The Piri-Piri Obsession: Our simple (almost) original, flame-grilled Nando's Chicken Recipe

During our time in London, the prince of sun and I got completely passionate about Nando's. Our favourite is the medium spice version of the flame-grilled Piri-Piri chicken.

Luke was obviously admiring the chicken from
start till end :D

We were unable to forget the incredibly delicious taste and decided it was time to get our hands into business. First step: During this year's early September market in Porto Seguro, we bought the long wanted simple churrasqueira (portable for future beach barbecues!) and came up with our very own and simple

RECIPE FOR PIRI PIRI CHICKEN * NANDO'S CHICKEN
Ingredients:
- any chicken you prefer, could be breast, whole chicken, there goes your preference, ours was chicken breast with some bones

For the Piri-Piri sauce, you'll throw the following ingredients into the mixer:
- fresh chiles, depending on how hot you like it - or chili sauce
- 2 heads of garlic
- salt, pepper
- olive oil
- coriander (Brazilian coentro)
- bit of vinegar, bit of lime

Our new flame grill churrasqueira & the prince
of sun taking care of the Piri Piri Chicken

You should get a delicious, hot sauce - very fresh smelling, in our case with a tendecy to coriander which we both adore.

We then cut out the breast bone to get butterfly-shaped open-lying breast shape and massaged the sauce into the chicken. Best would be to actually leave it soaking up the sauce during the whole night or at least 3-4 hours to get the lovely taste right until the bones.

And then you just throw the whole lot onto your barbecue grill of choice (or skewer) and roast the chicken to your preferred bronzed tone, our preference is quite deep and dark.

We had our Piri-Piri chicken with Graviola juice, garlic rice and vinagrete (tomato salad with onions, vinegar, oil and coriander). Yum.....

Enjoy!

Eugenia - Jambo fruit also called Java Apple: My very first Eugenia jam

Early spring time in Brazil! August and September are the fruity seasons for Jambo fruits. It was late May (Brazilian autumn-ish) that the beautiful Eugenia tree had his pink sea of flowers (which are in fact edible as well, not very special in its taste, but very pretty to look at.) which in fact looked a bit like a vulcano spying pink lava.

And now the delicious, smooth fruits are ready for harvesting, all shining in bright, dark-deep delicious vulcano-red. My brother in law invited us to get as much as we could carry as the tree in his garden is carrying a whole lot of it and his family got kind of tired of eating them so most fruits are partly eaten by birds (who only did one little picky bite and went onto the next fruit, so --- a lot of waste in the fruit section).

So off we went to harvest the Eugenias (that's how people call this fruit around here, in some other regions in Brazil they are also called Jambo, the original tree/fruit name is Eugenia malaccensis). The prince of sun and his brother climbed onto the huge tree and started collecting the fruits while our niece, sister in law and the dogs were watching patiently for some fruits to fall down - which can be a bit dangerous, once an Eugenia fell directly into my sister in law's eyes and she ended up with bruises so... better stay alert and watch your head when you are under an Eugenia tree in August and September ;)

Arriving at home with about 4-5kg of Eugenia fruits, I washed the fruits and then we had quite a few of them, just as on the days before when we went to visit their family and took Luke to his doggy playmates. The ripe fruits have a deep red have a sweet, slightly sour taste (the ones that are not as ripe are a bit more sour), kind of apple-ish and the aroma is almost like roses, very different from what I have experienced in fruits until now. So, what's a woman to do when she has LOADS of fruits?

Great German supermarket product/price comparison site

Last October I talked about a UK/US supermarket comparison site called http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/ (UK version) that enables you to paralelly compare the total sum of your shopping with each individual supermarket taking part in the list and puts the cheapest of the supermarkets on top as soon as the sum of your shopping basket changes with a cheaper new product.

Now I stumbled over a similar German site called http://www.supermarktcheck.de/ - it does not compare whole baskets, as far as I found out it only compares single products so it takes a bit more work to figure out the basket for each single. Another feature of the site is that you can either search for 1st option: How much?, 2nd for: Buy where?, 3rd: How many calories?, 4th quality check? and finally 5th: How much will I save buying the shop's version of the product?

