Published on: 16 December 2019
Last Updated on: 18 December 2019
Particularly popular in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe region, kashkaval is a semi-hard yellow cheese. It derives its name from the Italian cheese “Caciocavolla”. Kashkaval cheese is made from cow’s milk or ewe’s milk. The version made from cow’s milk is called Kashkaval Vitosha. The one made from ewe’s milk is called kashkaval Balkan. There is also a variety that uses a mixture of both of these types of milk. The cheese made from the mixture of these two kinds of milk is called kashkaval Preslav.
The different names of kashkaval:
Kashkaval is very popular in countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. This variety of kashkaval cheese is also to be found widely in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, and Croatia. Each country has a different name for this variety of cheese though. While the Turkish refer to this cheese as “Kasra”, the Greeks call it “Kasseri”. The Romanians, on the other hand, call it “Cascaval”.
Kashkaval belongs to the pasta filata cheeses. This means that the curd is given a hot bath during the production process. This semi-hard yellow cheese or Kashkaval cheese is allowed to age for a good six months. This lends it a piquant and spicy flavor on the one hand and salty flavor on the other. In taste, it is very similar to the cheddar cheese that is widely popular in the United Kingdom. The Kashkaval cheese is also famously referred to as “the cheddar cheese of the Balkans”.
Popular kashkaval recipes:
The slightly hard texture of this yellow cheese makes it perfect for grilling and grating. It is thus generously used in salads, pizzas, appetizers, and lasagna. One of the famous Eastern European street food made with the kashkaval cheese is kashkaval pane. It is favored for its portability and thus preferred as an appetizer or served in clubs and bars.
It is essentially fried cheese made with simple and easy to find ingredients such as flour, breadcrumbs, and eggs apart from the kashkaval cheese itself. Served hot right off the pan it is known for its crunchy, melty goodness! Another popular Bulgarian recipe made with Kashkaval cheese made in Eastern European homes is the Bulgarian cheese banitza or banitsa that is also served as an appetizer. It is can also be served in the main course alongside other dishes.
It is similar to a Greek cheese pie or a Serbian burek. To make this you will need two cups of crumbled kashkaval, 2 eggs beaten, 16 sheets of filo dough, 6 tablespoons of plain yogurt, two sticks of unsalted butter and chopped green onions and sea salt for garnishing. To make this recipe, you will need to combine the cheese, yogurt, and eggs in a large bowl and beat them until they are smooth.
The next thing to do is fold one filo sheet in half and brush it with melted butter. Portion out the filling in the sheets making either a cigar-shaped roll or an S-shaped scroll. Remember to fold up the bottom edge first and then roll it up until you are looking at a tight cylindrical shape. Repeat the process with the remaining sheets. Sprinkle with chopped green onions and sea salt if desired and place on a parchment-lined pan.
The next thing to do is bake these goodies in a pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes until they are brown and crisp. Serve hot with your favorite wine and your recipe is bound to be a hit among your guests in gathering or with your family when you are gearing up for a fun evening with food and wine! The bottom line is kashkaval is a popular cheese and can be replaced with cheddar for a slightly exotic dish or simply whipped up in an omelet!
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Are you that lucky cocktail party host this weekend among your friends? If you are, then you must be wondering what exception you can make this time that people will love.
We know that you can manage the ‘cocktail’ part. So, we have gathered seven delicious & exotic snacks for your next cocktail party that will win the hearts of your guests and makes you the star host of the month!
However, these snack ideas are so overwhelmingly good that people may request you to make them again and again. Here, you will find quick and easy dishes to prepare, although you may need to visit the supermarket to get the ingredients.
Without further ado, let’s get started with the recipes so that you can pick which snacks you want to prepare and make the list of ingredients.
1. Salmon Tartines for Fish Lovers
Recipes with Salmon and avocado are always a delicacy; when you prepare it with wasabi, it will deliver a heavenly feel with your fast bite. And guess what, you need only 15 minutes to make it.
Ingredients:
To prepare this dish, you have to gather the following ingredients:
Puff pastry,
Sashimi-quality salmon,
Mirin,
One avocado,
Low-sodium soy sauce
Ginger,
Lime juice,
Caster sugar,
Rice vinegar, and
Wasabi paste.
Cooking Method:
To prepare the recipe, follow the steps below:
Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius and cut the pastry according to your preferred shape; place them on a lined tray over the baking paper and bake for 10-12 minutes till golden in color and allow them to cool down. Your tartine base is ready.
While baking, process the avocado with wasabi. To do that, take a small pan and dissolve sugar in water over low heat. When it cools down, take an avocado, wasabi, lime, and sugar in a blender, add salt or any other seasoning if you want, and set aside.
