

I was born and raised in Munich as were my par­ents and grand­par­ents before me, so, as a ve­ri­table child of Munich (or Münchner Kindl as the locals would say) when it comes to re­la­xing and en­joying some down­time, I’d re­com­mend a con­vi­vial break­fast of white sausage.

Who in­vented the white sau­sage? There have always been num­e­rous sto­ries sur­roun­ding its ori­gins, and they are all there to be read online.

Mün­chen – by Petra Schmidt

And what is the basis of the old saying: “White sau­sage must never hear the chimes of the midday bells”? Well, back in the days before ref­ri­ge­ra­tion, if the sau­sages were not pre-cooked, they would have to be eaten quickly other­wise they would spoil. Today, this rule is no longer ap­plied quite so strictly. The im­portant thing is to make sure you have some sweet mus­tard and pret­zels to hand, and a beer is the per­fect drink to ac­com­pany the meal.

For me, eating white sau­sage is also a way of life. Going to a tra­di­tional inn, you’ll often find yourself sit­ting and con­ver­sing with stran­gers at a table, and it’s a nice way to meet with fri­ends, too.

In­gre­di­ents per person:
  • 2 to 3 white sausages
  • 1 to 2 pretzels
  • Sweet mus­tard
Pre­pa­ra­tion:

Boil some water in a sau­cepan – add salt to the boi­ling water.

Now place the white sau­sages in the sau­cepan and remove pan from the heat. Simply let the sau­sages cook in the hot water for about 10 mi­nutes – and you’re done.

By the way – some fa­mi­lies still retain the tra­di­tion of eating white sau­sage for dinner on Christmas Eve night.

Enjoy!

Petra Schmidt

White Sau­sage with pret­zels and sweet mustard

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Black-Eyed Beans with Gari and Plantains

Our fourth recipe comes from Ghana in West Africa and is pre­sented by The­resa Messerer.

You may well be thin­king that my name has not­hing to do with Africa … but Eric, my partner’s, does. He was born in Togo and grew up in Ghana, and I love his re­cipes and cuisine.

Fufu is wi­t­hout a doubt the dish that is most ty­pical of West Africa. Fufu is a mash made from warm water and cas­sava flour that can be served with a va­riety of sauces. But be­lieve me, mas­hing fufu to make it nice and smooth and get­ting just the right ba­lance bet­ween water and cas­sava flour can be hard work wi­t­hout a bit of know-how. I’ve the­r­e­fore de­cided to show you a dif­fe­rent, but equally de­li­cious dish in­s­tead – beans and gari with ri­pened plantain.

Gari (also spelt “garri”) and beans are pretty much staple foods in West Africa. Gari, ob­tained from cas­sava, is used in a wide va­riety of dif­fe­rent ways: fried, boiled, mashed, grated or ground. When my fri­ends ask me what cas­sava is, I often say that it looks like an Af­rican potato. Cas­sava is also very com­monly found and ex­tre­mely po­pular in places like Brazil, Mau­ri­tius and other parts of Africa.

There must be a thousand va­ria­tions of this dish and va­rious ways of pre­pa­ring it and pep­ping it up with other ingredients.

Here’s my recipe – I hope you enjoy giving it a go too:

  • Por­tions: 4
  • Pre­pa­ra­tion time: 30 minutes
  • Coo­king time: 45–60 minutes
In­gre­di­ents:
  • 2 cups balck-eyed beans
  • 2 plan­tains (the riper the better)
  • 2 onions
  • 500 ml ve­ge­table oil
  • To taste: gari (cas­sava semolina)
  • salt
Pre­pa­ra­tions:

Black-eyed beans are cooked in the same way as rice, with plenty of water and a little salt. If the water boils away too quickly, simply add some more. A lot of water is needed to ensure that the beans turn out nice and soft. Simmer the beans for a total of 45–60 mi­nutes (+/-) until they are soft.

While the beans are coo­king, cut the onions into half rings and fry in plenty of ve­ge­table oil. The onions should swim a bit in the oil, which we will be using again later.

Slice the plan­tains and fry in the ve­ge­table oil until golden brown. It best to use a little more oil here too, so that the plan­tains stay nice and moist.

Once ever­y­thing is sizz­ling and cooked th­rough, serve. 