A neat site which surely could highly progress by offering a similar "basket comparison" option as the UK and US comparison sites.

Castles in Germany: Altes Schloss Hohenbaden & castle restaurant

Any castle fans here? Planning a trip to Europe any time soon? Well, congratulations, you are coming to the right place, Germany is the hotspot for all castle and middle-age fanatics!

This time I took my London friends to the Altes Schloss Hohenbaden, the Old Castle in Baden-Baden. It is part intact, part restored ruins and a very mysterious yet romantic spot.

As part of its history, it has (like most castles) lots of stories, including the legend of The Grey Lady: 
A countess famous for supressing the population and only worried about herself. Always asking for hard labour and high tax, and those who dared to resist, were promptly thrown into the dark and damp dungeon of the castles, where in worst case scenario followed physical torture.

One evening, she took her only baby son up to the top of the highest tower. Looking down on her kingdom, she held her son far over the stone window ledge and sneered: "Look and count all the villages, spots and farms! They are endless. As far as your eye can reach, all people have to bow and scrape to you. Force them under your knout and don't give them rest, thus you will live well on earth!"

But the moment the lady finished her cruel speech, the baby boy slipped through her hands and fell down into the deep darkness. Pale as death the lady rushed down the stairs to look for her son. Although she forced her servants to look for her child day and night, the boy was never found.

So since this incident, the legend says that the crual countess is running down the stairs of the castle on stormy days and when you listen well, you can hear her shrill voice being carried in the hoarse winds through the narrow corridors of the castles.

Me having some delicious moca tart

Got some goose bumps? hehe.... My friends indeed felt some shiver, especially with the wind harp close by, which claims to be the biggest in Europe.... We then decided that we had earned some rest and headed for some coffee and cake in the castle's own restaurant, I had some amazing moca tart and my friends both had fruit cakes, very yummy! Here the Castle Restaurant Menu.











Here some more pictures of the wind harp and beautiful sights of the mysterious, romantic castle:

Quick "Digestive" Cinnamon Oat biscuits - Easy recipe & basic ingredients

Today afternoon I was working and patiently concentrating on solving some $%# issues when I suddenly felt THE most urgent desire to have some digestive oats biscuits. Now, those who have never had them (most people living in the UK have probably come across a sort during one of their shopping trips), it is simple oats biscuits/cookies, nothing makes them more digestive than other sorts :D But I guess it did the trick for me somehow and I ADORED them, definitely one of my clear favourites of English biscuits. Especially the ginger oat biscuits, omg...

The thing is - I am NOT in London or the UK at the moment, so how on earth could I satisfy my desire? I almost immediately decided that today was the DIGESTIVE trial, my first attempt to make proper oats biscuits.

And THANK GOD, they turned out almost identical in taste, if not a bit better as I did not use as much sugar and additives as they probably use in their factory biscuits. The ingredients list of my recipe of cinnamon oats biscuits is reaaally simple, I would even claim that almost everyone has the necessary ingredients at home:

Ingredients: (makes +/-25 medium sized biscuits)

Love parcels: If I were a little bird and had 2 little wings, I'd fly to you!

Today I had two sweet surprises waiting for me at my doorstep.

One was literally sweet: A parcel from my lovely mum <3 full of goodies, delicious, sweet forest fruit tea (that I am slurping right now) as well green tea and as other sorts, loads of beautiful poems, songs and prayers as well as the invitation to my cousin's wedding and some cheerful baloons. =) My dear mum always manages to surprise me over and over again with new ideas and beautiful memories of my childhood and favourite childhood songs as well as showing me new poetry and in general re-inventing life and love the whole time.

The poem that touched me most was my alltime favourite little bird song (shown on the postcard in the middle picturing a young woman with a looong braid sitting under a try, being thoughtful and observing little birds flying around. The only colour aspect of the picture is a tiny heart on the bottom <3 so beautiful! *_*).

The poem says:                                                     (this old-style-German poem translates to something like:

"Wenn ich ein Voeglein waer,                                If I were a little bird  
 und auch zwei Flueglein haett,                               and had two little wings,    
floeg ich zu dir.                                                      I'd fly to you!
Weils aber nicht kann sein,                                    But as it cannot be,
weils aber nicht kann sein,                                     but as it cannot be,
bleib ich all hier!"                                                   I'll have to stay right here!).