Prepare a dressing by mixing mirin, vinegar, soy sauce, and ginger in a small pot.
After you have prepared everything, take a pastry base and place avocado, salmon, and cress. Serve with a drizzle of dressing.
2. Elk Jerky Cheeseboard for Slow Eaters
How about serving an Elk Jerky cheeseboard at your cocktail party? This cheeseboard is a great addition to the food you can serve because it not only has a posh vibe but also serves a unique version of your regular charcuterie board due to the gamey elk.
Elk goes well with many reds including Cabernet Sauvignon, which can complement this strong-flavored jerky with its earthy notes. You can also pair it with lighter-style cocktails made from scotch, gin, or tequila, as they go well with these types of dried meat.
You can add a variety of cheese to such a board, including emmental, brie, gouda, and blue cheese.
3. Carrot Muffin for Sweet Tooths
If you want to prepare a carrot muffin for your cocktail party ahead of time and you love baking, then this dish is a must for you to try.
Ingredients:
This dish is easy to prepare and only needs eight ingredients.
They are:
Yogurt (Greek style),
Ready mixture for making carrot cake,
Carrots,
Pecans,
Eggs,
Aperol,
Pure cane sugar, and
Vegetable oil.
Cooking Method:
To prepare the recipe, follow the steps below:
First, you will make a labneh. Take a bowl and set a fine sieve over it. Put the yogurt inside, wrap it with the sieve, and hang it over the bowl in the refrigerator overnight.
Preheat the oven to make muffins at 170 degrees Celsius.
Grate the carrot coarsely and mix it with the cake baking mix. You can add pecans to the mix.
Take the muffin glasses, and bake them for at least 35 minutes. To make sure they are evenly baked, insert a skewer in the center, and if it comes out clean, your muffins are ready.
If you want to soak the muffins with Aperol syrup, place water, sugar, and Aperol on a small pan and keep stirring until the sugar is dissolved over medium heat.
Place the muffins in a line and pour syrup over them. Let the muffins soak in the syrup for 5 minutes.
Add the icing mix with labneh to make frost, and use your creative ideas to décor the muffins.
4. Four Crispy Buffalo Wings for Savory Hunters
Nothing can beat the taste of chicken wings. And the crowd will devour it within a minute if you can make it extra crispy outside and juicy inside. Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
To make Buffalo wings, you’ll need the following:
Chicken wings (defrost if frozen),
Baking powder,
Salt,
Butter,
Franks hot sauce,
Sugar.
Cooking Method:
To prepare the recipe, follow the steps below:
Tap the wings with tissue paper to absorb the extra water after washing. Toss the wings with baking powder and salt; it will absorb the extra moisture from the chicken's skin, making it crispier.
We are not using hot oil in this recipe as we are going to bake the wings. The science behind baking the wings and making them crispy is to start baking using low temp at first and increasing the temp after a few minutes. Set the tray on the lower shelf of the oven at 250F/120C.
Low temperature will melt the fat first, and high temperature will make the skin super crispy when you place the wings on a higher oven shelf at 425F/220C.
5. Sausage Rolls for Meat lovers
You know that your friends love meat. But you don’t want to worry about arranging a bbq in the backyard. So, prepare these bite-size sausage rolls to calm the meat cravings of your guests.
Ingredients:
To make sausage rolls, you’ll need:
Pork,
Onion & Garlic,
Breadcrumbs,
Puff Pastry,
Bacon,
Fennel Seeds,
Salt & Pepper.
Cooking Methods:
Follow the easy-peasy steps below to cook off sausage rolls:
Take a pan and cook bacon, onion, garlic, and celery,
Mix with the pork,
Place the puff pastry, put the mix on it, roll it over, and cut it into small portions.
Place them on a baking tray and brush with egg.
Bake them for 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown.
This snack serves its best when you are keeping the option of exciting games at your party. Whether it’s a two-player board game or a multiplayer one, people can have more fun when they have something delicious to eat.
6. Coconut Shrimp for Peaky Eaters
Every party has those guests who will not eat anything that’s too oily or too sweet. To tackle those peaky eaters, you can cook coconut shrimp, which will go well with whiskey cocktails.
If you are not hiring any bartenders and decided to become one for the day, check out these whiskey cocktail recipes for home bartenders!
Ingredients:
You will need the following items for this quick bite.
Jumbo Shrimp,
Flour,
Shredded coconut,
Beaten egg,
Pepper,
Pranko breadcrumbs,
Garlic powder,
Oil and salt to taste.
Cooking Method:
Follow the steps below to have the best shrimp dish of your life.
