...because how do you get to know each other easier than while cooking together?
Sharing and tasting international dishes from all over the world live in your workcamp is difficult right now, because most of us cannot travel these days. But that does not have to keep us from cooking together! From April 15th to 24th, 2020, group leaders Annabelle, Flavien, Marie and their virtual work camp group met regularly via video conference to cook together, get to know each other and share their regional favorite recipes. The result is an amazing international cookbook for 10 different dishes.
You can find the cookbook (including some pictures that will make preparing the dishes easier for you) here. Enjoy!
1. Quiche Lorraine - France
"Quiche actually originated in Germany, in the medieval kingdom of Lothringen and which the French later renamed Lorraine. The word ‘quiche’ is from the German ‘Kuchen’, meaning cake."
Recipe: Marie R.
You will need
- 1 shortcrust pastry
- bacon
- milk
- crème fraîche
- 3 eggs
- salt & pepper
How to make it
- Spread the shortcrust pastry in the mould
- Prick the dough
- Brown the bacon in a pan
- Mix eggs, crème fraîche and milk in a bowl
- Add the bacon, salt & pepper
- Pour the mixture over the dough
- Bake 180°C 45 min
2. Vanilice - Serbia
"Vanilice came from Austro-Hungarian empire a long time ago. They are traditional cookies and are part of every celebration. If they contain walnuts, they are called 'grancle'."
Recipe: Lara
You will need
- 4 tbsp of sugar
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 egg + 1 yolk
- 400g flour + 100g walnuts grounded (or 500g flour)
- 250g butter softened
- Jam of your choice
How to make it
- Mix the butter until it gets creamy
- Add eggs, lemon juice and sugar then mix it
- Add half of the flour (+walnuts) and mix
- Add the last half of flour and finish mixing
- Put flour on the work surface and flatten the dough
- Make circles out of the dough with a small glass
- Flatten the remaining dough and repeat the process
- Bake the circles 200°C 15-20 min
- Let them cool off and put jam between 2 circles
3. Tagliatelle & Bruschetta - Italy
"Every good Italian must have a personal reserve of pasta. It exists more than 100 different types of them."
Recipe: Michele
You will need
for Tagliatelle:
- Flour
- Eggs (100g flour = 1 egg)
for Bruschetta:
- 2 slices of bread
- 2 tomatoes
- ¼ onion
- Garlic
- Basil
- Olive oil
- Salt & pepper
How to make it
Tagliatelle
- Put flour on the work surface and make a hole like a volcano
- Put the eggs inside the hole
- Mix strongly until it's a dough
- Put the dough in a towel and keep it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
- Put flour on the work surface and flatten the dough with a rolling pin
- Put flour on the 2 sides
- Let the pasta machine do the rest. If you don’t have any, fold the dough twice and cut into 1 cm slices
- Drop your tagliatelle in bowling water and boil for 8 minutes
Bruschetta
- Cut the tomatoes in small pieces
- Do the same with ¼ onion
- Toast the bread in the oven 200°C 15 min
- Press the garlic then use it to brush your toasts
- Add tomato, onion, basil, olive oil, salt & pepper on top of your toasts
4. Vareniki - Russia
Vareniki is a slavic traditional food, the way to cook them change from one family to the other, they can be filled with cottage cheese, cherries for sweet versions. It is possible to separate the dough in 2, cook 1 part and store the other in the fridge for at least 1 week.
Recipe: Hannah
You will need
- 3-4 potatoes
- 3 glasses of flour
- 1 egg
- Milk
- Salt
- 1 onion
- Butter
- 1 glass of 200ml
How to make it
- Wash and peel the potatoes
- Put them in the pot, fill with water and put it on the fire
- Put 3 glasses of flour in a big bowl
- Put 1 egg in the glass, add milk till you reach the ¾ of the glass and fill the rest with water
- Add it to the flour with salt and mix
- Leave the dough for 30 min
- Peel the onion and cut it into cubes
- Fry them in a skillet
- When potatoes are ready, empty the water and pour some milk in it along with a piece of butter
- Smash the potatoes, make it all soft, put some salt in it
- Mix onion and potatoes together
- Flour the working surface, your hands and the dough
- Shape the dough into a big sausage and cut it into pieces
- Flour the rolling pin
- Make the pieces more round with your hands first, then use the “skalka” to flatten them into circles
- Fill your biggest pot with water and put it on fire
- Put one spoon of potato in the middle of each circle
- Flour your hands and fold each circle as a dumpling, make sure there is no hole
- Put some butter in a big bowl and cover it
- Boil the vareniki 5 by 5 for ~3 min until they go up
- Put the vareniki in the covered bowl
5. Pâté de Pommes de terre - France
"This recipe is typical from Auvergne, the Center of France where the world record is hold with a 100m long pâté. A fraternity even protects the recipe from changes. It goes heavenly with salad and red wine."
Recipe: Flavien
You will need
- 2 puff pastries
- 6 big potatoes cut into thin slices
- 40 cl thick crème fraîche
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 1 beaten egg (full)
- Salt & pepper
How to make it
- Preheat oven to 150°C
- Line the mould with the pastry then prick the dough
- 1st layer = potatoes, 2nd layer = onion, garlic, salt, pepper, 3rd layer = potatoes, 4th layer = onion, garlic, Last layer = potatoes
- Fold the dough
- Brush the beaten egg on the edges
- Roll over the second pastry and seal it with the first layer of dough
- Remove surplus with a knife
- Decorate the pâté with the back of your knife and prick the dough
- Brush surface with remaining egg
- 1st cooking : 200°C 15 min, 2nd cooking = 150°C 20 min
- Let your pâté cool off 5 min
- Cut a circle out of the upper part and remove it
- Add crème fraîche
- Cover it then put the pâté back to the oven 5 minutes
6. Meatballs - Germany
"The potato festival takes place each autumn in Germany. This recipe uses camembert to stuff the meatballs. If you are in a breadcrumb shortage, you can use a piece of bread soaked in milk and water instead."
