Ilse's Kitchen - culinary adventures of a girl who loves to eat

I was in the mood for some good old fashioned vegetable soup with meatballs - the kind my grandma might have made. It’s one of those soups you’ll find throughout Europe from north to south, all with slightly different details but very close to this. This version is an Italian variant using half beef half pork meatballs, oregano and acini di pepe and popularly known as as ‘Wedding Soup’.  Ingredients (serves 3): meatballs 250g minced meat, 50% beef 50% pork 2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped salt and freshly ground black pepper  1/4 cup breadcrumbs 1/4 cup grated parmesan 1/2 egg soup 1 stalk celery, finely chopped 50g spinach, roughly chopped 1 cup baby carrots, cut into 1/2 cm thick slices 1 medium-sized onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1.25L chicken broth 1/3 cup acini di pepe  2 tablespoons olive oil  Instructions: 1. Put the minced meat in a large bowl and add the oregano, parsley, breadcrumbs, parmesan, egg and salt an...

Pytt i Panna is a Swedish one-pan dish made of meat, onions and potatoes - traditionally served with beetroot and a fried egg. It’s a classic leftover dish, and a great use for your leftover boiled potatoes. I used to have it a lot - a friend once served it to me on one of my visits to Sweden and I came to appreciate the hearty flavour combination - and the fact that this makes a great hangover meal. My local IKEA used to sell it in big bags in its frozen food section, which made it even more effortless than it already is. When one day my IKEA stopped selling it, I started making it from scratch myself. Ingredients: 240g potato, peeled and boiled and diced 2 medium-sized yellow onion, chopped medium-fine 200g smoked bacon, diced 2 small pre-boiled beetroot, sliced 2 eggs knob of butter or dash of olive oil Instructions: 1. If you’re particularly lazy like I was this evening, you’ll not only use pre-boiled beets, but pre-boiled potatoes. It saves you some time, but it’s n...

You know those dishes you used to love as a child? This is a twist on an asparagus dish we used to eat when I was little. It graced our dinner table many-a-time, often on special occasions. I serve my asparagus in many different ways by now, but every now and again, I crave them just like this.  Ingredients (serves 2 as a main or 4 as a starter): 14-16 asparagus spears 200g ham, thinly sliced  1 red bell pepper, finely chopped 1 green bell pepper, finely chopped 1 medium size onion, finely chopped 6 tbsp olive oil 5 tbsp balsamic vinegar  salt Instructions: 1. Bring a large pan of water to a boil and salt it slightly. Add the asparagus spears and boil for 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat and place the asparagus spears in a big bowl of icy cold water. 2. Wrap each asparagus spear in ham. 3. Pour the olive oil in a large skillet and add the onion. Fry for 2-3 minutes until glazed. Add the bell pepper and the balsamic vinegar and fry for 1-2 minut...

Like all good traditional home cooked meals, you can make a Shepherd's pie in just about a million different ways, and everyone plus their grandma has a slightly different version. I am not going to tell you that some are better than others (although some undoubtedly are), but I will tell you this: without lamb, it ain't Shepherd's pie. All in all, it's a pretty simple dish - there really isn't very much to it. The things to watch for are mostly texture and proportion. The first time I made this it came out on the dry side and I overdid it with the potatoes. The second time I left too much juice in the meat which made it a bit too runny, which, although it tasted substantially better than the dry version, didn't serve very well. This recipe is somewhere in the middle. Not too dry, not too gooey, but oozing with lamby goodness. Another nice thing about shepherd's pie is that like lasagna, it's even better the next day - and it holds up very well when ...

I spent four years living in Mexico, and tacos de bistec con queso were one of my ultimate feel-good foods. There are a lot of great Mexican recipes, but this is one of my favourites: it’s super easy and one of the few things that I still make on a very regular basis. So yesterday, when my boiler quit on me and I was left without heating or hot water and full of fear of the possibility of an impending lock-down & the implication that this meant I might be left in the cold for the length of quarantine, this was naturally what I turned to. And it worked to reassure me for a while - the familiarity was comforting and the spiciness warmed up my insides. Ingredients (makes 4): Salsa Roja 3 medium sized plum tomatoes 1 small yellow onion 1 clove garlic 2 red chili peppers, deseeded (or more, if you prefer it extra-spicy) few decent dashes olive oil pinch of salt Tacos: 200g beef steak 1 medium-small yellow onion, chopped. Few good handfuls grated cheese 1 lime, cut i...

Ok, maybe 'healthy' is overselling it a little, but at least this version contains nearly all the food groups and definitely has more veggies than the average. I like to tell myself that makes a difference. Macaroni - with its fair share of cheese - has been in my family as far back as I can remember, but my mother knows better. She first made it as a student, when pasta was far from common at Dutch dinner tables. The instructions told her to prepare each of the ingredients, one by one. She followed them to the letter and served them all separately .   Luckily for us, her macaroni has come a way since then. When I left home, I took my mother's recipe with me and added a touch of my own here and there. The current version is a comfort food I'm happy to make in over-sized quantities and eat as leftovers for days. Ingredients (serves 2 with leftovers): 1.5 cups macaroni  1 red bell pepper 1 green bell pepper 1/2 leek 2 medium-size onions 150g h...

Having just returned from 3 1/2 weeks in Mexico, my first post of 2014 was inspired by things Latin. In Mexico City I spent some time at the house of a friend whose mother was known for her empanadas. No better time and place to learn the tricks of the trade - and as with most things I hadn't tried before, after a bit of practice it turned out to be easier than I had expected.