Wash the shrimp and season them in a bowl with pepper and salt,
Take two flat dishes. Mix flour and garlic powder in one of them; in the other, mix coconut and breadcrumbs.
Take one shrimp and dredge it in the flour mixture; after that, dip it in the beaten egg and dredge again in the coconut mix. Follow the steps for each shrimp.
Refrigerate for an hour (or overnight if you want to prepare the night before and serve hot the next day).
Deep fry in a pan full of oil till golden brown color and season with salt and pepper after the whole batch is done. Place them on a baking sheet with a cooling rack so that they can absorb the dripping oil.
Serve it with sauce or mango salsa.
7. Salsa for Lazy Hosts
When it comes to cocktail parties, you need easy, quick recipes that will take less time to prepare so that you don’t get stuck in the kitchen while others are enjoying the evening, and this salsa will take only two minutes.
Ingredients:
Here goes the items you need to get together:
Crushed tomato,
Coriander leaves,
Green chiles,
Garlic,
Lime,
Jalapeno,
Cumin, and
Sugar.
Serve with tacos, fajitas, burritos, nachos, or quesadillas. You can buy them at any store.
Cooking Method:
All you need to do is blend all the ingredients mentioned above. However, make sure to use good quality canned tomatoes, if not fresh ones. You need to blend for a few seconds and see the consistency. Keep blending if you like it smoother.
But don’t blend too much if you like it chunky.
Conclusion:
With this list of seven delicious & exotic snacks for your next cocktail party, you will be able to welcome your guests with warm hearts and warm food on the counter.
Even though cocktails are the main stars of your party, these bite-size, easy-to-prepare snacks will make your evening even better alongside the drinks. Prepare the snacks while ensuring the recipes have variety, such as spicy, sweet, savory, vegetarian, and non-veg options.
Read Also:
14 Whiskey Cocktail Recipes For Home Bartenders
Tips And Suggestions On How To Wear Cocktail Dresses
Why should you go to a pool party in Vegas?
Getting into baking as a home cook can be pretty daunting, especially when faced with a plethora of options and tons of confusing advice.
You might just be standing in the store staring at the different products wondering whether you're supposed to buy a mixing bowl or a souffle dish. Believe us; you wouldn't want to end up with drawers full of unuseful stuff.
So if you are a newbie looking for some advice for your baking journey, besides taking up some bakery courses, continue to read on and learn about some essentials you need.
List of Top 8 Lucrative Baking Equipment For Home Cook
1 - Measuring Cups
This one might be a no-brainer, but many people skip the basics when starting with baking.
If you're wondering why you can't save some money by just using the same cup to measure everything - well, there are different measuring cups for wet and dry ingredients. Mixing those will make accurate measuring difficult and mess up your whole recipe.
For sticky ingredients like honey and peanut butter, you can look into adjustable measuring cups, which are super convenient and prevent product waste.
2 - Spatulas
There are varying uses of spatulas when it comes to baking.
Whether scraping, stirring, or lathering, you'll find yourself repeatedly reaching for this handy tool. All the options might confuse you, so let's narrow it down to the basics. Ideally, you need spatulas that are: a) flexible and b) heat resistant.
Even within those categories, there are many different options you can explore. So if you want to get into more detail, you can find out about the different kinds of spatulas here.
As for between wooden and rubber spatulas, we'd recommend rubber. There are specific rubber spatulas that are meant to be heat resistant. So you get the best of both worlds. But if you are looking for more of an eco-friendly option, wooden spatulas are also great.
3 - Baking Pans
Pans work as the base on which you start building up your dish, there is no baking without pans, and you can't get away with just getting one and calling it a day. But that doesn't mean you have to start buying every type of pan you can get your hands on. So again, we'll focus on the essentials.
Muffin tins are a must and versatile since they can be used to make much more than the usual cupcakes. You can start with a smaller 6-cup pan or go up to 12 if you work with the smaller goodies more often.
Loaf tins are also very important to have, and it's a purchase you won't regret. The possibilities are endless, and we recommend going for a non-stick one on the lighter side.
4 - Mixers
Mixers are tools that can be a bit heavy on your wallet, but it's definitely worth the price. Many consider stand mixers the best option and have many pros: they're fast, thorough, and all-around convenient. The con? They can't fit into everyone's budget.
If a stand mixer doesn't fit your budget, handheld mixers, specifically electric ones, are certainly not a bad choice. They don't hurt your finances and are easy to store as well. While not as fast as stand mixers, they still get the job done fairly quickly.
5 - Kitchen Scales
Regarding accuracy, there is no tool better than digital kitchen scales. While you can certainly go for manual ones, the accuracy won't quite compare to digital ones. Measuring weight proves to be much more accurate than measuring volume.
