Cacik (Turkish)

A great salad for leftover cucumber and yoghurt. You need:

Peeled and diced cucumber. Sprinkle with salt and drain.



Mash salt together with garlic. I had half a cucumber left and 250 grams of yoghurt. I suggest 2 cloves or garlic.



Mix garlic with yoghurt and add more salt and pepper according to taste.

Cut fresh mint and mix with yoghurt. Taste and adjust salt, garlic.



Ready. Serve as side dish or light lunch.

Cocido montañés (vegetable meat stew from Cantabria)

Soak 250 grams of white beans overnight.

Fry smoked bacon in oil or butter; add one onion and soup bone.

Add soaked beans and plenty of water, salt, pepper. Cook for one hour.

Remove soup bone. Add 2 diced potato, sliced carrot and half a green cabbage, savoy cabbage (Dutch: boerenkool) or white cabbage, shredded. Stew for 10 minutes or until vegetables are done.

Fry 3 cloves of diced garlic in 2 table spoons of olive oil. Mash together with 1 teaspoon dried bell pepper in mortar. Add 'garlic sauce' to pot.

Add spicy chorizo and (optional) black pudding (Spanish: morcilla, Dutch: bloedworst, Spanish kind). Stew for a long time, even more than one hour. Remove chorizo and morcilla and cut into bite sized chunks. Return to pot and serve. Add pepper and salt according to taste.



Variations:
Chickpeas instead of white beans.

From Madrid: Cocido Madrileño

Also read: The REAL Cocido

Can be eaten in separate courses: the strained caldo (clear soup, broth) – maybe with some rice or noodles. The second course could be all the vegetables alone or the vegetables plus the meat.

The second time I made this recipe (June 2010):

Vlaamse Stoverij

1,5 kg rundsstoofvlees in blokjes van 5 cm
1 theelepel zout
1/2 theelepel gemalen peper
3 eetlepels bloem
4 eetlepels boter
3 grote uien in ringen gesneden
2 flesjes trappist dubbel
1 theelepel gedroogde tijm
3 laurierblaadjes
1,5 eetlepel rode bessengelei
1 eetlepel rode wijnazijn

Beter: 500 gram vlees. De rest halveren behalve bessengelei en wijnazijn.

Vlees met peper en zout inwrijven en door bloem halen. Op hoog vuur in boter bakken.

Rest van boter smelten, uien in 15 minuten bruin bakken. Vlees erbij, bier aan de kook brengen. Tijm en laurier erbij en op laag vuur stoven.

Roer voor het opdienen de rode bessengelei en de azijn door de saus. Laat alles nog vijf minuten sudderen.

Sangria

Start with a bottle of red wine, not too expensive, not too cheap. Or use some leftover wine... Preferably a full bodied red wine.

1 lemon cut in wedges
1 orange cut in wedges

Pour wine in pitcher. Squeeze out the juice in the wine and toss the wedges in the pitcher. Add some sugar or honey according to taste.

Cool the mixture in a fridge for at least a couple of hours or overnight.

Just before serving add ice cubes and (optional) some carbonated soda.

Variation:

Add apple, peach, berries, pineapple, melon, grape, or mango to make it less of a drink and more of a fruit punch..

Sangria blanca: use Sauvignon Blanc instead of red wine.

Zurra: sangria made with peaches and nectarines. Add some lemon zest and cinnamon.

Horiatiki

Dressing:
3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, salt. Sprinkle with oregano, pour olive oil over the salad, and toss. Add feta last and sprinkle some more oregano. You need Greek oregano (rigani, ρίγανη) instead of other variations.

Salad:
3 ripe tomatoes, cut in wedges
1/4 red onion, small chunks
1/2 cucumber, sliced in half-moons
1/2 green pepper
120 gram feta cheese
16 kalamata olives

La Salade Niçoise

La Salade Niçoise (the 'original' recipe, without any boiled vegetables. Skip the boiled potatoes and boiled green beans. Young broad beans and young artichokes are not available out of season, so you can skip them if needed. Variation: add capers, cooked white beans, garlic)

Recette pour 6 personnes.

