Kumquats and Dates Chutney

A few weeks ago, I had a pleasure of being invited for a dinner at our friends' place. The hostess is an excellent cook and I am always very excited to eat at their place. This time she prepared an Indian dinner. I love and cook the Indian food often myself and I am a demanding judge but, as always, all the dishes were exquisite--light, not too oily, and nicely but not overly spicy. But there was one dish that I enjoyed most of all, so right away I asked for the recipe. It was a chutney, served with poppadoms as a starter. She made four different chutneys, all very good, but all the others were more familiar to me than the one made from kumquats and dates.

I have always loved good chutneys, especially those home made, which are not so greasy. There is something very intriguing if not addictive in their strong and often spicy taste, which I cannot resist until the small bowl in which they are served is empty.

That particular recipe for kumquat and dates chutney comes from Bon Appétit and was shared by one of my favorite chef Joan Weir, whose light and aromatic cuisine I have always admired and often adopted.

I follow the recipe almost exactly, just recently I replaced the crystallised ginger with the fresh one--the chutney did not suffer on that at all. I also do not add fresh coriander since usually at the same time I also serve a coriander chutney. While making poppadoms I do not fry them in oil, which saves some calories, but heat them for 50 seconds in the microwave.

Kumquats and Dates Chutney

Ingredients:
1/2 cup orange juice,
2 tbsp( about 1/4 cup) chopped shallots,
3 tbsp sugar,
2 tbsp crystallised ginger(but the same amount of thinly sliced fresh ginger will do as well),
1 tbsp white wine vinegar,
1/8 tsp red pepper, crushed,
1/4 tsp ground cloves,
1/4 tsp salt,
16 dates pitted and chopped,
10 kumquats sliced,
fresh coriander chopped.

Preparation:
1. Put the first eight ingredients in a medium pot and bring them to boil. Simmer for about three minutes on a medium hit.
2. Add chopped kumquats and dates. Add to the pot with juice and spices and bring to boil. Simmer again for about two minutes.

Turn off the heat and add chopped coriander. Cool down. Chutney will thickens when it is cold. Serve with poppadoms.

Beet Salad with Walnuts--This Time from Georgia

Most of the beet dishes are about beets only. Their delicate taste can be enhanced by spices but cannot be overshadowed by them. So whenever I post a beet recipe I usually place a picture of beets at the top of the post. But I already shared so many beet recipes that I am running out of ideas how to show them in the most appealing way. After all, they are just regular beets, nothing more.

At my home we eat a lot of beets and we eat them often. We love them so much that sometimes I just roast them and add to green salads, drizzled with pomegranate vinegar and oil. Recently I have been making a beet salad which I discovered not so long ago. I make it for lunch and serve just with bread sandwiches with ham or the Italian mortadela.

I think it comes from Georgia and it is a bit different than we serve it in Poland, because of the added walnuts. It also has mayonnaise, which I hardly eat these days, but it is really a tiny amount just so the beets get kind of slightly smothered in it but it does not make the whole salad too heavy or too greasy. Finely chopped walnuts are almost undetectable and just give a bit of crunchy texture to the smooth beets. Because in Poland we eat a lot of beet salad for Easter and we add beet-horseradish preserve to meats and sausages, I thought about sharing this recipe today.

Beet Salad with Walnuts

Ingredients:
4 medium beets roasted or cooked, peeled off,
2 tbsp walnuts, finely chopped,
1 garlic clove, minced,
2 tbsp mayonnaise,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Grate the beets on a grater, preferably the julienne style.
2. In a medium bowl make the sauce: mix mayonnaise, garlic, salt, and pepper. Add beets and mix with the sauce. Add finely chopped walnuts and mix again.

Serve with cold cuts, roasted meats, or just good, rye bread.

Easter Orange Tart--Otherwise Polish Mazurek

There are always two cakes served during Polish Eastear--yeast babka and mazurek--a tart on a delicate short crust. I love both of them but since I moved out from Poland I more often make mazurek. And there are several varieties of it. Last year, I already shared a recipe for my favorite mazurek with hazelnuts and chocolate. Today it will be a mazurek with citrus fruits, about which I heard a lot from my aunt. It is the one she makes most often and they like most.

I was always very curious to try it, but only last week when I saw beautiful oranges it came to my mind to make it. I was intrigued even more because I love all fruit and citrus desserts but at the same I am not a big fan of orange preserves. They are just too strong for me. For that tart I bought oranges and lemons and both of them organic.

The base is made from a short crust with eggs, which I use most often to make my desserts, and also those fruit tartellets that you see on my blog's title picture. The crust is baked completely and the top made separately and only at the end they are put together and finished with almonds.

Although the cake has a bit of that bitterness which sometimes is overwhelming in orange preserves, the sweet crust and crunchy almonds on top make it all a very nice dessert.

Easter Orange Tart--Mazurek

The Crust

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 sticks of butter, room temperature,
2 egg yolks,
2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra 1/3 cup (to clean hands with),
1/2 cup sugar,
2 tbsp sour cream,
1 tsp baking powder.

Preparation:
1.In a large bowl mix flour and baking powder. Add butter to the flour and working with fingers make lumpy dough.
2. In a medium cup mix two yolks, sugar, and cream. Mix well with a small whisker until the mixture becomes lighter.
3. Add the egg mixture and butter crumbles to the flour and form quickly a dough--use the rest of the flour to clean hands and knead it into the dough.
4. Wrap it in foil and chill for a minimum 30 minutes. A dough at that stage can be stored for two weeks in a refrigerator.
5. If I make a cake the same day I usually roll out the dough on the baking form and let it chill already in the form.
6. Preheat oven to 370F.
7. Before rolling up the dough should be taken from the refrigerator at least 15 minuets earlier. Dust a working surface and roll the dough to the size of a medium size cookie tin.
8. Grease the tin with a bit of butter and transfer carefully a dough on a tin using a rolling pin. Poke it a couple of times with a fork so it will not form bubbles and bake it for 25-30 minutes, until gold. Leave in the tin and let it cool down.

Topping

Ingredients:
2 large oranges,
2 medium lemons,
2 cups sugar,
1/4 cup water,
1/ 2 cup slivered roasted almonds.

Preparation:
1. Wash the fruits, place them in a large bowl and cover with boiling water. Drain the fruits and cut in small cubes, removing all the seeds as you do it.

2. Place the fruits in a food processor and run it until they are puréed.

3. Transfer the fruits to a medium pot. Add sugar and water, mix and bring to boil. Cook for about 20-30 minutes, until the fruits become transparent.
4. Transfer the hot fruit pulp on the crust, spread evenly.

5. Sprinkle with almonds and let it cool. Cut into rectangular pieces before serving.