She has also sent me loads of beautiful poems by Rudolf Alexander Schroeder, which I will come back to in a minute =) By the way, my mum had sent some cosmetics as well, but those errr got lost on the way somehow - we will never know where, right, aehem....


The second nice surprise was a traditional postcard from my friend law girl who is doing her LLM, master of law, in San Francisco and has sent her lovely lines over. It is the first postcard that actually arrived, she had sent one from New York once that got lost in the nirvana of international air mail =) So happy it arrived this time hun! <3 And who knows maybe the Brazilian mail will be getting better and better each, paying a bit more to their staff resulting in more reliable work force resulting in better service offered to the public!

(So yes, just need to work on that 'stuff disappearing'-issue, but we'll get there right, as we say in Germany: Es ist noch nie ein Meister vom Himmel gefallen = It never happened that a master fell from the sky., meaning we all continue learning and perfecting what we do...

And now, as promised before, here some of the beautiful poems by Rudolf Alexander Schroeder:

My morning in three easy steps

Here my morning in three easy steps haha:

Step 1: Wake up and put this octopus hair in a bun to stop it from strangling me

Step 2: Open the door and in comes Luke for his first belly rub

Step 3: Morning coffee =) 

And guess what happened after taking the morning cup pictures?  

Juparanã Tapioca - Pudim-cuzcuz de tapioca (semolina-rice-couscous-ish Tapioca manioc-flour pudding)

On the (rare) 'chilly' days here in Porto Seguro I love to prepare cuzcuz de tapioca (I prefer to call it pudim de tapioca as traditional cuzcuz dishes are mostly with coconut milk and coconut pieces which I rarely use even if the traditional recipe recommends it).

Most of the time I keep it very simple and just mix the Juparanã Tapioca cereal (which looks like kind of a mix of semolina, couscous and rice) with (loads of) milk, cream, salt, sugar and spices (pimenta, cinnamon), let it rest a bit in milk, then cook the milk on low heat, mix with spices and then leave it with loads of more milk to thicken.

The grains tend to swell a lot, so first time I tried it I ended up with a huuuuge pot of this delicious, sweet and very filling dessert! Less is more even if it looks like nothing when you put it in the milk pot first... it reminds me of semolina, just muuuch bigger grains - and at first it might feel funny eating them as it feels like lots of little soft-yet-hard-ish pearls.

Now, what exactly is Juparanã Tapioca?

Easy 32p Soda Baguette with a slight taste of Bretzel

Freshly-made warm bread is one of the things I never get tired of. Especially when it's simple ones with basic and only few ingredients, a short preparation and short baking time.

This Soda baguette is kind of a copy version of Easy Soda Bread - A girl called Jack - a simplified 32p Soda Bread recipe posted by Jack Monroe.

I have changed a few things, but most of the recipe is the same. Wonderful and quick "Airy Fairy Easy Peasy Soda Bread", which surely will become one of my quick weekly fresh bread options from now on. I was really surprised that the bread had a slight Laugen (pretzel) taste on the bottom side and crust *_* Another plus point here!

I have to admit although I had warm lunch and warm dinner, (heavy lunch of rice, beans, pumpkin and cooked chicken and heavy dinner of rice, beans and fried carne-de-sol meat), the latter actually just about 1h before the bread was ready, I still managed to eat the whole baguette (supposed to serve 4) all by my own and had it warm with melting butter and blackberry jam......

Ingredients:

Coconut Chicken with Cabbage & Pimenta Arriba-Saia

Tonight I was working - the heat and humidity of the air almost the same as during the day. Silently sweating my way through the tasks and messages, I drank some water with ice cubes when FINALLY, a slow but steady rain shower cooled my hot head and everything around us seemed to relax and sight of exhaustion and relief.

Coconut Chicken with Cabbage & Pimenta

Feeling all cosy and refreshed with new motivation on board, I suddently felt an urge to cook up a storm and off I went to check what I had in the fridge. I had most things I usually get as my `basics` except the coconut milk that I picked up randomly (but instinctively) during my last shopping trip.

