How to prepare the perfect sushi rice?

As a sushi lover I have to admit that if I could eat sushi everyday I would ... I'm in love with sushi <3

I love to go to the japanese restaurants and order tones of sushi but after the food is eaten the bill hurts a LOT!

That's why I decided time ago to try and make sushi at home, as it is more affordable and it's a great opportunity to invite some friends in to help you out :)

Before showing you my little tricks to make sushi easy and fast let me show you the best recipe I have ever tried for making the rice. If you follow the recipe you will see how easy it is to make sushi rice and the best thing is that it's the worst part of doing sushi :P (because you have to wait!) 

So let me share with you how to make more pleasant this "hard" part of how-to make sushi and enjoy your home made sushi rice :D

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RECIPE

SUSHI RICE (The perfect sushi rice)

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups of sushi rice (I have try it with a normal rice and it works as well. Just try to find one small and round rice but for best results invest on a package of special rice)
• 1/4 cup of rice vinegar
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1/4 cup of sugar

DIRECTIONS:

First of all clean the rice with cold water very carefully, you must clean it as many times as you need until the water comes out clean and transparent. Then leave the rice in a bowl with water covering it for at least 15 minutes.

cleaning the rice you take off the starch

Meanwhile, heat the vinegar in a pan with the sugar and the salt. Heat it in medium heat until the sugar and the salt are completely dissolved (pay attention in to keep it into a medium temperature, never take it to boil!!!). Let it cool apart.

you see it...

... now you don't :)

Now it's time for the rice. In a pot put 2 cups of hot water and cook with it the rice with a real low heat until the water is evaporated (the pot can be covered or not). After the first boil keep it all the time in to low heat and cover it so you will get the sushi rice texture. 

Once the rice is cooked leave it cool apart at least 15 minutes.

At last, mix the vinegar with the rice with a wood spoon slowly and carefully. (Take the rice out of the pot and put it into a plastic or wood bowl if you think the metal of your bowl can react with the vinegar)

So here you have your perfect sushi rice! Now the funny part comes ;)

In case you need the ingredients see them listed down below:

Your cool team ;)

Salmon en Papillote

Student life means mostly living on the edge and that involves that we (every student included let's be honest) are eating really bad. It's not strange that when we go back home our friends cannot recognize us because of all the extra weight we have gained.

The main mistake we have in our minds is that eating healthy is expensive and that eating a 2€ pizza will full us more than anything else. But we just want you to thing a little bit farder; it's not but to eat unhealthy or processed food sometimes but if you want to have a healthy life and end college without diabetes or cholesterol you better start fixing your diet.

The recipe we are showing you this week is easy to do and healthy! You won't get any pan dirty or need any extra cooking skills.

Check the easiest and tastiest way we cook salmon, the healthy fish full with omega 3 good for your heart and so :P

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RECIPE

Salmon en Papillote

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 slice of salmon per person
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 onion
• 2 carrots
• a tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 lemon
• Foil paper

DIRECTIONS:

First we put the foil paper on the oven tray but don't cut it! We will do it once it's all done. Meanwhile we prepare all the stuff we will cook, make sure you preheat the oven at 200ºC (if it's with fan make it 180ºC).

We start cutting in large pieces the ingredients, the peppers and onions; we peel also the carrots and cut them in smaller pieces as carrot is harder to get softer.

Once everything is cut we lay it on the foil paper as it was a bed for our salmon. 

Then we lay the salmon on the veggies and put lemon slices on it.

We finish all of it with the oil and a touch of salt and black pepper.

When everything is done we close carefully the food with more foil paper (that's why we didn't cut it before) and make sure there is no exit for the oil or water to scape.

We bake it in the oven for 20 minutes at least.

And it's ready to be eaten :)

We hope you enjoy this salmon and eat more healthier; just think that's good for your future ;)

Your cool team :)

Empanadas Colombianas - International Kitchen

Today in the international kitchen we fly for the first to....

COLOMBIA

One of our neighbors, best friend and collaborator in this blog comes from the South-American country; and he loves so much his culture and food that he showed us some of their typical dishes. 

This time we tried to make together one of the typical Colombian meat pasties that came to be one of the best appetizers I ever had!

We leave you down below the recipe he used and some pics of the process. We hope you enjoy the taste of the land of the coffee :)

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RECEIP

Meat and potatoes Colombian Pastry

INGREDIENTS:

For the pastry dough:

• 2 cups of corn flour (we used "Harina PAN")
• 2 cups of warm water
• A pinch of salt depending on you

For the filling:

• 250 grams of ground meat (can be pork meat but we used here beef meat)
• 2 potatoes middle size
• 1 onion
• 2 tomatoes
• 3-4 leafs of cilantro (not mandatory)
• one tablespoon of meat condiments (we used "Triguisar")
• Salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS:

For the dough, we mix the flour and the water in a bowl and we mix it a bit and then add the salt. Once we feel every ingredient is well mixed and integrated with the other, we let it settle at least for 3 minutes. Now the dough is ready!

