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

Before I first made shrimp, it always scared me a little. For some reason - at the time, I had next to no experience to base my fears on - I had gotten it into my head that seafood was difficult to make. Difficult to make, and difficult to get right. Irrational as it was, that fear stopped me from making shrimp dishes for years - until one day, I realised there was hardly anything to it. That it is probably harder to get it wrong, than it is to get it right. Try this simple coconut shrimp dish, and see for yourself. :) Ingredients (serves 2): Coconut Shrimp 250g shrimp, peeled and deveined (if you’re buying them fresh, get them with the tail left on. If you’re using frozen shrimp they may not have tails - that’s ok. Make sure they’re thawed.) 1/2 cup shredded coconut 1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs (these are lighter and crunchier than regular bread crumbs) 1/2 cup flour (tapioca flour or all purpose flour - both will do) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1-2 eggs (start with 1, you ...

Today is a special day. I have reason to celebrate today and am feeling grateful and in an especially festive mood, so I’m going to share with you one of the best recipes I’ve come across so far. I made it last night. The funny thing is that until quite recently when I was lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful eggplant dish made for me by a dear friend of mine, I was convinced I didn’t even like eggplant. I don’t know what I was thinking. I  bought a stunning purple and white striped version and set out to see what else I could do with it. This Ottolenghi recipe looked to good not to try, and it turns out it tastes as good as it looks. I adjusted the recipe just a little - I didn’t have fresh buttermilk so made a substitute, I added some tahini, and the result was incredible. I literally ended up licking my plate. Ingredients (serves 2 if you give each person 1/2 an eggplant. I ate this as a main and had the whole thing myself): 1 egg plant (aubergine) seeds of 1/2 pomegranate...

Usually, I buy my ingredients and then think of recipes to make with them. This time, I saw a photo of asparagus in puff pastry that left my mouth watering so badly there was no saying no - I just had to go out and get some more asparagus. Having enjoyed the white ones this past week, I went back to my favourite of all - the green. Ingredients (makes 4): 12 green asparagus stalks (slightly thinner ones are preferable to really thick ones) 150g brie 20ml runny honey 1 egg chunky sea salt  1 tsp sesame seeds or chia seeds  Instructions: Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. 1. Remove 4 sheets of puff pastry from the freezer and let them defrost.  2. Slice the brie into very thin slices of brie and cover the the puff pastry with it.  3. Cut the rough bottom 1 cm off the asparagus stalks, then press them into the brie - 3 on each piece of puff pastry. 4. Drizzle the asparagus with honey, then sprinkle with a bit of salt. Fold ...

You know those days when you just don’t feel like dinner in the traditional sense, but would rather fork in snacks all evening? Yeah, I was having one of those - so I thought if I was going to go that way and succumb to my snack attack, then I might as well make myself some *proper* snacks. Ahem. This one definitely passed the test. :) Ingredients (serves 2): 240g wheel of camembert (or brie, that works too) 250g strawberries 1.5 tbsp honey 1 tsp white balsamic vinegar (if you don’t have the white kind, just use brown) 1 tbsp finely chopped mint 1 tbsp chopped walnuts Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius Instructions: 1. In a bowl, mix the honey and balsamic vinegar together. 2. Remove the green hearts from the strawberries and slice them in half. If they are big, quarter them. Then add them to the balsamic-honey mixture and stir around to coat them all. 3. Spread on a baking tray or dish covered in baking parchment. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, so they...

This is a dish that came back over and over as I was growing up. And while it’s not particularly spectacular in any culinary sense, it’s wholesome and it’s gooood. As far as I’m concerned, that alone makes it a pretty good starter - although if you're serving this as part of an hours-long eating fest with lots of different dishes, I'd recommend scaling down the size by cutting each avocado into thirds or even quarters rather than halves. It makes a pretty good brunch dish too. The added bonus: this is so easy it barely qualifies as cooking. Ingredients (serves 4): 1 ripe avocado 1 can of tuna (145g) 1 small onion, finely chopped 3 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 tablespoon ketchup salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Instructions: 1. Drain the tuna, put in a bowl together with the onion, mayonnaise and ketchup, and use a fork to mix well. Season with salt and black pepper to taste. 2. Cut the avocados in half lengthwise, remove the seeds, heap some avocado ...

In the heat of a crazy 42° Celsius summer day when I was living in Bilbao a decade back, I was browsing some Spanish cooking blogs and found an irresistible recipe by Ana from menorcana.com: melon soup. It’s served chilled, and sounded refreshing. It tastes much like the classic Italian melon and ham, but then in liquid form. Perfect for summers - or for bright sunny days like today (she writes as the sunshine pours in through freshly washed windows). Ingredients (serves 2): 400 honeydew melon 2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice salt and pepper 2 strips Parma or Serrano ham, or 2 rashers bacon Instructions: 1. Cut the peel off the lemon and slice into chunks. Throw into a blender and purée until smooth. Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste, then place in the fridge until chilled. 2. Fry the cured ham or bacon until the strips are crunchy. Put aside on kitchen paper to get rid of the excess grease and let cool. 3. Pour the melon 'soup' into the glasses. Slic...