I HAD to use this coconut milk no matter what I was going to cook. I checked what was in need to be eaten so that I would not have to throw it away and TADA, a pretty big chunk of cabbage lying innocently on the bottom of my fridge, neglected during the last few days.

So I did a short search on cabbage and coconut milk and found an overwhelming amount of coconut cabbage chicken recipes, mostly curry-related dishes. I don`t have curry spice at home, but thought, alright, cabbage+chicken+coconut=dish should be totally working out so I mixed some of the ingredients I found in different recipes and came up with my own version of Coconut Chicken with Cabbage, adding my self-made pimenta spice I had mentioned beforehand (*Pimenta Spice), quite simple as it is just plain Arriba-Saia pimenta-vegetables in a salt-vinegar solution.

Ingredients (serve 2):
400g chicken (breast), cut in 2-3cm cubes
1/3 of a medium-sized cabbage head, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon of butter
a tablespoon of finely chopped fresh coriander
a bit of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of Arriba-Saia pimenta(-vinegar) (if you have another pimenta or hot spice such as pepperoni or something similar, that should probably work as well, depending on how hot you like your sauce)
1 tablespoon of loose chicken stock (add more salt if preferred)
1 onion, finely chopped
2 medium garlic knobs, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped
100ml coconut milk
juice of 1/4 lemon (or half a teaspoon of plain lemon juice)

I first quickly pre-fried the chicken in a bit of water, butter and chicken stock in the pressure cooker for about 6min while chopping the veggies. Then adding first the onion and cabbage, letting it fry a little bit I later added garlic and the rest of the ingredients, finishing off with half of the coconut milk, then letting it simmer on low heat for about 5min and adding the rest of the coconut milk and lemon juice just before serving it. Maybe you might need a bit more salt, the prince of sun and I do not add much of it compared to most Brazilians around here, in general, when I cook with chicken stock, I don t feel the need to add more salt anyway.

I preferred it with plain rice and nothing else as it is very flavourful and sweet-spicy, but the prince of sun had it with rice and beans and found it a delicious match as well.

BOM APETITE!

Limonada de casca de lima (Limonade of Sweet Lemon Peel) - good for the flora of the intestines!

Today, the prince of sun`s India grandmum (Indio (masculine) and India (feminine) are the Brazilian expressions for ``Native``, not to be confused with India, the Asian country!) came over for a visit and brought a huge basket of "limas" with her. She explained that it is kind of a mix between lime and orange. She recommended having the fruit part just by itself and making juice of the lima peel.

Intrigued I immediately went on trying it out and was really surprised: The fruit pulp is really light, almost whitish and very mild compared to lime or lemons. Even Luke - who normally only plays with and barks at lemons or limes - ate half a lima.



The juice turned out amazing, just added half a liter of water and some sugar to the peel of one whole lima, put the whole lot in the mixer and then pressed the juice through a sieve. I have never tasted something like this before!

Very refreshing and delicious. Mild, just a tiny bit bitterish and sourish but again sweet and almost no aftertaste at all. I am loving this fruit!!!

Even better that it is good for the flora of the intestines! ;)

`Pimenta nos olhos dos outros é refresco`: Tissue Burns through Brazilian pimenta vegetables

Yesterday, my sweet sister in law gave me a whole basket full of fresh vegetables and fruits. Her husband had been at a friend's farm and came back with a car boot (trunk) full of fresh goodies.

Delicious smells of freshness, amongst others, we got heaps of sweet, mild bananas, passion fruits, green peppers, lettuce, sweet potatoes, mandiocs and other veggies, not to forget green and yellowish-orangy Brazilian pimenta vegetables, which are comparable with chili.

A Brazilian proverb says:
`Pimenta nos olhos dos outros é refresco'.

This proverb has a WHOLE NEW level of cultural understanding for me NOW! (But more to that one later).

