Beetroot-horseradish soup.

Basically this is a beetroot-horseradish soup. Actually it was a big clean-out-the-fridge-action which included said beetroots, a big piece of horseradish, a carrot, garlic, a yellow bell pepper, a piece of cucumber, a few potatoes. Only horseradish and garlic were fresh, everything else was days old and had to be used one way or another. 
The result was excellent both in colour and taste. 
The topping is a finely shredded radicchio in a soya yogurt-mustard dressing. 

First I fried some smashed cloves of garlic together with diced horseradish in some oil, added cold water and the diced beetroots and potatoes. When everything was boiling I added all the other stuff and some salt, pepper, veggie broth. Mixed thoroughly with a hand held blender and served then with the radicchio topping.

Oyster mushrooms in anise sauce.

200g oyster mushrooms

2 onions

2 cloves garlic

some leaves radicchio

rice

soy sauce

anise seed

salt

pepper

corn starch

veggie broth

olive oil

fresh mint

Cook the rice in salted water. Fry oyster mushrooms with one finely cut onion and smashed garlic in 1 tsp olive oil. Cut radicchio in thin stripes and add at the end when the mushrooms start to get darker golden brown.

Bring 200ml water to the boil, add some veggie broth, soy sauce and 1 tsp anise seed.

Mix 2 tsp corn starch with some cold water and stir in the cooking water. Lower the heat and keep stirring until the sauce starts to thicken a bit. Turn off the heat.

Mix cooked rice with the second finely cut onion and some soy sauce.

Serve mushrooms with the sauce and rice and sprinkle with some fresh mint.

Great flavours from hearty (mushrooms) to bitter (radicchio) and this anise thing which fits pretty well. If you're afraid of the anise try a just a few seeds first and not a whole teaspoon. But it's really worth a try!

Spelt patties with orange-radicchio and chutney-yoghurt dip.

- 100g coarsed unripe spelt grains ( a very hearty and smokey tasting variation of spelt, called Grünkern)

- 1 carrot (cut into small cubes)

- 1 small radicchio

- 1 orange

- 1 onion

- garlic

- 100g soy yoghurt

- 2 tbslp mango chutney

- olive oil and safflower oil

- pinch of sugar

Fry the carrot in olive oil and add finely cut onion and smashed garlic. 

Then add the coarsed unripe spelt grains and stir. Season with salt, pepper, vegetable broth. Add enough water to cover the mixture and cook for 15 minutes on medium heat while strirring from time to time. Let this mixture cool. If it's too wet add some bread crumbs or if it's too dry add bit by bit some cold water til you can form patties. 

Cut radicchio into very fine stripes. Peel orange, remove the white inner skin and cut into stripes or big chunks.

Heat some safflower oil and fry the patties on medium heat for about 3 minutes on each side. In the same time heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a heavy pot and fry the radicchio stripes on high heat, add salt and pepper and the orange slices. When the radicchio turn slightly brown turn down the heat, add the sugar, stir well and put a lid onto the pot.

Continue frying patties. Mix yoghurt with mango chutney. Serve hot patties with lukewarm radicchio and the chutney-yoghurt-dip. It's colourful and combines so many different flavours (bitter, smokey, hearty, tangy) - it's awesome.