originals: sweet potato, white bean and kale (tacos)

There's only one way to say this: until a couple of days ago, I was a kale virgin. I actually bought it a few times with full intent of using it, but every time I chickened out and I let it rot in my fridge. Believe me - rotten kale is NOT something you want to smell, ever. But as I'm finally realising my dream of cooking for a living (well, for drinks at least) and posing as a pro, I can't run away from it any longer. And so, looking for a vegan option for our tacos (at Ricos Tacos), I created my first recipe using kale!

Prep is key here, once you have everything sliced, diced and drained it's the simplest thing to cook EVER. And the ingredients, in order of appearance, are:

• canola oil
• 1 red onion - diced
• 1 garlic clove - minced
• 1 jalapeno - chopped finely*
• 1 large sweet potato (at least palm sized) - diced
• 1 can of small white beans - drained
• 1 packed glass of kale - chopped
• salt

Now this is really simple: heat oil in a wok, toss in the aromatics, cook on small heat until the onion becomes translucent, toss in the sweet potato, stir well until it's all covered in the oil and increase heat to high, cook for a couple of minutes, add the beans, stir until warm, salt, taste, salt again, add kale, stir until it gets a pretty vivid green colour, serve.

Now, we at Ricos Tacos serve it on warmed corn tortillas with cilantro, slices of avocado, pomegranate seeds and a quarter of lime, but you can serve it any way you want. E.g. on quinoa, if you feel sweet potato and kale aren't hipster enough for you.

*adjust to your own heat preferences, use more or seed the one you're using, but DO NOT leave it out unless you want to end up with a bland dish

seasonal: chanterelle and goat cheese trottelloni

When it comes to seasonal food, chanterelles for me are the most elusive. You can import fresh asparagus from Peru and pay a shitload of money, you can grow tomatoes all year long in glasshouses (and complain about their lack of flavour), but you can only get fresh chanterelles for these few weeks a year.

I have a few good recipes for stuff more elaborate than scrambled eggs with chanterelles (although that's actually good enough for me) and perhaps I'll manage to share them with you before the season is over, this is one of them. When it comes to chanterelles, simplicity is key, less is more - you wouldn't want to kill their flavour with too many ingredients. So, here we go.

pasta dough (I know this is not the classic italian recipe, it's more of a Polish dumpling dough recipe - you can use your favourite, I just got used to this one):

• 2 cups of flour (the thinner the better)
• salt
• 1 large free-range egg (if you don't have those - buy some and stop buying other ones right this instant)
• a cup of water (you may not use all of it, remember)

Sieve the flour to a large bowl, add salt and the egg - knead. Gradually add small amounts of water and knead further, until the dough is smooth, without any dry lumps. If you added too much water and the dough it too sticky, add some flour and knead again. Put the dough in a plastic bag and in the refrigerator - believe me, it improves the doughs quality when it comes to the next steps.

filling:

• cleaned chanterelles
• shallots
• butter
• soft goat cheese
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Sorry for not giving you exact measurements, but there's just no way to do this, you have to go with your gut here. But, let's say for a medium bowl of chanterelles (while they're still in one piece) I'd take 2-3 challots and ca. 100g goat cheese.

Chop the chanterelles and the shallots rather finely. Melt some butter on a pan, according to your preference - I always use a lot of butter, but I understand people who don't. When the butter melts fry the challots on medium heat until they're translucent, salt them and add the chopped chanterelles - fry them for a little while, until they're a bit softer. Turn off the heat and add the goat cheese. Season with salt and pepper, stirr until it all combines and put it aside into a bowl to let it cool down. Cold filling, especially butter-based, is much easier to use than warm one.

Now, off to occupational therapy. It's good to have someone to help you and/or a few episodes of something good to watch. This will take you some time.

Cut away a fist sized piece of dough, leave the rest in the fridge. Sprinkle the table with flour, rub some on your rolling pin and roll out the dough as thinly as you can. Thick dough overwhelms the filling and throws off the texture balance of the dish. Using something like a espresso cup or larger vodka glass or similar in diameter (I'd say about 4-5cm?) cut out circles of dough. Prepare some cloths and a tray spirinkled with flour to put the ready dumplings on. Now, to the folding.

I called this shape trottelloni (from German Trottel - fool, that's my sense of humour right there), because first of all, it's so easy a fool can do it and, most of all, I couldn't find a proper Italian name for it - went through all the possible shapes of stuffed pasta and didn't find it. If you know a proper name - please share.