For making the filling we will cut in small dices the onion and the potato and we will start frying it with olive oil in a medium heat .

Meanwhile the potato and the onion gets softer we will cut into small pieces the tomato.

Once the potato and the onion are done we will integrate the ground meat and when this gets done we will put the tomato.

When everything get well mixed we will add the condiments (the amount depends on each person).

We let it cook for a bit more and the filling is ready!

For frying we will take a big pan and fill it with sunflower oil.

Meanwhile the oil gets heated, we will do the pasties.

We will grab a ball of the dough and put it between two sheets of plastic paper. We will press it with a plate and then with a roll we will try to make it larger but not thiner or the pastry will break.

Then we put inside the filling (be aware of not putting in any kind of liquid from the mix, it does the pastry look weird).

Then we close the pastry and try to put together the borders of the "middle moon" we have created.

We keep doing it for the rest of the pastries.

When all are done, we put them into the boiling oil at medium heat and once they turn brown we can take the off.

We will let them cool in a plate covered with kitchen paper so it can absorb the extra oil.

Enjoy it with some guacamole, jalapeños or chili pepper sauce.

They were deliciosas!! 

BUEN PROVECHO!

You will find the colombian ingredients down below in case you don't know where to buy them:










Your cool team :) 

Sausages omelette

Sausages are one of the basic ingredients that one can find in any student fridge. Because of their tastiness and easy to cook or combine make them one of the must in a student diet.

Sausages have different variants; you can find the typical frankfurt, to the more worked bratwurst or vegetarian sausages. And there is as well a lot of types for cooking them! From boiled, to fried, to hot dogs, to grilled...

One of the most popular ones lately in the student life have been the pasta-sausage version published by the website 9gag.

Here we want to introduce you a new way to eat them, let us introduce you the sausage omelette!

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RECIPE

Sausage omelette

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 eggs pro person (so if you are a couple use 4..)
• Sausages of any kind (better if they are boiled because we will fry them)
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• A pinch of salt
• Music in the background (this is optional ;) )

DIRECTIONS:

First we fry the sausages.

Meanwhile we beat the eggs in a separate bowl with the salt and once the sausages are done we mix them all together.

Then, we put the olive oil in the pan and pour all the ingredients in it.

You will have to cook the omelette in a medium-low temperature and once you see its a bit done in the upper side you will have to grabe a plate and turn it upside down for a perfect cook!

The egg is done a little bit in the middle and well cooked on the borders

Let it cook a bit more and you will have your super sausage omelette done!!!

Give it a try and let us know what do you think!

Your cool team :)

The Miso Soup - international kitchen

College has started again in Germany and so does eating badly and repeating the same dinner every night (leftovers from weeks ago, boxed pizza, pasta...). Last week we came up with an idea with some of the integrants of the blog, let's share our recipes and easy ways to eat properly and different every day without losing lots of money and try to get us back to our hometown flavors (as almost we come from several different countries).

Today I wanted to share with you one of the easiest way to drink a miso soup without spending much time in the kitchen and introduce it to you as a "new packet soup/dinner" to you. 

As many of you might now, miso soup is one of the most famous soups in the Japanese diet. You will be able to find this soup in every Japanese and asiatic restaurant.

This soup is made by:

• "miso paste" ,which consist of dough of smashed soja beans and kôji 
• dashi broth
• fresh tofu
• wakame seaweeds 
• spring onions

This would be the basic ingredients for this delicious soup but you can find it with a lot of variety including to it seafood, meat, omelette, etc.

Doing the miso soup takes a long time and can sometimes (depending on you cooking skills and PATIENCE) be impossible or really hard to made.

That's where we came into the game ;) 

For those who would like to enjoy one miso soup without spending 3€ in a small bowl or not wanting to leave home to get one, we recommend you to give it a try to the "packed" version that you will be able to find at the asiatic food shops.

