Belgian wafles

Brussels is located in the northern half of Belgium just above the main language border which separates the Flemish-speaking northern region and the French-speaking southern region of Belgium. The country is bordered by four countries: France, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg and has a coast facing the North Sea across from the United Kingdom. Due to the country’s central location, Brussels’ transport infrastructure is highly developed and the city is easily reachable by air, train, bus, car and even ferry.

Eating out is one of the pleasures of visiting Brussels but you need to know where to eat otherwise you will fall into tourist traps. Just because a place is crowded doesn’t mean the food and beverages are good. Know where the locals go to be treated with first class service and some really enjoyable fare. Brussels people love good food, good beers and a relaxing atmosphere. If this sounds like you then you’ll fit right into the dining scene.

Waffles are a dough-based cake that is cooked on a waffle iron with different shapes to give them their distinctive shape, design and indentations. Different varieties of waffles are eaten around the world; in Belgium, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the United States and Hong Kong.

Belgian waffles are made with thick wads of dough grilled on a heating iron to make deep, square-shaped indentations. The smell of freshly-made Belgian waffles is always wafting from the corner shops or snack food vans to attract anyone to sample some. Some home recipe variations will use baking powder instead of the yeast as a leavener, or both baking powder and yeast. Using baking powder is faster, though the tang from the yeast will be missing: some people say they prefer using baking powder because they don't like the tang.

There are two types of waffles which you will see being sold on the streets, in restaurants and casual snack shops of Brussels.

Brussels Waffles
One is Brussels Waffles (Gaufre de Bruxelles), made from batter leavened with beaten eggs. It is served with powdered sugar or chocolate.

Liège Waffles
The waffles from Liege are also widely sold in Brussels. They are popular on snack food vans and corner shops in metro stations. Liege waffles are slightly oval shaped with sugar baked into the waffle dough making them slightly chewy and very sweet.


Some history,

In 1958, at the World Fair in Belgium, a man named Walter Cleyman sold waffles within the World's Fair compound area. He served them topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit, and dusted with icing sugar. Previously, Americans had only experienced waffles with syrup on them. Cleyman sold around 400,000 waffles at the fair that year.

Cleyman won a place to sell his waffles again at the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle. To help him, he brought over from Belgium his wife, his two daughters, and his gas-powered waffle irons. He opened two waffle stands: one on Boulevards of the World, the other near the International Fountain. One was actually a large restaurant, on a corner, built in the style of a Belgian or Dutch building. 

http://www.cooksinfo.com

Pumpkin soup with apple

Ingredients 6 servings:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic
2 teaspoons grated ginger
1 small hot chili pepper
2 small or medium-size apples
500 g pumpkin (fresh)
1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
Salt and pepper
about 1.25 liters vegetable stock
freshly ground pepper
gorgonzola or Roquefort or other blue cheese with a mold

Preparation:

Heat the oil in a larger pot with a thick bottom, add the onion and fry it. Then add the grated garlic, grated ginger and halved, pitted chili. Fry for a minute.

Add peeled, cored free and diced apples. Cook stirring occasionally for about 4 - 5 minutes.

Now add cut into pieces the baked pumpkin*. Season with salt, pepper, cinnamon and bring to a boil.

Pour the stock in such an amount that reached 2 cm above the level of the vegetables. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes on a smaller heat until the pumpkin is tender. Blend to a smooth puree, if necessary, by adding more of boiling stock.

Serve such a small amount of crumbled gorgonzola cheese with the bread.

* How to bake a pumpkin: about 2 kg pumpkin, washed and cut into about 6 parts, remove the seeds. Place on a baking tray skin-side down and place in oven preheated to 200C. Bake for about 1 hour, or until the pumpkin is tender (a fork can easily be embedded deep into the flesh). Bore the flesh with a spoon of roasted pumpkin and mix the blender to a smooth puree . Measure out the required amount.

Pumpkin time - Pumpkin Spice Latte

Goodbye flip-flops and lemonade… hello hoodies and pumpkin spice!

The sweet, creamy flavours of cinnamon and nutmeg make Pumpkin Spice just right for automn crisper days and cooler nights. Now we can have Pumpkin Spice Coffee at home, recipe below.

One of the ingridients is pumpkin.
Pumpkin Spice Latte
Ingredients 2 servings:

4 tablespoons Pumpkin-spiced syrup (recipe below)
2 double espresso
250 ml milk
whipped cream
blend of spices: grated nutmeg, ground ginger powder, cinnamon, vanilla sugar

Preparation:

Prepare Pumpkin-spicy syrup (recipe below). Brew a cup of coffee and ad froth milk. The cups of hot coffee poured syrup (after 2 tablespoons), stir and pour (from above) hot frothed milk. Garnish with whipped cream and sprinkle with spices.

Pumpkin-spicy syrup, about 180 ml:

1/2 cup water
1 tsp ginger powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk (can be natural or caramel-flavored
1/4 cup roasted pumpkin puree


Preparation:

Heat the water in a pan, then add the spices: ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg and vanilla.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes, set aside from the heat and leave for 15 minutes.

Add to the pan condensed milk and stir until dissolved (if necessary can be heated).

Add roasted pumpkin puree and mix or blend. The syrup is ready to use. Keep it in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Cuppa with Her Majesty

During the summer, at the end of your visit to the State Rooms, you can enjoy a moment of relaxation and refreshment in the Garden Café on the Palace’s West Terrace. The café serves a selection of light refreshments, including tea, coffee, sandwiches and delicious pastries, specially created for Buckingham Palace.

