Cosmo Cooking

Once we speak again about the cold, it is time for the first stew. Today was the ‘hutspot’ on the program and we had a delicious traditional Dutch meal made. The Holland primordial stew with sausages is very easy to make and warms the hearts of many Dutchmen.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg floury potatoes
• 1 kg carrots
• 500 gr onions
• 2 bouillon cubes
• 1 sausage
• 1 tbsp mustard

Peel the potatoes and cut them into pieces. Peel the onions and cut into rings, peel the carrots and cut into small pieces.

Boil the potatoes, carrots and onions with the boillon cubes for about 25 minutes until tender.

Meanwhile, prepare the sausage … Continue Reading

A friend of mine used to work for the German Chamber of Commerce somewhere in the world, far away from home. In spring, he was charged to organise the chamber’s annual asparagus dinner, which included the direct import of white asparagus from Germany. Unbelievable? No, because Germans are simply crazy about asparagus!

Well, even I cannot elude the phenomenon either. Even after having spent years abroad, which has marked me in so many ways, I realise every spring how damn much I am still German. The sight of white asparagus just makes my heart jump. Who would have guessed that?

Maybe my … Continue Reading

There we were, on the last day of our stay in Paris we went to a cosy street-bistro in Montmartre for lunch. Inspired by a delicious bowl of salad, we tried to recreate this atmosphere. Luckily our basil plant has grown much into a little monster, thus we had to transform our hedge into an Italian speciality. Home-made pesto. When made by yourself, you kitchen should smell like a jungle of herbs.

Luckily we still had a very nice bottle from our former Parisian neighbours Marc & Emmanuelle, who have family that make this great Pineau des Charentes.

Ingredients

• 30 gr of basil
• 50

… Continue Reading

Hummus, Arabic: حمّص‎, stands for chickpeas, which is the main ingredient of this dish. In this recipe the basic recipe is presented and can be used to make many different variations. This spread is easy to make and is great in summer time when having a pick-nick or just as an appetizer. It’s rather quick to make and should take maximally 15 minutes to make, but it’s every time a pleasure to make. The difficult part is only finding the Tahini (sesami paste) in your supermarket or Arabic convenience store.

The basic recipe is already good, but it definitely should be … Continue Reading

Ah, it’s again one of those days when you just don’t want to leave the house. It’s winter, and the rain is beating against the windows. Now, a good way to make yourself feel a lot better is to trust the power of a hot chocolate… however, with a little spicy twist.

Ingredients

• 600 ml milk
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 chili pepper
• 40 gr of cocoa powder
• 50 gr sugar
• 80 gr dark chocolate
• 2 tbsp Amaretto (optional)
• 1-2 tbsp starch

Bring the milk with the cinnamon stick to boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for a few minutes. In the meanwhile, cut the chili pepper lengthwise … Continue Reading

This is the first recipe with meat in it. It might not be surprising when you realize that one of the authors is vegetarian. Cooking with meat gives another dimension and in terms of tastes, no soy burger or carrot soufflé has ever replaced for me the unique qualities of a meat product. In the future I should give more recipes with meat in it, but don’t be surprised what you can do without.

The following recipe is a recipe from Bali, an Indonesian island. Once it was a colony from the Netherlands. Still in the Dutch supermarkets you can find … Continue Reading

Fish in a package … a gift on your plate.

After being a week with my son and haven’t had any fish, once back I was longing to eat again a portion of Dutch fish. Cod is such a delicious fish that is not farmed, but caught in a fair manner.

Ingredients
For these cod packets you need for 2 people:

• 350 gr cod
• 1 onion into rings
• 1 clove garlic chopped
• 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
• 1/2 lemon sliced
• 2 sliced tomato
• 2 tbsp dry white wine
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Tear 4 pieces of baking paper and put them double.
Fry the onion and … Continue Reading

This recipe came from my dear aunt. Although she calls it a strudel, she isn’t German. But that’s the beauty of cosmocooking. To dare to use ingredients from different countries and find nice combinations. So we mixed ricotta with feta, Parmesan cheese and dried apricots. This time the list of ingredients is a bit longer than usual. As you have to fold the mixture into small packages, she calls it a strudel, but we rather prefer to call it secretly Spanakopita.

Ingredients

• 3 shallots
• 100 g dried apricots
• 1 lemon
• 50 g pine nuts
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 300 g frozen spinach
• 1 egg
• 100 gr feta
• 200 gr ricotta
• 50

… Continue Reading

Courgette soup, a delicious soup. Good for your shape.

Ingredients

• 2 leeks
• 2 zucchinis
• 25 gr butter
• 1 l chicken stock
• green pesto
• Parmesan cheese

Fry two sliced leeks and two diced zucchini about 8 minutes in 25 g butter. Add one liter chicken stock (or vegetable broth for the vegetarian version) and cook about 20 minutes. Continue Reading

I love cinnamon, not only for Chrismas. Thus this recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 packages quark
• 1 bowl of yoghurt
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 bottle mango sauce
• 1 can blueberries

Continue Reading