I had a fennel bulb left over and was more into baking then cooking. I decided to use the fennel in a rather unusual way. Fennel in a cake, I had never tried before but the thought was tempting. Smelling a fennel bulb allows you to imagine eating it sweet.

Preparation time: 20 minutes
baking time: 25 minutes
easy recipe

Preparation:

Wash and dice the fennel bulb. Melt half of the sugar in a small pot until it turns into Caramel. Add a cup of water and dissolve the caramel. Add the fennel and boil for 10 minutes.Remove and drain.

Mix the flour, the eggs and some olive oil in a blowl. Add the remaining sugar, a pinch of salt, the cinnamon, the baking powder and mix all well.

Now add the fennel and put the dough in to baking forms. I used small Muffin-like forms.

Bake in the preheated oven at 180 Degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

Returning from our excursion from the African coast, we travel back to good old Europe where we land in Italy. World famous for its delicatessen such as Mozzarella, Mortadella, Parma ham, Polenta and Pasta but as well for its wines such as the Chianti or the Barolo.
Here we can find a vast variety of local traditions and recipes. Cucina alto-borghese or Cucina povera, you choose!

The 6th Mediterranean Cooking Event has started and the topic is:

Italy

Start date is the 10th of March 2010.
End date is the 10th of April 2010.

The winner receives this great cookbook on Italian cooking:

“Made in Italy – Food & Stories by Giorgio Locatelli”

These are the RULES:

Who can participate?
Everyone that blogs and loves food.

What do I have to do to participate?

1. Cook a dish from the actual country of focus.
2. Post the recipe on your blog. Mention the event with a backlink and include one of the banners in the recipe post or on your blog in general.
3. Leave a comment with a trackback (backlink) to your recipe here (below), so we all can find
it.

How is the winner chosen?

After the event has finished I will put up a poll

on the blog that includes all participants. You will have 2 weeks time to vote for your favourite dish.

Can I participate with more than 1 recipe?

Yes, you can. All recipes participate the poll.

Banners you can take along:

(just copy the HTML code and paste it into your blog)

Banner 130 x 130

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Eva, whom I had met in my Yoga classes had told me about a fish dealer in the central market that sells superb salmon. He even would be so honest to tell if the salmon was not fresh enough for Sushi. I instanltly wanted to try that out and so we met in the morning in Athinas street to do some shopping. As it turned out the fish was fresh and exquisit and we ate countless Sashimi and Sushi.

Preparation time: 25 minutes + the time until the rice has cooled down
preparation time: 30 minutes, according to your skills and the amount of sushi.
medium difficulty

Ingredients:

Preparation:

See the other Sushi attempt I did. accompanied by an instruction video.

And the winner of the 4th Mediterranean Cooking Event – Croatia - is the blog Domestic Divas Meet up.

The winning recipe is Sarma.

Congratulations!

Childhood memories of my grandmother Elisabeth came up when I prepared this dish today. When ever I visited her there was rice pudding. It had a garnish of sugar and cinnamon on top and a tiny piece of butter was melting in the middle of the hot pudding on my plate. Also Greek childen have such memories. Here it is called Risogalo – Ρυζόγαλο. The Rice pudding is served in good tavernas as desert. Old and young love to eat it. it is served chilled though.

cooking time: 20 minutes

very simple recipe

Preparation:

Fry the rice lightly with some butter in a small pot. Add the sugar and the mild and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Keep the pot covered. Stir occasionally.

When the rice is done fill into bowls and serve with a piece of butter, some sugar and cinnamon on top.

You can also let the bowls with the pudding cool down and serve them chilled. In this case do not add the butter and sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar over the dish before you serve it.

This recipe I found in a cookbook called “flavours of the mediterranean” which I had gotten form my almost mother in law for Christmas. Finally I had gotter arround to cooking from it. A great dish for eggplant lovers with a touch of anchovies. The eggplant slices are boiled as well before being fryed which prevents them form drawing lots of oil. This makes the dish very light.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

baking time: 15 minutes

easy recipe

Preparation:

Cut the eggplant along its long side into slices of half a finger. Boil the slice in water for 2 to 3 minutes, then place them in a drianer to loose some water. Now fry them in a pan with a little bit oil. You want them to get some nice colour.