So that's where the actual story begins... Today I decided to try cooking with pimenta - the prince of sun believes those pimentas are called pimenta de cheiro. (But he is not totally sure, it might be pimenta malaquita as well...). (*update a few days later on 15/12/2013: my sister in law told me that pimenta de cheiro is not hot and burning at all, it is more for your tastebuds and smells delicious (cheiro is the Portuguese word for smell) - she thinks that the one I prepared is another powerful vegetable-spice called: PIMENTA ARRIBA SAIA! update end)

I have already had many dishes that included pimenta, most people use a bit of it and put a pimenta-oil mix on the table for those who like it more spicy and hot. In general, a few tiny drops are wayyyy enough, I sometimes just sprinkle a little bit in one corner to check my current state of 'spicyness' (haha) and then mix it with the rest and add a few drops more in case I'd like some more. But most of the time, I don't actually mix any pimenta oil into my food.

So I was totally aware of the sheer fire of this vegetable. I handled it reaaally carefully and thought, alright, you'll just put in a few tiny bits and then go from there, tasting and checking along the cooking. I would just start with 1/3 piece of this innocent looking vegetable which actually turned out really nice (with a reaaally slight sensation of tinglyness burning in the food which turned very delicious and could even have had a bit more of the pimenta....

But I was totally unprepared for what was expecting me about 1h after using, washing, cleaning out and cutting ONE SINGLE pimenta vegetable....

Funny enough, I did not feel the slightest sensation when washing and cutting it at first. But about 1h later (I was in the middle of washing up), I felt a crazy sting-like sensation on ONE finger. I thought ---- oooookkkk, did I just miss a bee around here that decided to sting my finger. I carefully examined my finger (the one, that I had just used to tear out the tiny seeds inside the pimenta and then ALSO hold it to cut it), but besides feeling a sensation of total burning inside-out, I did not see a single change in my finger's state (it did get a bit pink later on, but that might be due to myself trying to find a remedy and working what-not into my hands :D).

That left me totally confused. I kind of remembered that I had used pimenta, so I thought, OK, that might be that one and decided to thoroughly wash my hands, then I put some Calendula essence and Arnica lotion (those usually save me from whatever inside-outside pain I am suffering from) onto it. I thought that simply washing the pimenta-rests off my finger would resolve the problem.

NOT THIS TIME.

About 10 minutes later, my WHOLE LEFT HAND and parts of my right hand were ON FIRE. I kept on washing my hands with coconut soap then switching to putting my hands into the freezer and taking out most ice cubes that were available. They just melted in few seconds. I have really never seen or felt anything like this in my whole life, my hands seemed to be soaking in pure acid. I spent about 30 minutes between washing and freezing my hands, which left BOTH my hands burning like crazy. It always felt like when I was washing and cooling my hands, the sensation went away, but the second my hand dried, the burning went back WORSE! In my attempt of ridding myself of the pain, I had actually DISTRIBUTED THE burning THING!

I had only one option of salvation left:

My Old Dutch restaurant in London: Delicious poffertjes (dutch-style mini-pancakes)

Did I mention that I love eating? Oh and I have a sweet tooth as well......

Overall I just absolutely adore how in London you can have almost any food and drinks people ever invented on earth, in just one single city. A continent at a time, my friends and I used to joke. African Nigerian sweet buns or Angolan funge with grilled tilapia on Monday. Japanese omelettes or sushi on Tuesday. Turkish Kebab or Persian Grill Plate on Wednesday. Brazilian feijoada or Spanish paella on Thursday. Traditional German pork knuckles *_* on Friday. Taiwanese Bubble Tea on Saturday. Aaaaand British Sunday Roast - obviously on Sunday ;)

This time I`d like to tell you about an amazing place in London, cheap but good food. And kind of a European classic, favourite and simple dish at the same time: Of all of my friends, almost everyone loves pancakes and this time I`d like to introduce you to particularly good ones: Dutch poffertjes!

I had mine in a My Old Dutch restaurant in London (the one in Holborn) and chose to have it with strawberries and cream *_* excellent choice, I still sometimes dream about it.

The restaurant itself is simple but cosy, no problem if you would like some tap water with your dish instead of paying for a drink, just ask one of the lovely waiters and you`ll get it with a smile and as quickly as the dish you ordered.