So, it goes like this - with an espresso spoon, put some filling in the middle of the circle, fold it in half and press the edges together. Then take the corners and, bending the dumpling, press them together too, just as you can see on the picture with my messily-manicured fingers. Repeat until you run out of dough and filling.

If you run of dough first, you can either make more, or freeze the remaining filling for later. If you run out of filling, roll out the remaining dough, sprinkle generously with flour and leave to dry. When dried, roll it into, well, a roll and slice thinly - you now have some homemade pasta you can store for later.

Back to the trottelloni. Get some salted water boiling, throw the trottelloni in and boil until they all float to the top and a few moments more. Serve with sage-butter. Enjoy.

If you made more than you can eat, you can easily freeze them (before cooking, clearly) - first on the tray you used to put them aside, and when they're already frozen you can put them in a freezing bag - they shouldn't stick together anymore.

the heat is on - miami mojito

The weekend isn't over yet, nor is is hot weather, so why not treat yourself to the best summer refreshment - mojito. I found a great recipe few years ago and the reactions I get every time I make it are positive, to say the least. For me, this is the ultimate picnic drink, but I'll explain that in a moment.

Here's the video I got it from:

I always use brown sugar and I'm not really sure how they came up with using white here, whatever. Thanks to the blending, the flavours are really intensive and the grated lime skin really adds something special.

What I usually do is prepare the base and pour it into a plastic bottle and tell someone else to bring soda water and plastic cups wherever we're meeting. Then we're just mixing it with the water in the cup, each to their own linking. It's really convenient and much better than just drinking beer in a park.

Just to make it easier, here are the ingredients for a 0,7l bottle of rum:

• a large handful of fresh spearmint leaves (believe me, peppermint won't work here)
• 1,5 cup brown sugar (more like demerara, muscovado won't do at all, also, you may think that's a lot - it's not)
• 0,75 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
• a generous tablespoon of freshly grated lime peel
• loads and loads of ice
• a 0,7l bottle of golden or white rum (never dark)
• a 1,5l bottle of soda water

seasonal - grill, simple lamb, asparagus

I've been experiencing some lags recently, so please excuse me for posting about asparagus way beyond season (well, at least in Europe). But, hey, the grilling season is still on, so perhaps at least the lamb recipe will be useful.

Both the green asparagus and lamb chops are extremely easy and fast to prepare, but at the same time - they're really impressive. All you need to do with the asparagus, once you cleaned them (which, in Europe, doesn't only mean trimming the lower ends - you should really peel them unless you're lucky enough to find 50 cm long asparagus you can afford to cut 15 cm off) is to sprinkle them with sea salt, freshly ground pepper and olive oil - they're ready to grill.

Now - with the lamb there are two ways to do this. An uncertain, easy one, and a delicious one you have to put some more effort into. You can either buy ready made pesto genovese for this, or make it yourself. Unless you have a brand you're sure of and very little time, I recommend making it yourself. I actually dislike pine nuts, so I substitute them with walnuts. With added garlic it's not really pesto genovese anymore, but, hell, it's god. I use a blender - this way it's easier to get a more even, flavourful sauce.

So, for the semi-pesto I throw a big bunch of fresh basil leaves, a handful of parmigiano, a couple pressed big garlic cloves (I usually add more, but I love garlic, not everybody does) and a handful of walnuts. I season it after blending - the parmiggiano is salty, so it's easy to overdo it with the salt before tasting.

TIP: To make the walnuts blend better with the other ingredients I use a garlic presser - no more large bits!

Back to the grilling - take the lamb chops (any lamb chops) and generously rub them with the pesto. Place them on the grill together with the asparagus. If the chops are small and thin, I recommend putting the asparagus on earlier, as they may take longer to cook. As for the times - don't require exact times for me - this all depends on the grill, the temperature you achieved, the size of the chops and most of all - on your preferences. I like it rare or at least medium-rare.

As you can see on the picture, I didn't use a regular grill/barbecue - I tried out the Lotus Grill thingy and I'm quite pleased with it. If you're doing it right, that is, read the manual and use all the things you need to use, including the lighting gel (unlike we did the first time round), it's really great. It heats up almost immediately, it's clean, doesn't take much space, you can use it on your balcony without annoying the people next door or above you. Also, if you're a design and gadget freak like me, it's simply pretty cool. We have the smaller one, but it also comes in bigger sizes for bigger parties. Check it out here: http://www.lotusgrill.pl/en/