As the world around me is locking down, I’m looking for ways to stay sane. There’s the books I haven’t read, and the movies I haven’t seen. And then there’s food, and this blog. A little for you and a bit for myself, I’ll be doing my best to provide you all with some comfort food in the weeks to come. Like this quiche. Recipe (serves 2): 225g puff pastry (I used a 275g pack of Backini fresh puff pastry) 2 cocottes, mini quiche tins, or mini pie pans (mine were about 12 cm in diameter) 3 medium-size potatoes 1/2 leek 1 large shallot 2 large eggs 60ml cream gouda cheese, grated (I used about 20g but seriously, you don't need measurements for this. Just do it to taste) parmesan, grated (enough to cover the top of both cocottes) fresh oregano 15g bacon (Serrano ham is nice too) salt pepper Instructions: 1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. 2. Peel the potatoes and cut into slices about 3mm thick. 3. Bring a big pot of hot salted water to...

I've been holding out on posting this recipe for a while because whenever I make them, I forget to write down the quantities - it's more of an "a little of this, a little of that" approach to cooking. I got back into stuffed bell peppers while visiting my parents in Mexico City over Christmas last year - we've had them often over the years, mostly because they're good but also because they're a very easy (and, cutting excepted, relatively fuss-free) starter to large dinner parties. Because they really are that convenient - this is pretty effortless as far as cooking goes - I made about ten of them for the goodbye lunch I threw when I left Mexico last January. It was my first attempt at cooking for fourteen people, and I'm proud to say it didn't go too badly. Planning was a big factor, and the great thing about these (like many other recipes I like to include on my list for dinner parties) is that you can make them ahead. And you probably should, ...

Tapenade 1 jar (240g) seedless green olives, drained 1 large clove garlic, minced 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp capers, drained 1 handful toasted almonds, halved 5 tbsp olive oil

Sitting next to the fireplace in a country cottage in Franschhoek, South Africa and leafing through an old local edition of "Woman and Home” left behind by some previous passer-by, I came across a fabulous recipe for pork in little gem lettuce. I loved it so much I just had to share. This is more or less it, in a slightly altered version. Ingredients (serves 2-3): 1 little gem lettuce 150g minced meat (50% pork 50% beef) 1/2 red pepper, seeds removed and finely chopped 2 tsp fish sauce 2 tsp fresh lemon juice 1 tsp soy sauce 2 tsp fresh mint leaves 2 tsp fresh koriander (cilantro) leaves dash of vegetable oil 1 tsp sesame oil 1 tsp sesame seeds (white, black, or mixed) + an extra dash Instructions: 1. Pour a dash of vegetable oil into a skillet and fry the minced meat until it is no longer pink. Remove from pan and set aside, leaving as much of the oil as possible in the pan. 2. In the remaining oil, lightly sautée the red pepper (2-3 minutes) on medium heat,...

Strolling along the Albert Cuyp market, something drew me to crab legs. The North Sea crab (Noordzeekrab), widely available in the Netherlands, is a think-shelled bugger, large and brownish-white in colour. Boxes full of crab claws were just sitting there, staring at me. The fish man came at me before I had a chance to move on. I was trapped, and bought crab claws for two. This wasn't the first time I'd come home with crab legs. Same crabs, same fishmonger. Last fall, I'd bought them to make a crab curry inspired by a Portuguese Mozambiquan girl I used to know. I'd had them the same way when she made them once - boiled and left in the curry, claws and all. When we ate, we had to break open the curry-laden shells with a hammer, and wound up splattering orange sauce all over ourselves. Not really in the mood for clearing orange stains, I figured I'd take a safer route by removing the crab meat from the shells before serving it up. Now what to do with it...? A...

Tuna tartare, the story holds, was invented in Los Angeles in 1983. Chef Shigefume Tachibe is believed to be the first who came up with the recipe, putting it on the menu at Chaya Brasserie that year as a Japanese-French fusion dish. Chef Shigefume did a good thing that day. In a nutshell, tuna tartare (like its meaty cousin) is basically raw tuna steak, chopped up with a few spices tossed in. It's a wonderfully simplistic dish, and making or breaking it all boils down to the ingredients you use. If you've got good products there's very little that can go wrong here. I found this a lovely way to serve tuna as a starter without heading straight in the sushi direction (and much easier to combine with other courses). Ingredients (serves 4): (time: 15 minutes) Tuna Tartare 350g sushi-grade tuna 1 tsp dijon mustard* 6 capers, very finely chopped 1 tsp chives, finely chopped 1 shallot, finely chopped 2 avocados, diced 3 yellow tomatoes** zest of 1/2 lemon 1 ...