I went there around 1pm during the week and was quickly led to a table, it was pretty busy, people having coffees, lunch and snacks, I believe they also have free wifi, although it didn t work when I was there.

Pricing is fine as well, I paid around 5 pounds for a pretty filling, delicious and very authentic Dutch dessert-lunch-snack....

Here more information about the restaurant:

Chantilly Rose chocolate cupcake with melting toffee centre

YES! This cupcake IS as delicious as it looks like. (It was almost too late to take a picture as I was already ravishing the rose when I remembered that it might be nice to have a picture memory of it, but it is almost complete on the photo (well, at least at the front side of our view ;-) !

Where and how did I get it?

Well... Here I was sitting and working - my brain was pretty much fried.... when the prince of sun came in and surprised me with this lovely rose cupcake! Thanks love! :-*

Its rose and the white waves around are made of chantilly, the pink parts outside on the rose have a strawberry-ish taste and the rest just wonderful cream taste, outside a bit thicker texture and inside wonderfully soft melting. The lower part of the cupcake is made of dark chocolate cake with several soft melting toffee centres. *_*

This cupcake pretty much unites everything I love in cupcakes in one single piece. Absolutely brilliant job of the lovely tiny bakery around the corner!

Mahdi restaurant - delicious Persian cuisine in London

I love trying out new places and cuisine of different cultures, especially authentic Barbecue dishes, so I was thrilled when my friend Honi girl suggested a Persian restaurant near Ravenscourt Park. So off we went to try it out together. First impression: Amazing decoration, you really feel like you just hopped into a totally different country and culture, very detailed and just really overwhelming in the first few seconds.

The restaurant was very busy, but we did not wait too long and were quickly led to a free table where I sat down on a very comfy bank. I got myself some delicious mango juice and we went on chatting along, so time passed very quickly and voilá, our plates arrived. And wow, those were HUGE portions! I felt like my friend and I could have happily shared this plate and would have been very satisfied =) We had a warm starter first: "Steam-cooked Dolme Vine leaves wrapped around rice and fresh herbs". I actually asked for Persian nan bread instead of rice and was absolutely delighted, I really love both Indian nan bread and Turkish kebab, and I felt like the Persian nan bread was kind of a mix between both. As a main course, we both had "Chelov-Kabab-E-Bakhtyari: Grilled skewer of diced tender spring lamb, chicken fillet, served with grilled tomato, rice and salad". It was absolutely amazing, one of my favourite lamb barbecue dishes ever! We were totally happy and satisfied, and about half of our plate was still full... But it is quite common to take leftovers home it seems, as the waiter immediately smiled when we asked for it and went to get us some 'tupperware' to take our leftovers home.

More information, address, location and opening hours:

Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pizza-Pancake-Omelette) and Green tea ice cream

Miso soup and seaweed salad

Last time I was meeting Dance Girl around Leicester Square, I arrived about 1h earlier than planned and my friend even texted me that she would be late. So I thought I'd take advantage and check out a nearby Japanese restaurant called Abeno Too. It was my first time trying Japanese Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pizza-Pancake-Omelette-like dish) and I found it very delicious as well as pretty filling. Okonomiyaki is made of cabagge, egg and dough, with spring onions, ginger as well as a few options one can choose, I had the Tokyo Mix this time with prawn, pork and squid. All Okonomiyaki lunch options already come with miso soup and another side dish (mine was a salad (I believe it was a mix of seaweeds and cabbage amongst others).

Okonomiyaki 

 Tokyo mix: pork, prawn and squid

Fresh Green tea ice cream

The mixture was then prepared and fried right in front of me and the lady that was preparing it still added a few Japanese seasonings, sauces and mayonnaise after checking with me.

I then tried out one of their typical desserts, fresh Green tea ice cream, which was surprisingly yummy, creamy, very different but I would definitely have it again next time I get the chance.

View on the restaurant from the street

More information, address and opening hours of the restaurant:

Crumpets - the most delicious bread-pancake-ish English breakfast invention

I had never heard of crumpets before staying in the UK for the first time. I stumbled over this amazing English tradition during one of my shopping trips at Waitrose and thought I'd just give it a shot. And WOW, it was the best shot I had ever given in terms of bread-ish English foods.

