Spicy fried noodles

Apparently having a cold has its advantages. First of all, you go out and buy a nice piece of ginger so that you can make some tea for your cough. Secondly you have some free time to cook in a slow, moderate way. This whole recipe started out from the fact that I had some ginger at home, so I said let's cook something with it. This something turned out to be these fried noodles, one of my few recipes that I was satisfied with a 100% right for the first time. 

Ingredients for 4:

• 40 dkgs of pork leg, cut in thin slices
• 4-5 spring onions
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 5 dkgs of fresh ginger 
• 1 big carrot
• 3 tablespoons of sesame seeds
• 1 fresh chilli
• 1 pack of your preferred type of noodle
• 1 dl of soy sauce
• 1 dl of oil
• 1 tablespoon of caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon of hazelnut oil
• additional soy sauce
• salt, pepper

The first step is to sprinkle the caster sugar on the sliced meat. Then you can add the soy sauce and the oil. You need to chop the garlic and the ginger fine, slice the spring onions and the chili up (after taking out the seeds) and add everything to the meat. Give it a good stir and let it rest until you slice the carrot too. You can grate it too if that's easier. 

In a hot pan start frying the meat and when the juice starts to come out, cover it with a lid and let it cook for about 25 minutes until it gets soft. You might need to pour a little bit of water into the pan from time to time, but only a little. When it's almost done, add the carrot and keep cooking them together. When it's done, remove the lid and let all of the water disappear. You can add some more salt and pepper, if needed.

Meanwhile cook the noodles in boiling water. Then put the noodles in a pan with the hazelnut oil and some soy sauce and fry them for about 10 minutes, giving it a good stir from time to time. In the end mix the noodles with the meat and sprinkle the top with sesame seeds that you previously roasted in a pan until they got a golden colour. You can put some chili sauce on top as well. 

Swiss roll in half an hour

On my granny's request I made a swiss roll today instead of a punch cake, now that I have some free time I can spend in the kitchen. (This doesn't mean of course, that I will give up on my plans of making a traditional sticky punch cake with pink icing on the top:) The good thing about a swiss roll is that it can really be done in half an hour and you don't need a whole lot of ingredients either.The even better thing about this swiss roll is that I used my home made spicy plum jam with cinnamon and red wine.

Ingredients:

• 4 cold eggs
• 3 tablespoons of caster sugar
• 1 coffee spoon of vanilia extract or flavour
• 10 dkgs of plain flour
• jam

Separate the 4 eggs. Put the whites into a bigger bowl and start whipping them while you add the sugar, one tablespoon at a time. You have to whip it until it gets solid and very white. Then you can add the yolks and the sifted flour. You have to carefully mix it together strictly with a spoon until it becomes homogenous. Line some baking paper onto a bigger baking pan and spread the mixture evenly on the baking paper. Put it in the oven at 160 deg Celsius for about 15 minutes. It doesn't take long to get ready so be careful. You can take it out once the top gets a light golden colour. While it's still warm, put the sponge cake on a wet dish towel and roll it up and leave it like that until it cools down. Then you can roll it out and remove the baking paper. Spread the jam on the inside and roll it up again.