Daring Cooks February Challenge - Patties & fish burgers my style

The Daring Cooks’ February 2012 challenge was hosted by Audax & Lis and they chose to present Patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness!We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties!

Technically patties are flatten discs of ingredients held together by (added) binders (usually eggs, flour or breadcrumbs) usually coated in breadcrumbs (or flour) then fried (and sometime baked). Burgers, rissoles, croquettes, fritters, and rösti are types of patties as well.

This challenge offered me the opportunity to share something I really love to eat - fish burger. When I first read the topic, I thoght about usual burgers (or 'Buletten') like we use to call them here in my region (funnily, there are several words for 'burger' in different regions of Germany). But then something popped up into my mind and I remembered something - the instant though of "Oh, you could make FISH burgers again ..."

So if you are not interested in love stories, skip this part. Now I am going to tell you the love story of me and the fish burger (on Valentine's day - funny, isn't it?). It all started with my au pair time in Norway which is known for its fish. About a month after I arived there was a 'traditional food' fair at the market sqare in Trondheim. At one booth a cook was making (high quality) fish burgers. There was a long queue, but I got to taste a bit because the mother from my family knew him. I fell in love immediately. So every time I travel to Norway for vacation or feel the longing to travel there, I try to recreate this memory. I discovered you can buy ready-made burger patties at the supermarket which are called 'fiskekaker' (fish cakes) or 'fiskekarbonader'. Some contain salmon, some white fish (mainly codfish) or extra ingredients like bacon or leek. Here you can find an overview. Of course I can't get them here, so I had to make them myself. In one of my cooking books I bought in Norway (I speak Norwegian, so no problem) I found a recipe I could adapt and use for fish burgers. The book is by Andreas Viestad and also availiable in English as "Kitchen of light". If you are interested in Scandinavian cooking, you can have a peek here and for a traditional 'fiskekaker' recipe here.

This is my adaption - a version with salmon which I absolutely love and a new one with codfish, dried tomatoes and leek. And because I'm into bread baking right know, I'll add a recipe for lemon-flavoured bread rolls which suit the fish really well.

Daring Bakers January Challenge - Scones

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host.. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

The challenge scone (biscuit) recipe has been especially formulated by Audax Artifex after a large amount of research and experimentation. So if you want to make perfect scones, you should follow the link to his blog and read all the hints & tips he has been coming up with. I myself should have read them more accurately  because my scones were more flat discs than puffy and muffin-like. I guessed I patted them too flat and kneaded them a little bit too long. Resting into the fridge helped the raising process, thats the reason the walnut-gorgonzola ones are higher (they rested longer).

Nevertheless, the taste was great and the baked dough soft. I put them onto my to-do list for my next birthday lunch - a few batches more before should make a perfect result at the end ;)

My modifications were gorgonzola and walnuts for a more savoury and buttermild and passion fruit puree for a more sweet version.

Walnut-Gorgonzola Scones (front) and buttermilk-passion fruit Scones (back)

Daring Cooks January Challenge: Tamales

Maranda of Jolts & Jollies was our January 2012 Daring Cooks hostess with the mostess! Maranda challenged us to make traditional Mexican Tamales as our first challenge of the year!

Honestly, I do not like Mexican food at all - or South American. My taste buds can't get used to those strange and very spicy flavours (I like spicy, but not hot-so-you-can't-taste-anything-else spicy). I didn't liked the flavour of the Ceviche or the result of the enchilada challenge (too fatty althoug the filling was nice). And now Tamales with a list of ingredients hard to find and corn flour (tastes strange too) ... Luckily I know someone who runs an British-American food store and had canned tomatoes with chilies and refried black beans I could use. And I had some corn flour left which I mostly use for bread baking. I made the vegetarian version and one of my own, using salmon and avocado. Instead of corn husks, I rolled them into baking paper bound with dental floss. The final tamales were really saturating - but sadly nothing more than that. South-American food and I will never go well together I guess.