Home is where the food is

We, the members of the blog committee, are happy to officially introduce ourselves to you by sharing a piece of everyone’s home. What says ‘home’ more than home cooked food? We are all going to introduce ourselves and share our dearest dish with you. As a culturally diverse committee, you will get a glimpse into our very different homes.

Flaminia’s Home

My name is Flaminia. I am French and Italian. Although I always lived In France, my Italian mom and grandma are incredible cooks: I always ate like a king. Every time we visit my grandma in Rome she spends the whole day in the kitchen, preparing tasty dishes for the whole family. Same for my mom, she makes sure to free one or two hours a day to prepare amazing dinners. So food takes an important place in my family. I have numerous memories of food. However, there is one which warms my heart every time I think about it. When I was a child, we would visit my grandparents every holiday. However, no matter how late it was, my grandma would always prepare a homemade pizza and keep it warm for us. And then, while we were eating it, she would ask me and my sister what we wanted to eat during our stay. I always asked for my favorite dish of hers:  

Stuffed baked tomatoes

For this typical Roman dish, you will need: (two persons)

• 4 big round tomatoes 
• 4 potatoes, cut into squares
• Rice
• Chopped basil
• Salt, pepper and olive oil

Take the tomatoes and cut the upper part, in a way that it is possible to dig the flesh. Then dig the flesh of the tomato by cutting the sides. Keep aside the upper part and the flesh. Then sprinkle some salt inside the tomatoes and put them upside down, in order to drain the water. Once done, keep the water on the side. Meanwhile, prepare the stuffing. In a bowl add raw rice, basil, salt, pepper, a bit of tomato water and a bit of tomato flesh that you kept on the side. Mix everything. Fill the tomatoes with the stuffing, but not up until the end because the rice will cook. Add some olive oil in the stuffing and cover the tomatoes with their cap. After that cut the potatoes and add some olive oil, salt, and pepper on it. Place the tomatoes and potatoes on a baking pan and bake at 170 degrees during 40 minutes.

Cecilia’s Home

My name is Cecilia and I am a Spaniard that grew up in Germany. My home was always very Spanish, and so was the food I ate. One of the memories I hold most dearly is my dad cooking a ‘Tortilla de Patata’ every second week. Due to the smell of olive oil when waking up, the Spanish radio and my mother arguing over how dirty the kitchen was, I sometimes even forgot I was actually in Munich.

Tortilla de Patata

To taste this little piece of Spanish heaven you will need:

• Half an onion
• 4 eggs
• 3-4r potatoes depending on size. Make sure the potatoes are about 500 grams, the size is not really relevant.

Firstly, cut the potatoes in thin slices and the onion in small cubes. Then, put a nice amount of oil in the pan on low to medium heat, make sure it is enough oil to fry the potatoes evenly. Put the potatoes and onion in the oil and when the potatoes are fried and slightly golden, take everything out of the oil and rinse. Save the oil in a container for future use of other dishes, there is no need to throw it away. Crack and whisk the eggs, so you can put the eggs and onion in the batter. Put the oily but oil-free pan on the low to medium heat again and pour the mixture in. You will know it’s time to flip the tortilla if you check the back of it and it is slightly golden and when the batter is almost not liquidy anymore. For the flip, you will need a big flat plate, that you will use to cover the pan. Don’t be nervous now just quickly flip the plan so you have the tortilla on your plate. However, one side is not cooked, the side that is touching the plate. Easy fix! Just slide the tortilla onto the pan, if you need to make use of a turner or spatula, do so. Let the tortilla cook for a few minutes more until both sides have a nice golden color and you are ready to slide the tortilla onto another plate. You can enjoy this dish hot, cold, in big pieces or tapas!