Recipe: Jana
You will need
- 8 potatoes
- oil / vinegar
- Salt & pepper / paprika
- 500g Minced meat
- 1 onion
- 1 egg
- Breadcrumbs
- Cheese
- Green asparagus
- Sugar
How to make it
- Cut the potatoes into wedges
- Put the wedges into a box and wash them
- Add oil, salt & pepper, paprika
- Close the box and shake it
- Put the potatoes on a baking tray 200°C 40-50 min
- Put the minced meat into a bowl
- Add the cut onion, egg, breadcrumbs and spice it
- Mix it
- Take some meat and flatten it in your hands
- Put some cheese on it
- Close it with a bit more of meat
- Fry them from both sides
- Cut and peel the ends of the asparagus
- Fry them, add salt & pepper, vinegar, sugar
7. Molletes - Mexico
"The molletes can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. The “pico de gallo” is how we call the sauce, made with tomato, onion and coriander. The bread we use to make the recipe is called “bolillo” but you can use baguette instead."
Recipe: Andrea
You will need
- Onion
- Tomato
- Coriander
- Cooked beans
- Butter
- Manchego cheese
- 1 baguette
How to make it
- Cut the baguette in half
- Toast the 2 pieces of bread
- Cut the tomato and the onion in cubes
- Cut the coriander in small pieces
- Let a piece of butter melt on each bread
- Heat the beans and put them over the bread
- You can put cheese on top of it
- In a bowl mix tomato, onion, coriander, it’s called “pico de gallo”
- Add the “pico de gallo” on top of the molletes
8. Gorditas de Nata - Mexico
"The gorditas de nata are usually eaten during dinner and breakfast. The term “gordita” literally means “fatty”, referring to the thickness of the biscuit."
Recipe: Ricardo
You will need
- 100 g unsalted butter
- 100 g or ½ cup of sour cream (alternatives : milk cream / whipping cream / clotted cream)
- 500g of wheat flour
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup of sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- ½ tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
How to make it
- Put the flour, the baking soda and the baking powder in a bowl
- In another bowl, stir the cream and the butter until it is smooth
- Add the sugar and the 1st egg, when it is well integrated, add the 2nd egg followed by the vanilla
- Add the 1st bowl of flour gradually to the 2nd and stir
- When it gets to hard mixing with the whisk, use your hands
- Cover and let it rest 1h in the fridge
- Take a small piece of the dough, shape it like a ball and flatten it
- Place them on a hot griddle over low heat and wait...
9. Quatre-quarts - France
"The Quatre-quarts (4/4) has been called this way because the 4 ingredients needed are used in equal parts. Thus, they each represent ¼ of the cake. This recipe comes from Bretagne, the North-West region of France."
Recipe: Marie M.
You will need
- 4 eggs
- 250g sugar
- 250g flour
- 250g butter
- Baking powder
- Salt
How to make it
- Preheat oven 180°C
- Put the butter in a bowl and melt it (microwave or bain-marie)
- Beat eggs in a large bowl
- Add the sugar
- Put the flour in another bowl
- Add the baking powder & salt
- Make a well in the middle and incorporate the egg and sugar bowl, mix with a whisk
- Add the butter and keep mixing
- Butter a cake mould and pour the mixture in it
- Bake it 180°C 35 min then 150°C 15 minutes
10. Fideuà - Spain
"Fideuà is a specialty from Valencia usually served with aïoli or lemon juice. Although the traditional recipe is made with seafood, a vegetarian variant also exists. If you want to do more or less, just change the amount of short noodles and use the double amount of stock (200g noodles → 400g stock)."
Recipe: Ariadna
You will need
- 1-2 onions
- 1 clove of garlic
- 500g of short noodles
- 200g of crushed tomato
- Some prawns (trad)
- 300g of cuttlefish and squid (trad)
- 1 L of fish stock (trad)
- 1 eggplant and ½ courgette (vege)
- 250g of tofu (vege)
- 1 L of vegetal stock (vege)
How to make it
Fideuà:
- Grate the onion and the garlic
- Remove the water from the onion and garlic
- Fry it with a lot of olive oil until it’s golden
- Put the short noodles in the pan, mix
- Fry the cuttlefish and squid (do the same with tofu, courgette and eggplant for veg version)
- Pour it in the pan
- In a pot, cook the fish stock (or the vegetal stock) with tomato
- Then pour it in the pan
- Put the prawns in the pan and let it cook
- When the short noodles are almost cooked, cover the pan and stop the heat
Aïoli:
- Crush garlic with a pinch of salt in a mortar, and add olive oil gradually until it gets the texture of a paste
Join us online!
Interested in joining yourself and participating in an international project online? While it is important for all of us to keep physical distance at the moment, international exchange is still possible in virtual projects. Virtual workcamps offer you the opportunity to exchange ideas, experiences, language and much more with volunteers around the world, and to get to know new friends - just like in a 'real' work camp.
Here you can find more information about virtual workcamps, the projects that are currently open for applications and all info on how to sign up.