Whether your top priority is appearance or taste, accurate measurements are essential for both. It also cuts down a lot of the work you have to put in after you're done baking by decreasing the number of dishes used. If you're an experienced baker, a digital scale is a must since almost all professional bakers use it.
6 - Pastry Brushes
Pastry brushes might seem like something you should skip over, but they're an essential item, and you'll regret not getting one. Pastry brushes are best used for tasks that require a more delicate touch, like glazing, coating with melted butter, and greasing pans.
They can even be used to clean your dish by brushing off excess coating. They're fairly easy to use and don't make a mess, as the bristle soaks up liquids.
7 - Sifters
If you're working with flour and sugar, you need a sifter or a sieve. The fine mesh allows you to sift sugar and flour, which is an important step in making brownies and cakes. Many recipes require your flour to be super fine, and the sifter is the perfect tool for achieving it.
Dusting the tops of cakes or similar baked goods with icing sugar also becomes super easy when you have a sieve. Plus, it's very affordable and can last for years.
8 - Rolling Pins
Getting a rolling pin seems fairly straightforward, but a fair amount of options are available for different preferences and types of recipes. Rolling pins with no handles and tapered edges are preferred because they can give you super smooth and even dough.
These are called french style pins. Pins with handles are great for speed since you have better control over your movements. Going for more than one size will be helpful if you work with a lot of icing. Mini pins help when you need to be more careful and work with an intricate design.
When it comes to material, wood is the best way to go since the flour sticks to it, making the process a lot easier.
Conclusion
So here's our list of baking essentials you need if you're a home cook! We understand how stressful it can be to be faced with so many options and wanting the best while trying to stay within budget. Still, if you stick to the basics, you're already equipped for most recipes. You can add to your tools as the need arises, and that's how you make sure you aren't getting things that will do nothing but take up space. We hope you found this helpful and happy baking!
Additionals:
Which Edible is Right for You?Garlic Butter Baked Chicken Thighs Recipe
You try your level best to impress the guests whom you invite to attend your wedding. But while being a part of this joyous occasion, they expect a wonderful meal simultaneously. So selecting a perfect caterer for a wedding is an important task. Gone are the days when caterers used to serve almost similar kind of monotonous meals on nearly every wedding occasion. This is the era of creativity in every sphere. Today the best wedding caterers are coming up with innovative and mouth-watering dishes to stun the guests not only with its taste but appearance. Remember being the host of the event you would not want your guests to criticize. Having the best wedding catering service provider by your side will always make your event a hit.
Here Are Some Tips For Choosing The Best Wedding Catering:
Test The Taste Of The Food:
One of the most important things that you should do is to check the taste of the food that they will prepare for the wedding day. Before tasting the sample dishes, never select a caterer. Even if they charge a nominal amount for that, invest on that without being reluctant.
Check the caterer’s responsiveness- While having an initial discussion with the caterer, check his responsiveness. If you find him eager and curious to understand the exact requirement that you have and he is willing to chalk out the menu as per that, then you can rely upon him.
Ask For A Sample Of presentation
Meal presentation is equally important. It must compliment the décor of the venue. If it is not done in a proper way, it may spoil the impression. You must ensure that the caterer has arranged everything exclusively. Better you seek a sample of the presentation in advance to ensure you have given the responsibility to the right service provider
Try To Attend Any Other Event They Are Catering
This is one of the best ways to gauge whether the caterer’s claim of being the best wedding catering service provider is true or not. You can attend any other event where they are catering and check on their quality of service. Try to figure out the demeanor of the staffs, how they are behaving with the guests and whether the guests are satisfied with everything or not. Additionally, you can also ask for references. You can ask for their numbers from the caterer so that you can speak with them and get feedback on their work.
Cost Factor
It is not necessarily that to hire the best wedding catering service you need to spend a fortune. You can find many decent and trusted caterers who are ready to render their service within your budget without compromising on the food quality.
Online Research
In this technologically driven era, you can do vivid research on any service provider before availing their services. Likewise, you can get a picture of the quality of the caterer from the internet. Do thorough online research to be sure that you are not mistaking by hiring the one.
Experienced Team
While interacting with the caterer check on the fact that all the staff who are working for them are experienced. Tell them strictly that you want only experienced people to handle the occasion who are confident and skilled enough.
Conclusion
These few points will surely help you to choose the best wedding catering service providers in town. These aside, you need to trust your gut feeling as well. After all, you will be the best judge to figure out if someone is responsible and confident enough to entrust with this vital task.
Read Also:
7 Tips To Serve The Most Memorable Food On Your Wedding
Dos And Don’ts: Wedding Invitation Design