Menawhile blend the onion in a mixer to a fine puree. Mix it in a bowl with some ground almonds, the egg, the olive paste, the tomato paste, the thzme and the oregano. Season with salt and pepper.

Lay the eggplant slice on a cutting board and spread the mix evenly onto it. Place an anchovy on one end of the slice and roll it up from this end. Stick a tooth pick into it to stabelize it and place into an oiled baking tray.

Repeat the last step until the eggplant and the filing is used up.

You can sprinkle some cheese over the dish if you wish.

Place in the oven and broil for 10 to 15 minutes at 180 degrees.

I love leek. A fairly simple way of preparing leek is the following. Simply combined with Mozzarella di Buffola and good olive oil brings out the full flavour of the leek. A truly plain and delicous warm Mezze.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

easy recipe

Preparation:

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees. Bring water to boil in a small pot.

Wash the leek very well. Cut into 2 to 3 cm thick slices. I use the white as well as some of the leek.

Boil the leek int lightly salted water for about 10 minutes.

Take out the leek and let the water drain. Place into a small baking dish. Salt and pepper, then pour a little bit of olive oil over it. Put the Mozzarella cheese over it, crumle some rusk on top of the cheese and put the dish into the oven. Broil for 5 to 10 minutes.

Olive paste allways comes in handy. I spread it on crackers but also use it with pasta dishes or vegetable dishes. It allways adds a nice touch to the meal. Here I present a green olive paste.

preparation time: 10 minutes

very simpe recioe

Preparation:

Pit the olives and put them into a blender. Add the other ingredients. Process them until you have a fine paste. You may want to add some olive oil it the paste seem too dry.

Store in a jar in the fridge. It stores well fro up to two weeks, though it rarely lasts for that long.

I am currenly a lot into fish as you probably have noticed. This time I caught some salmon at my local fish store. I just love salmon, preferably with a nice sauce to it. This time I tried something new. A puree of onion and orange. It goes well with the fish and adds a hint of summer to the dish.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

cooking time: 40 minutes

easy recipe

Preparation:

For the “au gratin potatoes” cut the peeled potatoes into thin slices and layer half of them into a baking tray. Sprinkle some of the grinded cheese over them and add some salt and pepper.

Now layer the remaining potatoes over the others and again add cheese as well as salt and pepper. Now pour the cream into the pan. You also can use milk, if you prefer the dish to be lighter. Bake at 180 degrees for 40 minutes. Towards the end of the baking time you may want to activate the broiler in order to give the gratin some colour.

Mince the peeled onion in a mixer until it is very fine. Then fry it in a pan with some olive oil until brown. Add the juice of the oranges and let it simmer on low heat until the liquid has reduced and you have a puree.

Season the fish with salt and pepper. When the Gratin is about to be ready fry the fish from all sides in olive oil for about 4 to 6 minutes.

I have cooked this recipe twice lately. Once at home and once for mySecret Supper Event guests.

My guests loved the dish. The Dijon mustard butter gives the white fish a nice touch. The best about the recipe is though, that poaching the fish in milk does leave hardly any nasty smells in the flat. This makes it an ideal way of preparation when you are having guest at home.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

cooking time: 30 minutes

easy recipe

Preparation:

Pour the milk into a deep pan. Add the bay leaves, the thyme and a bit of sea salt. heat up the milk on low heat. make sure it does not boil.

Bring the rice to boil.

Peel and dice the garlic. Fry it in a pan on medium heat. Add the washed spinach. Simmer on low heat until the spinach is done.

Now you can put the fish fillets into the milk. The temperature of the milk should be between 80 and 90 degrees. The fish fill take approx 10 minutes be done. Keep an eye on it, this may vary with the type of fish.

Meanwhile melt the butter in a small pan and brown it. add the mustard and boil just for a second.

The rice should be done by now. You can place it on the plates. Place as well the spinach on the plates.

Now carefully remove the fish from the milk. It should have changed its colour and be about to fall apart. Let the milk drop off and plate the fish on the plate. pour some mustard – butter over the fish. Serve while hot.