Avocado soup shots

It seems that lately I have a crash on avocados, altough in the past I did not really pay much attention to this gorgeous green fruit. It is good to know that unripe fruits are poisonous, and if you cook avocado it might turn bitter. I think this soup here has a serious chance to became the most favourite of the comming summer! It has such a silky texture that strokes your throat like nothing else. Play with the spices, just do not forget: less is more! It is also important that it has a nice consistency, not too thick! Therefore I used coconut water and served it with a coconut milk. Boost it with freshly ground pepper, chili or tequila.

Ingredients:
2 small ripe avocados
500 ml coconut water
1 lemongrass
1 lime
1/2 bunch of mint
chili
tequila
2-3 tablespoons coconut milk
salt
pepper

Bring coconut water with the chopped lemongrass to the boil, remove from the heat and let it infuse for 30 minutes. Half avocados, remove the core and scrap out the flesh. Puree avocado together with the cool coconut water, lime zest, half of the mint and chili as much as you desire. If it turns to be too thick add more coconut water or even some vegetable stock. Season with salt, pepper and lime juice. If you like boost it with a little tequila. Chill and serve with mint leaves and some coconut milk.

Cayenne pepper spiced chicken breast with avocado, mango, sesonal salads and basil-yoghurt dressing

After I managed to put an end to my sugar and white flour free month, which frankly I do not really mind, I thought to prepare something light for lunch. It is time to enjoy winter salads as long as they are still available, though I know most of them you can buy throughout the year, but mâche and red chicory taste best right now. Agree? There is not much to tell about this salad: a spicy and hot chicken breast served with bunch of different greens, mango, avocado with a basil-yoghurt dressing. Perfect on a busy day, as you are done within 10 minutes with the whole thing!

Ingredients:
per person:
half of a chicken breast
1 handful mâche
1 radicchio
1 red chicory
1/2 mango
1/2 avocado
1 small onion
saltcayenne pepper
peanut oil

for the dressing:
100 ml yoghurt
1/2 garlic clove
handful basil leaves
juice and zest of 1/2 lime
3 tablespoons rapeseed oil
salt
pepper

Season chicken with salt and cayenne pepper. If you do not want it to be very hot mix cayenne pepper with paprika powder. Wash and drain salads, slice avocado and mango. Sprinkle avocado with lime juice to prevent it from turning brown. For the dressing put the ingredients into a mixer and blend it and season. Fry chicken breast over medium heat and serve on the salad.

Fish sticks with avocado mayonnaise

Lately, I am totally crazy about avocados, though in the past I couldn't stand that gorgeous green fruit. Meanwhile I've learnt to appriciate it and have it often as a salad. My favourite way to serve it is simple: some lemon juice, spring onions, a good quality oil and lot of pepper. Yum! Yesterday I wanted to cook something simple using leftovers. I always freeze the thin part of a fish fillet, so that I can use that for making farce or any other type of stuffing. As I also found a pack of brick pastry, it was pretty obvious to make some fish sticks that went perfectly well with the avocado mayonnaise and a salad with chicorée and red pomelo.

Ingredients:
for the fish sticks:
250 g white fish fillet
50 ml cream
1 egg white
4-5 basil leaves
salt
pepper
brick pastry
1 egg yolk
oil for deep frying
for the avocado mayonnaise:
1 avocado
1-2 tablepoons lime juice
5 tablespoons rapeseed oil
salt
pepper

Puree fish, cream together with the egg white and basil in a mixer. Season with salt and pepper. In case the brick pastry is round, cut it in quarters and pipe a line of the fish farce onto it. Smear sides with egg yolk and roll it up. Deep fry in hot oil. For the avocado mayonnaise puree avocado with oil, lime juice and season with salt and pepper.

Prawns with coconut-avocado risotto, strawberry-mango salsa and spicy coconut foam

Actually, I planned to prepare three different dishes with white asparagus, but then I ended up making this risotto. However as a starter I made one of them. Something really simple: white asparagus with thin tarragon omelette, parma ham chips and freshly grated parmesan. Then I started to make plans for the main course. I saw a black risotto with pieces of white asparagus and fried prawns. But somehow there was something missing. Besides I couldn't get the strawberry-mango jam out of my mind, that I cooked yesterday. So I got rid of the king of the spring vegetables and included the fruits, an avocado and coconut in the dish instead. I didn't want to use any cheese and butter in the risotto, but instead I wanted to reach that typical risotto consistency with the help of the avocado and creamy coconut milk. However, the black colour was still bothering me, so instead of the white coconut foam I made it dark grey pimped with squid ink and a little garam masala.

