vegetarian - Choice of Magic

Exotic Fennel Salad with Burrata and Smoked Salmon

June 14, 2024

Lately I’ve been challenging myself more to cook with ingredients I am not that familiar with, and fennel is just one of those. While analysing this tendency of mine, I’ve reached the conclusion that it might be a consequence of growing up in post-communist Romania. Being deprived of much of the non-native to Romania produce that the West had access to, I’ve grown quite obsessed with them. It can get quite maddening when guests come over and instead of serving a regular dish that would work with everyone, I´ll run a risk and come up with something half crazy – salads in particular refuse to do the boring way, as demonstrated here. So I took inspiration for this particular salad from a fennel and tangerine salad online from this site, but I swapped it for oranges and added the salmon before coming up with this final version, which now that I’ve tried over and over again, I am happy to share with you too.

International Dinner Food

Shaved Zucchini with Feta, Walnuts and Honey

June 7, 2021

This #homemadeMonday called for a light dish – not because of any efforts towards a summer body (all bodies are summer bodies) but because it´s Sangria season and that to me means light dishes and heavy Sangria jars. And since the farmers´ market I go to on Saturdays has been displaying an exquisite selection of zucchinis for the past few days, I thought of giving the raw zucchini a chance. Mind you, I´ve only ever tasted cooked zucchini before, but was pleasantly surprised by how the raw version tasted. I inspired myself from this recipe – changing some things like replacing the goat cheese for feta cheese, the pine nuts for walnuts, choosing amaranth microgreens for an even nutty-er flavour and coating it all with honey instead of lemon juice. Read on for my recipe, or check the one I linked.

Asian Vegetarian Dinner Food

Spicy Asian Egg Noodle Soup

May 17, 2021

If you´ve been paying attention on my Instagram this weekend, you surely saw the world´s most beautiful mushrooms – pleurotus djamor. I found them at the farmer´s market on Saturday and was drawn to them like to a beautiful pair of shoes or book. The farmer selling them admitted they didn´t taste any differently than regular pleurotus mushrooms and I suspect they were more expensive (I chose not to check haha), but they looked so beautiful on my plate I regret nothing. I pondered a lot what to do with them and ended up giving an Asia egg noodle soup a try. It ended up pretty yummy, and this #homemadeMonday you´ll be getting the recipe of how I´d do it even yummier. So keep reading.

Romanian Food Lunch

Mom´s Magic Polenta

October 26, 2020

Took me long enough, but this month´s #guestchefseries comes from my one and only mom. I´ve been waiting to post my mom´s magic polenta recipe for over a month now. During my trip to Romania last month I asked her to make it several times and thereby fell in love all over again with this dish that so thoroughly influenced my childhood. If you didn´t know that already, polenta is an instrumental part of our culture as Romanian. It´s a humble, yet versatile dish , that despite its simplicity not many youngsters dare to make. And so I thought I´d share my mom´s recipe of what we in my family call “gâscã” or “goose” – polenta with sour cream and cheese. Easy as a #homemadeMonday morning. Note: my mom likes to make it extra creamy so it looks almost like a soup. I personally think that´s one of her secrets. Bonus: pictures of Didi, our basset hound eyeing the deliciousness.

International Dinner Food

Nonna´s Secret Beetroot Starter

July 27, 2020

For Choice of Magic´s second chef series edition, I´m bringing you someone really special. Nonna has been my foster grandma for over two years and she is the single most remarkable woman I´ve ever met. Thins tiny 96 year old fairy grandmother lives in a castle, speaks six languages, has been a WWII spy and is one of my best friends. Every Sunday morning for the past two years Nonna and I have sat down in her room or her garden, having tea and speaking about everything. She´s taught me Renaissance art, I´ve taught her about escape rooms, and we have never run out of subjects. Recently I asked her about the dinner parties she used to throw in her youth (nowadays it´s mostly lunch parties) and I tried to imagine what they would look like in that palace. That´s when she gave me her secret beetroot starter recipe. It´s as simple as it gets, and yet I couldn´t find anything similar to it on the whole wide web. With her permission, I decided to share it with you for this #homemadeMonday.

Middle Eastern Brunch Food

Hummus Toast with Three Toppings

July 6, 2020

Hummus is one of those magical dishes that I crave regularly and always make enough of so I can eat it for days. I can´t quite remember who taught me how to make it but i remember when I first made it for my parents. My mom was quite a fan already, but my dad was shocked at how delicious it was. He immediately asked my mom why she doesn´t make such dishes. My mom rolled her eyes as hard as she could while saying “I make it regularly and you always say you don´t want to try it.”

And since by itself it might seem too bland for some of you, this #homemadeMonday I made hummus toast with three easy toppings. To spice up your life.