Okra with Almonds--Spicy and Crunchy

I first tried okra in England and ate it quite often there. I had it mostly the Indian way, with a spicy tomato sauce--its acidity helps eliminate the slime that okra produces. Here in the U.S. okra is popular in the South, where it is served mostly deep fried and often breaded, or also in a rich tomato sauce. As always some love it--despite its rather bland taste and sliminess, but some do not see anything special in it. It's delicate taste may be enriched with spices, the same way it can be done with other delicate vegetables, like pumpkin or zucchini.

Last week, okra, or lady's fingers, as it is also called, showed up en masse in Asian and Middle Eastern grocery stores in my area. It looked exceptionally fresh and green. This is not always the case with okra, which is a rather fragile vegetable and can get easily damaged in transportation. I bought a pound of it and prepared for dinner. I made it according to the recipe that I got years ago, probably in England.

Preparing okra this way seemed interesting as it has some Indian spices, but not tomatoes, which may overshadow okra's subtle taste. The okra I bought was very young and fresh and somehow not slimy at all. But if you are not so lucky, you can eliminate sliminess by soaking okra in vinegar for about 10 minutes. Also, adding a couple of drops of lemon juice to okra should resolve that problem.

I must say that the more often i prepare okra, the more I enjoy its taste and do not mind its slimy texture.

Okra with Almonds

Ingredients:
1 lb fresh okra,
1/2 cup toasted, slivered almonds,
2 tbsp olive oil,
3 garlic cloves, minced,
2 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated,
2 tsp ground cumin,
2 tsp ground coriander,
1 tbsp red paprika,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. Wash okra and cut the stems off.

2. If you use raw almonds put them on a hot pan and toast turning constantly until gold. Remove and save.
3. Pour oil into the same frying pan, heat it, add okra and fry for about 3 minutes.
4. Add garlic, ginger, spices, stir in, and cook together for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly so the spices coat the okra.
5. Add a cup of water, season with salt and pepper, and cook further for about 5 minutes, or until okra feels tender.
6. Add almonds and stir them in.

Serve with white basmati or jasmine rice, bread or by itself.

Amaretto Almond Cake--A Snobbish Name for Polish Babka

The best babka, or a bundt cake, as it is called world wide, that I have veer had, was made by my grandmother. It was spongy, extremely moist, and aromatic. Most often she made a lemon babka, by adding lemon juice and grated lemon peel to the batter. Sometimes she made a rum babka with a chocolate swirl inside. They were as good two days later as on the first day, if only they could last so long.

Years ago, before the mixers era, my grandma was using a special wooden club and a special clay bowl to grind sugar, eggs, and butter together, until they turned into a very smooth mixture. She made them usually in winter, as a weekend treat, when not many fruits were available.

Unfortunately, although I was helping her often as a child, especially to lick the spatula, I have never taken down an exact recipe, and neither has any of her five daughters, including my mother. Grandma's secret for this amazing cake, will forever stay secret. So if you have a special family recipe that you love, please write it down, before it is too late. I keep asking all the good Polish cooks I know if they have a nice babka recipe. But almost all of them are very far from this perfect one I remember, mostly because they come out too dry.

But recently I got a recipe from a Polish lady who is a very cook and made it recently. First time I made it, the babka was very good, but I still would like it to be more moist. Then my mother reminded me that, although grandma used only best quality ingredients, she also added a little bit of cooking oil to her cake to lock in the moisture. I did it too and finally I got the cake that came close to what I had remembered. On my next try, I will probably make lemon babka, but for now please enjoy this almond version. I'm sure that this cake would also be excellent if you make it with hazelnut meal and Frangelico liqueur, for example.

Amaretto Almond Cake

Ingredients:
2 sticks butter, soft
1 cup sugar,
1 tbsp vegetable oil,
4 eggs (separate yolks and whites) at room temperature,
1 and 1/4 cup almond meal,
2/3 cup flour,
2 tsp baking powder,
2 tbsp Amaretto di Saronno, or any other liqueur or Cognac,
a pinch of salt.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Grease a bundt cake baking tin with butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs--that will help to get the cake out.
3. Using a stand or hand mixer beat together butter and sugar for about 3-5 minutes, or until sugar almost dissolves.
4. Add egg yolks, one by one, still beating.
5. Mix in a bowl flour, almond meal, and baking powder, and add them to the batter.
6. When the batter is well mixed, add oil and liqueur.
7. Beat whites with salt until stiff and using spatula incorporate them gently into the almond batter.

8. Transfer the batter into the baking tin and bake it for 40-45 minutes.

Cool down the cake and dust with icing sugar or pour chocolate sauce on it. I prefer icing sugar, as it is more delicate, especially, if use chocolate for chocolate swirl babkas.

Almond Sponge Cake with Fresh Fruits--an Elegant Idea

I always expect desserts to be not only indulging, but also elegant. Desserts come last and should crown the feast. But every single dish, before we even taste it, appeals to us first by its looks. That is also how we choose certain recipes and that is the reason why cookbooks with pictures sell better than those without them. I always pay a lot of attention to the presentation of food I serve, especially when I have guests over. A simple salad nicely arranged on a plate can be forgiven for its simplicity, if the presentation is attractive. It also shows that someone cared, made an effort, and put an extra touch, which is what counts most. A nicely presented dish can also spark an interesting conversation.

Today, I made an elegant dessert with the very sweet figs I had bought the other day. The recipe is simple and the good news is that there are two versions of it. For the lazy or inexperienced cooks there is an easy one and for those more ambitious I have a more difficult version. Both look and taste great. I used figs for decoration, which were in the original recipe from a French cooking magazine, that I used to read in Switzerland, but feel free to use any seasonal fruits you have available: peaches or plums, or more exotic ones, like mango or kiwi. A remarkable thing about this cake is that it is done without flour and, instead, ground almonds are used to make the dough.

For this post, I made a dozen of tartelette-size cakes from this recipe, which I think look very attractive, but this amount of dough is sufficient to make one big cake in a 11'' tart pan. It can be decorated and cut later into small triangles.

Almond Sponge Cake with Fresh Fruits

Cake ingredients:
1 cup ground almonds,
1/2 cup sugar,
2 eggs,
6 tbsp (room temperature) butter,
1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp sugar for the baking pan.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 325F(180 C.)
2. Spread butter over the baking dish and dust with sugar.
3. Using a mixer whip the butter with sugar until smooth.
4. Add eggs and, when they blend, add almonds.
5. Mix well and transfer to the baking tin.
6. Bake for 15-20 min.

Let the cake cool down before you transfer it on a serving plate, pour the vanilla sauce over it, decorate with fresh fruits of your choice and serve.

Vanilla Sauce

The easy version:
1 cup sweet condensed milk,
1 tbsp rum,
1 tbsp vanilla extract,
Mix all the ingredients and pour sauce over the cake, following with fruits.

Home made--the more ambitious version:
1 egg yolk,
2 tbsp sugar,
1 cups milk,
1 tsp corn starch,
Vanilla pod or vanilla essence,
1 tbsp rum.

Preparation:
1. In a bowl beat eggs with sugar, add corn starch, and mix well.
2. If you use a vanilla pod, cut it in half, scoop up the black seeds with a knife and add them to the milk.
3. Boil the milk and pour hot into the yolk mixture.
4. Return to the heat and cook until sauce boils and becomes thicker.
5. Cool down the sauce, add rum, and pour over the cake. Decorate with fruits and serve.

This really simple and elegant dessert will certainly impress.