When ser­ving up, Eric is very par­ti­cular about the order of things: First the beans. Then drizzle some onion and some of the oil used to fry the onions over the beans. This gives the gari a nice crispy tex­ture. To finish off the dish, place the plan­tains on top.

Bon ap­pétit!

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Seed Cra­ckers

Seed cra­ckers are a tasty, he­althy snack and are made using a great va­riety of seed types. What’s more, the chickpea flour ver­sion doesn’t even have any carbs! They are the per­fect ac­com­p­animent to a glass of wine or beer and taste great with salad, cream cheese, guaca­mole or pesto, or can simply be po­lished off on their own. Our boss, Monica Nadal, became such a fan that she ab­so­lutely had to have the recipe, and thus was born the idea of in­tro­du­cing you to some of our fa­vou­rite dishes and treats.

At first glance, you could indeed be for­given for thin­king, “Wow! That’s a lot of in­gre­di­ents!” (available in drugs­tores and or­ganic food shops, by the way), but alt­hough the in­gre­dient list is long, the pre­pa­ra­tion time is short. You may, ho­wever, be faced with one tiny pro­blem: these cra­ckers are so tasty that you’ll have to keep making them, over and over again.

Enjoy the baking, and the nibbling, of course!

Wörn­brunn – from Ve­ro­nika Becker
  • For approx. 50 crackers
  • Pre­pa­ra­tion time: 15 min.
  • Baking time: 30 min.
  • Ca­lo­ries per cra­cker: approx. 35 kcal

In­gre­di­ents:

  • 80 g sun­flower seeds
  • 15 g pine nuts
  • 80 g chickpea flour (al­ter­na­tively whole­meal spelt flower)
  • 40 g hemp seeds, hulled
  • 40 g linseeds
  • 10 g chia seeds
  • 1 tsp ca­raway seeds
  • Salt, pepper
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 tsp dried rosemary
  • 1 tsp mild pa­prika powder
  • 4 tbsp olive oil

Pre­pa­ra­tion

  1. Heat oven to 175°C. Cover a baking tray with baking paper. Co­ar­sely chop the sun­flower seeds and pine nuts.
  2. Mix the chopped seeds and nuts in a bowl with the chickpea flour, hemp seeds, lin­seeds, chia seeds, ca­raway, ¼ tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper, thyme, ro­se­mary and pa­prika powder. Add the olive oil and 150 ml water and stir into a dough using the beater at­tach­ment of your hand mixer.
  3. Pour the dough onto the tray and spread thinly using a ta­b­les­poon or spa­tula. Place the tray in the oven (middle rack) and bake for 10 minutes.
  4. Remove the baking tray from the oven and cut the layer of dough into squares (approx. 5 x 5 cm). Then bake the seed cra­ckers for a fur­ther 20 mi­nutes, until crispy.
Seed Cra­ckers (Source: Hannah Frey/ Zu­cker­frei, die 40 Tage Challange )

Have fun while baking and until next week! 

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Tu­ni­sian Tagine with Cheese and Chicken

The next in our series of re­cipes is one from Tu­nisia, brought to us by Samah Djebbi.

Back home, Sunday was always “Cous­cous Day with Tagine” for us. As children we’d always be hel­ping Mama to prepare the food – pee­ling and chop­ping the ve­ge­ta­bles and such. And you can be sure that we’d always try and pinch some of the fried diced potato … ho­wever loud Mama’s in­dignant pro­tests, it was simply to de­li­cious to resist! I often find myself thin­king back on those days, and it’s always with a smile.

Sunday is Cous­cous Day with Tagine, no ques­tion. And it’s a child­hood tra­di­tion that I carry on with my own family today.
Now it’s my two sons who lend me a hand, and they too will hap­pily pilfer some of those scrump­tious potato cubes in­tended for the tagine.

La Marsa – from Samah Djebbi

Tagine is a kind of hearty soufflé, which can be served as a side dish or main course with some salad. There are va­rious ways of making it. You can prepare with tuna, minced meat, or moz­za­rella. The ver­sion I’m showing you today is our own per­sonal fa­vou­rite – tagine with cheese and chicken.