After 173 years of receiving royal guests, Buckingham Palace opened its own café. From July 2010, in the café you can have tea, scones, sandwiches, cakes, meringues and even seafood salads to the 400,000 people who will come wandering through her home.

The Garden Café, to give it its proper name, will be operated by royal caterers Chester Boyd, who do all the Queen's garden parties. But those who would expect nothing less than bone china will be in for a disappointment. The special-issue blue plates and cups marked "Garden Café, Buckingham Palace" are cardboard.

Nuala McGourty, director of retail at Buckingham Palace, said* "the café expects less recycling than in other coffee shops, as customers are likely to smuggle out their cups, plates and even trays as souvenirs. "But if someone would like to take a cup home, then we're very happy to offer them an unused one,".

*Londyn Evening Standard / Tourists enjoy the ultimate British taste as Buckingham Palace opens new café

fudge brownies

Ingredients
165g butter, plus extra for greasing
200g dark chocolate, grated or finely chopped
3 free-range eggs
2 free-range egg yolks
1 vanilla pod, seeds only (or alternatively 2 tsp vanilla extract)
165g soft light brown sugar
2 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
pinch salt
154g pack chocolate biscuits, such as Oreos, broken into quarters

Preparation method

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a 20cm/8in square baking tin with butter, then line with baking paper with the paper overlapping the sides a little.

Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat. When the butter has melted, remove the pan from the heat and add the grated (or chopped) chocolate. Leave to stand for a few minutes, or until the chocolate melts, and then stir together. Alternatively, you can put the chocolate and butter in a bowl and melt in the microwave in 25-second blasts, stirring well each time.

Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla together in a large bowl until the eggs begin to get light and fluffy. Add the sugar in two additions, whisking between each. Pour it around the side of the egg mix so as not to knock out the air that has been whisked in. Keep whisking until the mixture becomes stiffer. Once the egg mixture is ready, pour the chocolate into it - again around the sides so as not to knock the air out.

Add the flour, cocoa powder, salt and a third of the biscuits and stir until fully combined, then pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Scatter the remaining biscuits over the top, pressing them in slightly. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 25–30 minutes. The middle should be very so slightly gooey. Leave the brownies to cool in the tin - the top will sink and crack a little.

Pull the brownies out using the overlapping paper and cut into squares.

Enjoy a taste of Spain - tapas

Tapas are a wide variety of appetizers, or snacks, in Spanish cuisine. They may be cold (such as mixed olives and cheese) or hot (such as chopitos, which are battered, fried baby squid). In select bars in Spain, tapas have evolved into an entire, and sometimes sophisticated, cuisine. In Spain, patrons of tapas can order many different tapas and combine them to make a full meal.

The serving of tapas is designed to encourage conversation because people are not so focused upon eating an entire meal that is set before them. Also, in some countries it is customary for diners to stand and move about while eating tapas.

El tapeo, the art of eating tapas, is a social occasion of which conversation forms as much an integral part as eating and drinking. A tapa and a drink are taken in one bar and then you pass on to another and so on until you are satiated. So you get to eat and drink well, solve the world’s problems and with all the walking burn off lots of calories!

Where to eat?

The Bar Giralda in Seville makes for a wonderful place to dine if you have been busy seeing the sights all day! Located right across the street from the Cathedral or the Alcazar, this is definitely the place to eat. The menus sport a great variety of tapas to choose from at a very reasonable price.

This bar occupies what was once the site of Moorish baths, with the columns and arches still being preserved. Even though the bar is very close to the Giralda after which it obviously takes its name, it is in no way a ‘tourist’ bar, although many tourists eat there. The list of tapas is immense with a recent count coming up with sixty-one! Included are calamares rellenos (stuffed squid), cola de toro (bull’s tail), agaucate con langostinos (avocado with king prawns), pastel de calabacín (courgette pie), jamon iberico (iberian ham), marge de pato sorbe championonese (duck marget on mushrooms slices.

Taste of Portugal- Cataplana Algarvia

For the Cataplana Algarvia

¼pt/½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 medium cooked potato - peeled and sliced finely
½ small onion, sliced finely
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 mackerel cutlets
4 small cuttlefish or squid - opened
½ lobster cut in half lengthways
4 green king prawns - shelled and deveined
4 live black mussels - cleaned
2 tbsp flat leaf parsley - torn
about 1pt/2 cups base stock

Preparation method

• To make the Lisbon paste, place the peppers into a hot char-gril panl and char all over.
• Place in a bowl and cover with cling film and set aside for 10 minutes.
• Remove the cling film, cut the peppers into quarters and remove the skin with a knife.
• Blend the peppers with garlic in a food processor to form a paste.
• Add the olive oil with the motor still running.
• Season, to taste, with salt.

• To make the base stock, heat the oil, onion, garlic and bay leaf over medium heat.
• Add the Lisbon paste and sauté.
• Add the anchovies and sauté for 1 minute.
• Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 3 minutes.
• Add wine, star anise and stock and cook a further 20 minutes.

To make the cataplana of seafood, heat a cataplana (a saucepan with tight fitting lid is a good substitute).
Fry the olive oil, onions, garlic, Lisbon paste and potatoes. Add the fish, mussels, lobster and a ladle of base stock. Close it and partly cook for 2 minutes.
Add the rest of the seafood, cover with the remaining stock and parsley, re-cover with the lid and cook for a further 4 minutes.

To serve, open the cataplana at the table to capture the aromas.