Cooking World

Sappy fruits of cactuses are berries inherently. They are used the same way, as other berries: used for food raw, for jams, fruit candy, they are baked, etc. Prickly pears are even specially planted, and their berries have become the common foodstuff on the markets of many countries. In Vietnam, due to a damp warm climate, cactuses – epiphytes Hylocereus became widely spread. Their fruits reach 500 g and have already settled down in markets together with local tropical fruits.

Widespread mammiliaria after flowering form many red berries. They are juicy, with the pleasant sourish taste reminding fruits of a barberry. Seeds are very small and do not prevent tasting.

It is said, that the most tasty fruit among room cactuses gives well-known “Tsarina of nightâ€? – selenicereus. The only complexity is to find the second blossoming plant for cross-pollination, as a last resort it is possible to try to pollinate with pollen of other kind of cactuses. The formed fruit will be as an apple in size, rather tasty, with pleasant aroma. The peel is densely covered with fuzz and prickles, therefore such berry is simply cut half-and-half.

Fortunately, cactuses are nonpoisonous plants and all who wish can taste it.

Everybody knows that cactus is such exotic muricated creature. But very few people know that they are widely used in cookery. And everything except for thorns is edible: stalks, juice, fruits.

Fortunately, cactuses are nonpoisonous plants. The certain danger comes from thorns and glochidiums. Thorns can be easily enough removed from a surface of a stalk, but glochidiums demand much more caution.

Some species at the excessive use render undesirable influence on an organism because of presence in their juice substances of medication character. But, it is spoken, that these cactuses are unpleasant to taste, so can’t be eaten in large quantities.

In most cases the pulp of cactuses does not differ any especial taste, reminds just a grass more likely. But young shoots of prickly pears have certain taste and are widely used in cookery in hot dishes and various salads. They are spoken to remind cucumbers. Young shoots are also used for a sweet delicacy - candied fruits.

Warm up vegetable oil in a frying pan; add bacon, onion, celery and rosemary, and simmer under a lid for 10 minutes. Add cranberries and half of apple juice, to increase fire. When liquid level decreases by third, remove a frying pan from fire, set aside to cool down.

Add in a forcemeat nutmeg, allspice tree, salt, black pepper, walnuts, dried orange peel, rice, eggs and crumbs. Mix well.

Preheat an oven to 200 °С. Wash the hen, dry it and fill with the prepared stuffing.

Rub the hen with a butter, salt and pepper. Put in the oven in a scallop. Bake for 50 minutes.
Take out the hen from an oven, cover and set aside for 30 minutes.

Prepare sauce. Apple pour in a stew-pan. Add meat from wings, a broth, and starch dissolved in a small amount of water, and simmer slowly stirring for 5-7 minutes while the sauce thickens.

Ingredients:
1 hen
40 g bacon
1 onion
1 stalk of a petiolar celery
1 sprig rosemary
250 ml apple juice
2 table-spoon walnuts
0,5 glass boiled rice
1 table-spoon fresh bread crumbs
2 table-spoon butter
100 ml chicken broth
0,5 tea-spoon starch
Salt, black ground pepper to taste
Dried peel of half of orange
Pinch of a ground nutmeg
Dash of ground allspice tree
Handful of fresh cranberries

Prepare a stuffing. Peel and finely cut onion. Wash rosemary, take it to leaves. Wash celery, grind. Bacon cut thinly, walnuts chop.

Laminaria promotes improvement of digestion, strengthens immunity, normalize functions of thyroid gland, central nervous system and cardiovascular systems, removes toxins, radioactive nuclides (owing to alginates) cholesterol, controls vitamin starvation. Laminaria also promotes clearing of blood in an organism.

Doctors all over the world recommend eating laminaria to treat atherosclerosis, hypertensions, ischemic illness, chronic constipation. Laminaria is well for an unloading diet, with the purpose of weight reduction.

Researches have revealed, that laminaria can help to treat oncological illnesses (stops growth of tumors!). That is why the low percentage of breast cancer at Japanese and Chinese women is explained with using for food great amounts of this seaweed.