In­gre­di­ents:

  • 8 po­ta­toes
  • 2 chi­cken breasts
  • 1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley
  • 8 eggs (size M to L)
  • Salt and pepper
  • Ground co­ri­ander
  • Turm­eric
  • 200 g grated cheese, e.g. pizza cheese, Gouda or Emmental
  • 1 large onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • Oil for frying

Pre­pa­ra­tion:

Wash the po­ta­toes and chi­cken, and dice into small cubes. Wash the parsley and chop finely, dice the onion.  Fry the diced po­ta­toes in a frying pan with plenty of oil, and allow to drip dry on some kit­chen paper. Heat some oil in a sau­cepan and sauté the onions. Now add the chi­cken and the crushed cloves of garlic, season well with salt, pepper, co­ri­ander and turm­eric, and sauté. Add a little water and simmer. Once the chi­cken is cooked well th­rough (about 15 mi­nutes), add the washed parsley and steam to leave a vis­cous liquid con­sis­tency at the end.

Now whisk the eggs in a bowl, then add all the re­mai­ning in­gre­di­ents (chi­cken, po­ta­toes and cheese), and mix ever­y­thing well tog­e­ther. Add a little more sea­so­ning if you like, and pour ever­y­thing into a greased oven-proof dish.

Bake for around 30 min. in the oven at 180 °C, upper/lower heat on, until golden brown.

Remove from oven, allow to cool, then turn over onto a plate. Cut into pieces of the re­quired size, and serve.

Tu­ni­sian Tajine with cheese and chicken

Shehia Taiba (or Bon Ap­petit if you like)

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Recipe coll­ec­tion

Here you can find all re­cipes for our de­li­cious dishes of the All­round Ser­vice Team. Let your taste buds go on a cu­linary journey with us.

Upside-down bowl (Bol Déviré)

This dish is a Chi­­nese-Mau­ritian fusion and is very po­pular amongst Mau­ritian house­holds. It ty­pi­cally con­sists of a fil­ling of chi­cken or pork cooked in a wok with oyster/soya sauce and some veggies at the bottom of a bowl. It is then topped with fluffy bas­mati rice patted down which is turned out onto…

Tu­ni­sian Tagine with Cheese and Chicken

Back home, Sunday was always “Cous­cous Day with Tagine” for us. As children we’d always be hel­ping Mama to prepare the food – pee­ling and chop­ping the ve­ge­ta­bles and such. And you can be sure that we’d always try and pinch some of the fried diced potato … ho­wever loud Mama’s in­dignant pro­tests, it was…

Seed Cra­ckers

Seed cra­ckers are a tasty, he­althy snack and are made using a great va­riety of seed types. What’s more, the chickpea flour ver­sion doesn’t even have any carbs! They are the per­fect ac­com­p­animent to a glass of wine or beer and taste great with salad, cream cheese, guaca­mole or pesto, or can simply be polished…

Black-Eyed Beans with Gari and Plantains

Fufu is wi­t­hout a doubt the dish that is most ty­pical of West Africa. Fufu is a mash made from warm water and cas­sava flour that can be served with a va­riety of sauces. But be­lieve me, mas­hing fufu to make it nice and smooth and get­ting just the right ba­lance bet­ween water and cassava…

Munich White Sausage

And what is the basis of the old saying: “White sau­sage must never hear the chimes of the midday bells”? Well, back in the days before ref­ri­ge­ra­tion, if the sau­sages were not pre-cooked, they would have to be eaten quickly other­wise they would spoil. Today, this rule is no longer ap­plied quite so strictly. The…

Christmas Coo­kies

Christmas is just around the corner and for all of us who enjoy a sweet treat or two, Eli­sa­beth Feulner has just the very thing for those grey, rainy days … strea­ming Christmas songs while baking yummy coo­kies. A sure way to get in the Christmas spirit, and you won’t be able to wait for…

Jiaozi – Chi­nese Dumplings

The New Year is just around the corner, so what better time for a very tra­di­tional Jiaozi recipe from our Aus­trian sis­ters, Qi­onglin and Yuru WU.

Jiaozi is a well-known dish th­roug­hout China. The recipe varies from one region to the next. There are also dif­fe­rent fol­ding tech­ni­ques, and the filling…

Aus­­­trian-style Apricot Dumplings

It is one of the tra­di­tional dishes to have its recipe kept in a safe in the Aus­trian Na­tional Li­brary in Vienna, so as to pre­serve it for posterity.

