Girls' night - Saltimbocca

Cooking runs in my blood. When my parents got divorced, we started a tradition with my mum & sister to have dinner every Monday. We are all grown-ups now, but this tradition has stayed the same for almost 10years now. This Monday, we made Saltimbocca, an Italian dish. However, we don't take it too seriously, so this was pretty much made with what we had at home.
Basic ingredients you need is either veal or pork, both will work great, fresh sage (don't subsitute for dried) and prosciutto, which is the Italian air dried ham. You can use serrano ham (Spanish)or similar products, whatever is available. Just don't tell an Italian that...

Slice the pork/veal in thick slices (or buy ready) and then batter them thin. With pork there can sometimes be a thick fat layer, you can cut that away.

The next step is to place the prosciutto on top of your meat, and on top of that a sage leaf. I used a regular toothpick to keep the whole thing together.

Next heat up a pan, add about 1tbs of olive oil, and quickly sear the meat on both sides.

Then put all the meat in a ceramic pan that can stand the heat of an oven. Put the pan in the oven for about 10min on 220C.

 

While the meat is in the oven, you can prepare the sauce. Use the same pan where you seared the meat, add 1dl of water, 1tbs of soy sauce, 1/2 cube (or 1tsp) of stock powder, 4tbs of sherry and 1tsp of honey. Taste and att soy for saltiness or honey for sweetness. Let the sauce simmer together, and finally add some sauce thickener to thicken it up.

 prepare a nice salad. This is a very simple one with arugula, lettuce, avocado slices, roasted pine nuts and crumbled goat cheese.

Really the only trick here is to use ripe avocado's and to cut them just before you serve. Squeeze some lemon over the avocado and it will keep them from turning  brown.

Take the meat out of the oven, pour the sauce over them and serve with the salad. My mother really felt like having some potato wedges with this, but it's striclty optional. If you have a salad with avocado and goat cheese you will feel perfectly full without the carbs in potatoes. Enjoy!

 

Low Carb Burger

I have a friend that's on a low carb diet, and we decided to make burgers.. This is slightly challenging since potatoes, corn, rice, any wheat flour is off limits.. I actually got a tip from another blogger (fashion blogger) about this pizza dough/burger bun you can make with eggs and cream cheese. Thank you Heidi!

Recipe

3 eggs

80grams (3oz) cream cheese

1/2tsp vinegar (etikka)

1/2tsp dijon mustard

salt

pepper

oregano

Turn the oven to 150C. Start by separating the egg yolks from the whites. Mix in one bowl egg yolks, cream cheese, mustard, salt, pepper. Use a bamix/electric whisk so the mixture becomes smooth. Add oregano to taste

Add the vinegar to your egg whites, and whipp them hard in glass bowl. When you can turn the entire bowl with whipped egg whites upside down (and nothing falls out) The egg whites are ready.

Carefully mix the whipped egg whites with the yolks, use a spatula (don't break the texture). It won't mix perfectly and can look marble like.

Put baking sheet on a tin, pour the mixture in six circles on a baking sheet.
Put in the oven for about 20-30mins. When the "buns" turn brown on top take the tin out and let it cool down for about 5-10min before trying to remove them from the baking sheet.

I can honestly say these were very tasty! And they do hold together, you can eat your burger with hands. Try it and love it!

BBQ Patties

400grams of ground beef

1 egg

 1/2 tsp mustard

1tbs of Tony Cachere creole seasoning

1/2tsp of Hickory Liquid Smoke

Mix everything together and make patties with your hands. Because there are no breadcrumbs in this recipe the most important thing when making the patties is to have heat under your pan! Make sure your pan is hot before you put your patties there. Otherwise they will start to give away liquid.

Sides/Filling

We filled our burgers with salad, pickles, mayo, cheddar... Whatever you feel like works!
As another tip, sweet potatoes has seriously a lot less carbs than potatoes. So make sweet potatoe fries (Recipe under my pulled beef burger post).