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

Isn't she lovely? You might not think it from the looks of it but this is actually one of the easiest desserts ever. The only thing that takes a while is waiting for the meringue to set in the oven, but I promise you - you won't regret the wait when it's time to eat these babies. Ingredients (makes 4): 3 egg whites (I used medium-size eggs) 165g white sugar few drops of vinegar 100ml whipping cream 1 additional tbsp sugar fresh fruit to top (I went for a very-berry combo: strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries) Pre-heat the oven to 100 degrees Celsius / 210 degrees Fahrenheit Instructions: 1. Take the vinegar and use it to rub the bowl you're going to use to whip your egg whites in, as well as the whisk. This de-greases the bowl, which is important for firm egg whites (they 'sink' when exposed to grease). 2. Separate the egg whites from the yolks. Do it carefully, you don't want a single drop of yolk to 'contaminate' the egg w...

This post is a blast from the past and a real treat. In 2012, followed a pizza Napoletana baking course from Bee’s Knees Kitchen in Amsterdam, as a gift from one of my best girlfriends. The lovely ladies who ran it and gave the workshops have since moved out of the country and the cooking school is closed, but the recipes never die.

Everyone with an office job and a love of creative breakfasts should stock up on puff pastry - you know, the ready made kind you keep in the freezer. This mini obsession kept me happy for quite a while, brought on partly by just how little it takes to make a decent pastry. So far, I've played around with mango, peach, cherry, pear, apple and chocolate. These cherry pin wheels were not just delicious, but pretty to boot :)

Do you ever wake up with asparagus cravings? I did this weekend, but it was early, and I had an  equally strong need for it to involve very little effort. The perfect solution: asparagus on toast. Ingredients (makes 1): 1 large tbsp cream cheese 1/4 avocado handful alfalfa few drops lemon juice 2 slices serrano ham 2 asparagus spears dollop of butter 1 slice rustic bread Instructions: 1. Peel the asparagus and cut off the bottom cm (or two, depending on how long your 'tough bottoms' are). 2. Melt the butter in a skillet and add the asparagus spears. Sautée for about 5 minutes, turning them every now and then so they don't burn. 3. In the meantime, mash the avocado into the cream cheese and add a few drops of lemon juice. Toast the bread. 4. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the bread. Layer the serrano ham onto it, and cover with alfalfa. On top, place the asparagus spears. Serve immediately.

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 ...

Minneola tangelos are the sweeter, juicier cousins of the grapefruit and the tangerine. I can't remember having ever bought them before, and yet all of a sudden, one September they were everywhere in their deep orange splendour. What it was about the bag of minneolas I came home with that made me think 'marmalade' I still can’t say, but something did, and here it is. Sweeter than traditional orange marmalade, with none of its bitterness. An easy sell, if you ask me. Homemade minneola marmalade Ingredients (enough for 3 US cups, or two 340mL jam jars and a little extra): 2 cups minneola juice (4 or 5 minneolas should be enough) rind of 4 mineolas 2 cups sugar 1.5 cups water * Equipment: a candy thermometer Instructions: 1. Juice the minneolas and pour the juice into a saucepan. 2. Using a sharp knife, cut the orange outside rind off of the remaining minneola peels, discarding the white pith. This is important - the more of the white pith you put into your ma...

Randomly food blog browsing one morning, I came across a recipe from Smitten Kitchen that looked - and sounded - absolutely fabulous: slow roasted tomatoes . And very, very easy - just the way I like it. All it takes is time (3 hours give or take). That sounds scary, but other than the 5 or so minutes of prep time, you mostly just wait - and there's no need to be anywhere near the kitchen while you do. When they're done, you'll see the wait was worth it - the tomatoes are intensely full of flavour and your kitchen will smell amazing.

Beautiful summer days call for food that is fresh, simple, and as little hassle as possible. After all, who wants to slave away in the kitchen when it’s gorgeous outside. And I like tasting the sun in my mouth. This recipe meets all those criteria - it’s quick, light, easy, but with fragrant summer flavours. At first sight, this recipe might look a little counter-intuitive. Tomatoes and strawberries? Strawberries and balsamic vinegar? But if you set your scepticism aside for a minute you’ll find that the tartness of the balsamic vinegar, the sweetness of the strawberries, that hint of basil - it all just works. Balsamic vinegar really brings out the flavor (and colour!) in strawberries - they get ever so slightly less sweet, but gain in 'umph'. Ingredients (serves 2): 200g small roma or cherry tomatoes 200g strawberries 10 leaves basil (basilicum) 2-3 tsp balsamic vinegar Instructions: 1. Slice the tomatoes and strawberries in half lengthwise and put them in a bow...

Cod is a great white fish. It falls to pieces when you cook it and is soft and with butter, lovely and rich. I love it just the way it is, but this time, I wanted something different. For some reason, I was fixating on fish fingers in mind - the kind I had as a kid, frozen from a box with a captain on it. I'm not even sure why, other than the nostalgia of the idea. I hadn't really loved them, but after two or so decades and a palette renewed many times over (every seven years, they say), I was a little curious. The result proved it once again: things just taste better when they don't come in a box (or from the frozen food section). I should have called these Melt in your Mouth fishcakes. Seriously. No Captain Igloo will ever compare. Ingredients (makes 8): 300g potatoes (weight after peeling) 180g cod fish zest of 1/2 lemon 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 small onion, finely chopped 15 mint leaves, finely chopped 50ml white wine 50ml milk 150ml water 1/2 fish ...

Meringue-making can be a pain in the ass, and the first time I tried to make these was a disastrous failure. I added the cacao in with the other ingredients and tried whisking, but the egg whites wouldn't take up any air and I ended up with a very drab, very pointless, very dark brown mixture. But I wasn't about to give up, so poured the gunk down the drain and tried again. The second time round I tried adding the cacao afterwards - a little bit at a time. That version actually looked like meringues, but they didn't taste right. Too much cacao. So I tried again. Below is the recipe that worked. Ingredients (makes about 20): 2 large egg whites 110g sugar pinch of maizena (corn starch) pinch of salt 1/2 teaspoon vinegar 12g cacao Pre-heat the oven to 100° Celsius. Instructions: 1. Before you start, make sure your utensils are clean and grease-free. Wipe down the metal of your whisk and bowl with vinegar and dry with a paper towel. 2. Begin this recipe ju...