Ingredients:
for the risotto:
100 g risotto rice (e.g. carnaroli)
1 shallot
1 celery stalk
1 teaspoon butter
50 ml white wine
500 ml fish or vegetable stock
70 ml coconut milk
1/2 avocado
salt, pepper


Melt butter, add finely grated shallot, celery and sautee, then sweat it for a few more mintues together with the rice. In another pot bring stock to simmer. Pour wine over the rice and let it reduce. Season with a little salt and pepper. Add some stock and let it cook over medium heat, while stirring, as soon as it has absorbed add another portion of stock and repeat it until the rice is almost cooked through. Add coconut milk and cook it for a few more minutes. Stir in avocado puree and season with salt and pepper and adjust consistency with more coconut milk.

for the strawberry-mango salsa:
30 g strawberry
70 g mango
1/2 chili or as desired
1/2 lime 
few pinches of ginger

Cut strawberry and mango in cubes, mix together with the finely chopped chili and season with lime juice, zest and a little ginger.

for the spicy coconut foam:
50 ml fish stock
1 shallot
1 teaspoon butter
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
50 ml coconut milk
50 ml cream
4 g squid ink
salt, pepper

For the spicy coconut foam, chop shallot and sautee in a teaspoon butter together with the garam masala, pour fish stock over it and reduce by half. Add coconut milk and cream and cook for 5-7 minutes. Sieve before serving, add squid ink and bring it to the boil, season and foam it with a blender. Fry prawns in a mixture of butter and olive oil, season with garlic and cayenne pepper.

Tempura Shrimp with Coconut Flakes, Lemongrass-Sunchoke Puree, Avocado-Passion Fruit Salsa and Passion Fruit Sauce

In the past I was not a fan of prawns, I did not even like lobster, but I was crazy about langouste. Then it has changed! Currently, I am having a kind of prawn period, that means that I prepare prawns once a week. Unfortunatly, the rest of the family don't like prawns at all, so I do not have the chance to serve them some. Yesterday, I felt like taking a short break from baking cookies. In fact I did not even want to think about a single Zimtstern or honey cookie, so I went to the kitchen and started to cook totally relaxed.

As I have just finished everything, suddenly the phone rang and I recieved another request for 6 kilo xmas cookies. And so my break has ended. Anyway, let's see the recipe. This time no beets! Instead I cooked sunchoke, as I did not want to bother with peeling them raw. While that I brought coconut milk with lemongrass to the boil, then I pureed the sunchoke with it. The marinated prawns were deep fried with tempura and coconut chips. Only the sauce was missing, but I also prepared an avocado-passion fruit salsa. Next time I am going to add fresh chilli to the salsa, now I only used some cayenne pepper.
 

Ingredients:
2 passion fruits
150 ml brown veal stock
100 ml cream
salt, pepper


Half passion fruits and scrape out the seeds into a saucepan, then add veal stock and reduce by half. Add cream and cook until it thickens, sieve and season.

Avocado Bavaroise

Since a while I have been curious about avocado in combination with chocolate. The actual plan was to bake a chocolate cake and serve it with avocado cream, but then I felt like experimenting.

I had the idea to combine coconut, avocado and chocolate in one dessert. As first I baked a simple coconut meringue as the bottom and I spread some chocolate ganache on top. The next step was to prepare the avocado bavaroise, that ended up on top of the first chocolate ganache layer. This I covered with a hazelnut dacquoise, then spread another layer of chocolate ganache and topped the whole thing with coconut mousse sprinkled with toasted coconut flakes. And those flakes drove me almost nuts while taking the photos! They just seemed to be everywhere! I am pretty sure that this was the last time when I decorated cake with coconut flakes!
Ingredients:
240 ml milk
3 egg yolks
1 1/4 tablespoons gelatine powder
50 g sugar
1 avocado
juice of 1/2 lime
200 ml cream
Cream the egg yolks with sugar. Puree avocado, press it through a fine sieve season with lime juice and sugar if you desire. Dissolve gelatine in cold water and let it stand for about 10 minutes or as the instructions on the package require. Bring the milk to the boil and pour it over the egg yolk mixture, them cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stir in the gelatine and let it cool. Stir in the avocado puree and fold in the beaten cream. Let it stand in the fridge for a few hours.