Ri­cotta Gnocchi

Ri­cotta gnocchi is not a recipe spe­cial to my family. Alt­hough the dish is eaten in almost all parts of Italy, it is fre­quently unknown to some people. To me, it re­calls sweet me­mo­ries of my child­hood. It takes me back to my summer ho­li­days at my grand­par­ents’ in the moun­tains of Tren­tino, a place…

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Upside-down bowl (Bol Déviré)

Our first recipe comes from Mau­ri­tius – brought to us by Lewis Nadal:

This dish was passed down to him by his grand­mo­ther: Called bol déviré (upside-down bowl), some Mau­ritians also know it as bol ren­versé (magic bowl).

Bol dévire is a fusion of Chi­nese and Mau­ritian cui­sine, and is very po­pular among Mau­ritian fa­mi­lies. It’s one of the Nadal family’s fa­vou­rites, too. This basis of the dish ge­ne­rally con­sists of shrimps and chi­cken, pork or beef, fried in a wok with a sauce (oyster, soya and fish sauce) and ve­ge­ta­bles. The final step is to cover ever­y­thing with fluffy bas­mati or fra­grant rice, and turn it upside-down onto a plate. The dome-shaped dish is topped off with a fried egg, and some chopped coriander.

Mau­ri­tius – Ur­laubs­foto von Monica Nadal (Anfang Januar 2020)

Let’s hear what Lewis Nadal has to say about it: “My grand­mo­ther would cook this dish a lot on Sun­days, and as a child I really loved wat­ching her clo­sely as she did so. Today it’s so­me­thing I enjoy making for my own family, and now my little grand­d­aughter likes to watch and help me, too.”

In Mau­ri­tius there are va­rious ways of pre­pa­ring this dish; this one is my grandmother’s recipe.

Por­tions: 4

Pre­pa­ra­tion time: 30-60 minutes

Coo­king time: 15 minutes

In­gre­di­ents

500 g chi­cken breast, pork and/or beef cut into strips (any com­bi­na­tion if that’s to your liking)
250 g ready-to-cook shrimps or 4 peeled king prawns per por­tion
4 tbsp. sesame or ve­ge­table oil
1 tbsp.soya sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce1 piece of ginger (about the size of a thumb) grated or finely chopped
5 stems of parsley
4 sprigs of thyme (pluck or strip off the leaf­lets)
1 red onion finely diced
3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground pepper
2 tbsp. corn­flour
250 g brown or white mush­rooms thinly sliced
1 red pepper cut into strips
1 bunch of pak choi co­ar­sely chopped
3 car­rots cut into thin strips (tip: use a Ju­li­enne slicer)
350 g un­cooked, washed bas­mati or fra­grant rice
4 eggs
2-3 tbsp. ve­ge­table oil
a handful of fresh co­ri­ander, co­ar­sely chopped

What else do you need:

4 bowls, each with approx. 400 ml capacity

Pre­pa­ra­tion

Cook rice until done, then set aside.

Heat the oil in the wok. Add the pre­pared garlic, ginger and herbs, and fry for 2 mi­nutes. Then mix in the meat with the pepper, and add the shrimps tog­e­ther with the mush­rooms, and fry for an­o­ther 2-3 mi­nutes. Now the sauces are added. Con­tinue coo­king over a medium heat, stir­ring con­ti­nuously. Stir 2 tbsp. water into the corn­flour to make a smooth paste, and stir into the wok. Keep stir­ring con­ti­nuously, mixing all the in­gre­di­ents, adding salt to taste. Simmer for about 10 minutes.

Fry the eggs se­pa­ra­tely in a small non-stick frying pan, place a bowl over the pan, and turn over quickly (War­ning: please be careful not to burn your hands at this point). Scatter a little co­ri­ander in the bowl with the fried egg, then add the shrimps and por­tion out the meat and ve­ge­table mix from the wok into each of the bowls using a ladle. Then fill each bowl to the rim with rice. Place a dinner plate facing down over the bowl, and serve. Next, the mas­ter­piece is flipped over at the dining table (hence the name bol déviré – “upside-down bowl”). Now gently turn the bowl back and forth before re­mo­ving it.

Bol-Devire

Lewis Nadal says “Bon appetit”.

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