Last week we went to visit a huge asian market in Berlin and we came up with some instant miso soups and we decided to give it a try... well it became our favorite soup for sure! The flavor is almost the same as you can get in a restaurant and the seaweeds were amazing!! The only bad thing was that you could feel that the tofu was not fresh but apart from that we have to recognize it taste pretty amazing :)

The pack we bought it was the "tofu flavor" as we were not sure about the prawn or meat - but we will definitely give them a try as soon as we finish this pack! - 

It looks so cute ^^

It's really easy to make, you just unpack to miso paste and the mix of seaweeds, tofu, and broth, and then you add boiling water.

one pack for miso paste and one for the mix

And voilà! You will have this amazing soup for a light dinner or as an appetizer for the following dishes!

Yummy!!

If you live far from an asiatic food shop here we attach you a link from amazon where you can buy a similar one :)

どうもありがとう 

Your cool team :)

Easy - Cheap - Fast Doughnuts

Doughnuts....

Like really, Doughnuts are amazingly delicious <3 I could eat so many doughnuts at once ^^

Yep, this would be me... :P

In Germany there is a more famous kind of doughnuts called Berlinas

This kind of doughnuts are more like the old doughnuts with no holes and filled with ham. They are really tasty but from my point of view the ham or cream are changing too much the "doughnuts" essence. My fave ones are the "Simpson" doughnuts with the strawberry flavored glacé  :P

Dukin' Doughnuts gets the best ones :)

Where I live there is no bakery or shop that sells this kind of doughnuts, they all sell the "berlinas" and they don't calm my carve of this delightful dessert :9 That's why last weekend with some friends of ours we decided to make ourselves doughnuts but since we were in some kind of "movies marathon" we didn't have the time to prepare all the ingredients and make them the "right way". So we decided to give it a chance to some fast doughnuts and make another day the "true" doughnuts. 

The ones we made didn't have the strawberry flavor just because we couldn't find any extract of it at the supermarket and we thought that "rum" or "cookie" flavor would match that well at least for a first time doughnuts. So this ones are with lemon glacé... and actually they didn't feel like real doughnuts once we tried them but once in your mouth you could tell they were soooo TASTY ^^

The good stuff of this recipe is that you can get 8 doughnuts for less than 3-4€ like REALLY! 

Give them a try, in less than some minutes you will get them done and except for the glacé the rest is already done :D Isn't that cool??

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RECIPE

Fast Doughnuts

Ingredients: 

- One roll of dough (bread dough) 

// We bought one which came in a can for 8 small breads so we came up with 8 doughnuts; if you want to make your own dough late on we will make it the entire way, but as said this is a fast way to make them an easy way to not complicate yourself... We are students don't judge us

- One egg white

- Icing sugar

- Lemon drops (can be extract or from an actually lemon)

- Vegetable oil (to fry)

Extra ingredients:

- Sweet deco :) (Sprinkles, sugar with color, chocolate sprinkles... even bacon :O ) 

- Food coloring

Directions:

Separate the pieces of dough (if it doesn't come separated cut them in a way it will be the same width for all the doughnuts)

Here you can see the can we used with the dough already cut

Mash the dough so it gets thinner and wider. Then with a knife or a mold cut the interior circle. (We did it with a knife, we forgot the cutter at our place :( )

The original dough came this big

So you will have to mash it to make it lower

Then cut the interior circle

 Time to fry! Yes doughnuts are fried... Many of my friends got surprised when I told them we needed to fry them, and even there are some variants which allow you to bake them, doughnuts are fried. Nevertheless, if we baked this dough we would came up with little breads so you have to change the original ingredients of the dough.

Before frying make sure the oil is really hot and don't get burned!

You will see they will grow up a bit and turn brown. Make sure both sides are done correctly and try to get them the same brown shade so the interior dough will get the same done :)

Then take out and put them on a plate with kitchen paper so it absorbs the extra oil.

Cool right ?? :D

Well now it's time to make the glacé. 

Icing sugar and egg white ready for action

 First separate the egg white and put it into a bowl

Add to the egg white some icing sugar and some lemon drops 

not enough sugar

Wanted texture

There is no specific amount of icing sugar I can tell you to mix with the egg white. If you see the mix is not white (like in the second photo) you have not enough sugar. If the mix is too liquid you will need to add extra sugar; if the contrary you need one icing more liquid just add a few drops of lemon juice or water in the case you will add extra flavor later. 

Just take in mind that a single drop can change the whole texture and if you later add essence it will make you a more liquid mix. 

Now that you have your mix as you want it's time to give a bath ...

Put the mix just on the top if you want to add sprinkles later, if not just cover all the doughnut <3

You can add some sprinkles for extra fun :D

And here you have a easy fast and CHEAP way to have doughnuts :)

So, tell me, do you like doughnuts? Which is your favourtie flavor??


I hope you enjoyed it and give it a try ;)


Your cool team :)

PS: Sorry for the quality of the pictures, they were taken from our phones :(