I have tried quite a few sorts, never a freshly made one, only those you can get in the supermarkets, but the one I most remember and bought is probably from Warburtons.

The taste is pancake-ish and the texture (as long as it is toasted before eaten) slightly crunchy on the outside and spongy and soft on the inside and top of the crumpet. I love it with a lot of butter on top (sometimes a nice jam as well, but in general, butter is the best and simplest option to keep me totally happy). The butter quickly disappears in the warm crumpet's little holes and when you take the first bite, you can feel the amazing mix of crumpet and butter taste effortlessly flowing into one perfect crumpbutter-taste. *_* It surely is the only English 'supermarket bread' I truly miss when I am outside London ;) - I always passionately indulge in my favourite of all English breakfast inventions when I am on 'the island'....

Brazilian beef loin ribs with potatoes, rice and beans: Costela de gado com batatinha, arroz e feijao

Cooked beef loin ribs

My absolute favourite among meat cuts are beef loin ribs, I love them either soft just falling off the bone - cooked in our pressure cooker
with potatoes and tomatoes, but also crunchy - grilled on our stove-top barbecue pan after being bathed in a mix of soy oil, garlic, salt, vinegar and corante powder.

Today we had our costelinha cooked in our pressure cooker with potatoes, tomatoes, (no oil as the loin ribs already have a high amount of natural fats), corante powder, salt, garlic, a bit of black pepper powder and fresh parsley/coriander. We had it with our dear couple `feijao com arroz` (beans with rice) and our before freshly(-plugged) made acerola juice (go to Acerola Juice recipe.).

Luke hypnotizing acerola juice

One of Berlin girl's favourite Brazilian juices is ACEROLA JUICE. She is absolutely right, I also adore acerola juice, especially freshly made.

Today the prince of sun, Luke and I went to visit the prince of sun's brother and his family plus two dogs, one adult German Shepherd mix and one puppy, pitbull mix. Luke loves playing with the puppy and together, they run and jump and dig and play around the large 'sitio' of the prince of sun's brother (sitio is kind of a huge backyard-garden mix). His wife is a declared plant lover and takes care of about 100 different trees, bushes and smaller herb plants, all on their property.

Acerola tree

Every time we go to visit them, they offer us some of the fruits or herbs growing in their sitio, this time it was fresh pitanga while watching the dogs play and then the prince of sun plugged about 300g of fresh acerola fruits from the medium size tree.

Arriving at home, we directly started making the juice, it is pretty simple, especially now that we bought a new mixer (our old one broke down, just too much juicing during the last couple of months :D hopefully the new mixer (ours is from Philips Walita and is quite sturdy) will last a good while.

Acerola juice & our Philips Walita mixer

Making the juice is quite simple:

Brazilian beef liver with rice and beans

How to prepare Beef liver 

It is probably one of the things I am most hesitant to prepare although I thoroughly enjoy it: Cooked or fried liver.

  

When I saw the ad for fresh beef liver on the supermarket's meat counter for a pleasing 30% discount today morning, I decided that I really wanted to try it out again and thought I'd quickly describe how I made it this time.

First I rinsed the fresh liver thoroughly under hot water. Then I cut it in small pieces (about the size of half a cream cracker) and went on to quickly boil it, before I washed it out a second and then third time, until the water left in the sink was totally clear. (This is probably one of the reasons I rarely cook this dish: A looooooot of washing out and boiling involved, it takes much longer to prepare than normal meat and cutting fresh liver is even worse than cutting fresh meat ;) it is so slippery ….).

It was almost totally cooked when I finished to wash it out, put it in the pressure cooker and added the rest of the ingredients: Finely cut onion, garlic, salt, fresh parsley (or coriander, I honestly don t know if there's a real difference - it's called coentro here in Brazil), corante powder, soy oil, a bit of butter, a bit of water and tomato puree. 

I then left it 40 minutes on the highest stove heat setting in the pressure cooker and then separated about ¼ of it to separately fry it. We had both the cooked and fried liver with our alltime-classic 'feijão com arroz' (beans with rice). And as usual, froze the rest of the liver for future quick, liver meals.

Mmmmh, delícia!