* Ingrédients

pour la vinaigrette :
1 c. à café de moutarde de Dijon
2 c. à soupe de vinaigre de vin rouge (red wine vinegar)
6 c. à soupe d’huile d’olive AOC de Nice
Sel et poivre

pour la salade :
6 tomates mûres et fermes type Saint Pierre
1 petit poivron vert à salade (green pepper)
3 cébettes (ou à défaut 1 oignon blanc) (spring onion)
2 poignées de riquette (rucola) ou de mesclun (salade mélangée typique du Comté de Nice) (mixed green leaves)
3 œufs durs (hard boiled eggs)
1 grosse boite de thon au naturel (can of tuna)
12 filets d'anchois dessalés (anchovy, desalted)
1 poignée d'olives noires AOC de Nice
et selon la saison
3 petits artichauts violets dits poivrade (raw young artichoke) Impossible to get out of season.
300 g de févettes du pays (English: young broad beans; Dutch: tuinbonen) Impossible to get out of season.
10 feuilles de basilic facultatif (basil leaves)
1 cœur de céleri (celery)
1 petit concombre (cucumber)

* Préparation

Faites durcir les œufs puis plongez-les dans l’eau froide, écalez-les.
Boil eggs, cool in cold water and descale

Dans un saladier, préparez la vinaigrette et ajoutez (=to add) les cébettes finement émincées (=sliced).
Prepare vinaigrette in a salad bowl and add finely sliced spring onions.

Nettoyez les artichauts, émincez-les finement et mettez-les dans le saladier.
Clean artichoke, slice finely and add to bowl.

Écossez (=to shell) les févettes. Coupez les tomates en quartiers, ajoutez-les.
Add tomato and shelled broad beans.

Émincez le petit poivron à salade en petits cercles,
Cut green pepper in rings.

Lavez rapidement la riquette ou le mesclun, essorez et répartissez sur les tomates.
Wash green salad leaves, dry and arrange between tomato's.

Décorez avec le thon émietté, les œufs durs coupés en rondelles ou en quartiers, les cercles de poivrons, les filets d’anchois, les olives noires.
Arrange the tuna, eggs, green pepper, anchovy and black olives.

Ciselez les feuilles de basilic.
Cut the basil leaves

Mélangez-la au tout dernier moment et servez.
Mix just before serving

Zoervleisj (sour meat)

Zoervleisj (Dutch=zuurvlees, English= (literally) sour meat) is a horse meat stew from Limburg, the southern-most of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. Since horse meat is quite difficult to buy nowadays you can use beef instead.

Marinate 500 gram cubed beef in water and vinegar (50/50). For 500 gram I used 200 ml water and 200 ml vinegar. Add 6 bay leaf and 6 juniper berries. Marinate overnight or 8 hours. Horse meat needs to marinate longer. You can also marinate two onions together with the meat. Otherwise cut two onions just before cooking. I used plain vinegar (natuurazijn).



The next day:
Dry the meat, discard the juniper berries and keep the bay leafs and marinade liquid.



Fry the meat in hot butter until brown.

Heat the marinade liquid, bay leafs, 4 cloves in a cooking pot. Cold marinate can make the meat tough (apparently). Add the meat and stew for one hour.



In the meantime fry the onion in butter over a low fire until brown.

Add the onions to the cooking pot and 2-3 tablespoons appelstroop (=apple butter).



Stew for another hour and add 2-3 slices of ontbijtkoek. Crumble the ontbijtkoek and stew for another hour or so.



The ontbijtkoek makes the sauce thick so stir regularly from this point onwards. Adjust the taste (salt, sugar). Aim for a distinct sweet and sour taste, but just a bit more sour than sweet.



Serve with homemade fries and apple sauce.