For many years people procure and use laminaria for food. Ancient Chinese were the first who has talked about unique properties of laminaria. They have even put it on the register of medical products necessary for the person.

Today this seafood enjoys huge popularity in Japan (it is used in more than 300 dishes!) and China, however recently a number of the European countries have also paid attention at it.

The most thick woods of these brown seaweed grow in the cold seas (Arctic Ocean, Northern Atlantic Ocean, Northern sea), in the southern seas laminaria reaches only average size and is considered less useful, considerably conceding on the chemical compound.

Laminaria is a well of vitamins, microelements and amino acids; it is also an excellent means for organism purification. Laminaria, as against usual cabbage, has twice more phosphorus, 11 times more magnesium, 16 times more iron and 40 times more sodium. It also contains polysaccharides, fructose, alginic acid, iodine, vitamins В1, В2, В12, D, A, Е, an ascorbic acid, potassium, dietary fiber, micro- and macroelements.

Cooking of vegetables can not only keep, but also increase their food value for an organism, inform the Italian researchers in «Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry». Though many biologists claim, that raw vegetables are more nutritious, Nikoletta Pelegrini and her colleagues suggest increasing of some useful to health substances in products due to culinary techniques.

Experts have estimated effects of three methods of cookery usually used in the Italian cuisine - boiling, steaming and frying-up - for the contents of vitamins in carrots, vegetable marrows and broccoli.

Boiling and steaming have activated the antioxygenic structures of vegetables, whereas frying-up has caused considerably higher loss of antioxidants in comparison with cookery methods based on water. Substantial increase of glucosinolats - the substances struggling with cancer cells - has been marked in broccoli.

The diet is simple in both understanding, and its performance. Within a week you eat only those products from the list which hangs on a refrigerator. These foodstuffs can be eaten in completely different, and even at first glance, absolutely incompatible combinations. There is only one condition: all ten items should be in your diet every day. Print and hang up on a foreground this list of top-products:

Chicken (brisket)
Eggs
Kefir
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Vegetable marrows
Cabbage (white or cauliflower)
Eggplants
Mushrooms
Apples
Plans: to work off 2 kg for a week

Advantages: products from the list are easily accessible. Everything can be bought in the nearest grocery store or in the market.

Complexity: You can eat no more than 1,5 kg daily.

The author of restaurant’s gastronomic concept - the young talented head-cook Ivy Stark, who has already been awarded with several premiums, had time to work at many fashionable restaurants (Dos Caminos, Rosa Mexicano, Match).

To create completeness of a restaurant image, Stark combines aromas, colors and smells, creating a certain unity of cuisine and a place.

Elegance and the refinement peculiar to the French cuisine, mix up here with courageous aromas and components recall associations with the Mediterranean countries.

After the recent visit in Morocco, Stark became inspired to create such dishes, as the crust hen stuffed with Wienerwurst. Ingenuous nature of the Moroccan cuisine is combined here with refinement of the French cuisine.

Menu contains a number of tempting dishes, which can satisfy tastes of the most refined gourmets.

The chief-confectioner of the restaurant, John Mil, acknowledged by magazines Pastry Art and Design as one of ten best chiefs-confectioners of the country, combines queer components and aromas in the desserts.

In New York’s downtown on 204 West 55th Street has opened two-level restaurant Amalia.

The Founder of Amalia – Greg Brig, the owner of such popular New York restaurants, as Aspen, Groovejet, Jet East and Jet.
He has tied the concept of the restaurant to adjoined Dream Hotel and has named in honor of great Sigmund Freud’s mother.

Amalia embodies the Freudian concept. This is an improbable state, where unreal things become real and unexpected at first sight elements carry out the set role in the project.

The impressing and unusual internal design, specific musical background and complex Mediterranean menu have transformed here in a unique combination.

An eccentric atmosphere of the restaurant is built on a sexual appeal and a secret of a ramshackle Prague private residence.