Mascha’s home

My name is Mascha. I am half Thai and half Dutch. I grew up in the Netherlands, but I always noticed that we ate different food than other Dutch people did. One of my greatest childhood memories was when we ate ‘Pa Thong Ko’ on Sunday mornings. Pa Thong Ko is a fried batter that you eat with condensed milk or chocolate milk. It is crispy on the outside, gooey and soft on the inside. We used to buy them at the toko in our neighborhood, but when I was around 7 years old, they stopped selling Pa Thong Ko and we had to make them ourselves. Making Pa Thong Ko took quite some time. We would get up at six in the morning to make the batter and we would fry the batter the minute my mom and sister woke up. These mornings were very special to me. 

Pa Thong Ko

To make these amazing treats you will need:

• 260 grams of (bread)flour
• 170 ml of lukewarm water
• 1 teaspoon of yeast
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• pinch of salt

Mix the sugar with the yeast and make sure it turns into a paste-like consistency. Add the water to this mixture. Mix the flour with the baking powder and the salt. Add the water mixture to the flour mixture. Next, you add the vegetable oil and mix it until it is combined. Cover your bowl with a kitchen towel and leave it to rest and rise for four hours. After four hours, you sculpt the batter into small worms. Stick two of these worms together to make it x-shaped. Do not squeeze the batter, just make sure they are joined together. Heat some oil into a pan and deep fry the dough until it is golden brown and crispy on the outside. Do this with all the pa thong ko and serve them with hot chocolate milk or condensed milk to dip in. It is delicious, I promise!

Charlie’s home

My name is Charlie. I am American and grew up in the suburbs outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Whenever I hear internationals talking about American high school stereotypes, I always laugh because oddly enough.. they are mostly true! Right around this time of year, I would already be looking forward to the massive feast of Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving because it is the beginning of the cold winter months and it’s always fun to see family from out of town.  Thanksgiving is done over a heaping plate of food. One of my many favorite dishes of the evening is pumpkin pie. My mom always just buys the famous Libby’s pumpkin pie filling in a can but let’s get fancy and do it from scratch.

Pumpkin Pie

To make pumpkin pie you will need:

• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of ginger
• ½ teaspoon of nutmeg
• ⅛ teaspoon of cloves
• 3 eggs (beaten)
• 15 ounces of pumpkin puree
• 1 and ¼ cup of evaporated milk
• 1 pie crust

Heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix the ingredients in the filling well until it forms a smooth consistency. Press the crust into a pie pan and then pour the pie filling into it. Bake the pie for about 45 minutes and then make sure it has time to set before serving it! I love to eat it with vanilla ice cream as well. Now enjoy and eat up!

Christiaan’s home

My name is Christiaan. For me, the beauty in cooking is that it enables you to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts and that you can enjoy and share immediately. At home growing up, food has always been very important however for me there is one dish that really has a lot of nostalgic value. This is ‘Pisang Goreng’ which is Indonesian and literally translated means ‘fried banana’. My grandma, who is the most amazing cook, always made Pisang Goreng whenever we came to her home, this is her recipe. For a dish that tastes so good, the recipe is very simple. 

Pisang Goreng

Here are the ingredients that you will need:

• 200 grams of self-rising flour
• 40 grams of sugar
• a pinch of salt
• around 250 ml water
• around 500 ml oil to fry in (preference: peanut oil)
• 6 regular but not very ripe bananas

Simply add and mix all the dry ingredients, then add water until the batter has a consistency slightly more fluid then cake batter. If you’re not sure, take a piece of banana and test how well it coats it. Cut the bananas lengthwise and then twice in the other direction creating 6 evenly sized pieces. Add the pieces of banana to the batter. Heat the oil to 180 degrees and set a plate with some paper towels to the side onto which you will drain the bananas after frying them. To test the temperature of the oil, you can drop a little batter into the oil, if the temperature is good it will bubble up slightly. Then proceed to fry the coated banana pieces 3 at a time until the batter turns golden brown and allowing them to drain on the paper towel. Once your this far all that’s left to do is to sprinkle some (powdered) sugar over your Pisang Goreng and enjoy it! 

Have we managed to make you hungry but you are not in the mood for one of our here presented recipes? Try our courgette lasagna or check out our cooking tips.