Don't know what to cook for your Eurovision party ? We've got you covered. Here are our top 5 easy to make and healthy snacks from European food influencers that Julie Van Ossel has been tasting.
ADVERTISEMENTWe are almost there ! As the hours and minutes tick away to tonight's Eurovision Song Contest 2023 final, there's still lots of time left to prepare the ultimate party food to match what's shaping up to be the most spectacular competition in decades. So to help you impress your family, friends and any hungry people passing by, we've selected a smorgasbord of European snacks and recipes from top food bloggers across the continent.
Let's say it now, so it will be done : the winner is likely to be Scandinavian!
Sweden's Loreen with her “Tatoo” song and Finland's Käärijä with “Cha Cha Cha” are among the favorites.
So our first snack is a classic one for TV watching : chips but with the Swedish touch of well-known cookbooks authors David Frenkiel and Luise Vindhal from Green Kitchen stories, a blog full of seasonal, vegetarian recipes like kale chips.
1) Sweden: Kale chips by Green Kitchen Stories
For many people, chips or crisps are essential when eating in front of TV, but they're perhaps not the best choice for a healthy snack, unless... You make your own ones. Oven baked homemade chips are a lot less oily than fried, and you can decide what goes into them, the amount of salt and what seasonings you add.
Kale chips are delicious and the best of both worlds. It gives you the crunchy taste you need, plus Kale is considered a superfood because it’s a great source of vitamins, antioxidants and minerals. You can of course apply this recipe to other vegetables.
Ingredients
1 bunch (approx. 200 g ) of fresh kale
1 tbsp cold-pressed olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 pinch sea salt
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 120°C
- Rinse the kale and pat it dry.
- Pull off the stems and break into smaller pieces.
- Drizzle with olive oil, lemon juice and sea salt.
- Massage the kale for a minute or so, make sure every single leaf is coated in oil and juice.
- Place on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes until crispy, turning halfway.
Here you go : crunchy chips that you could dip into a delicious Franco-German hummus. Would be a perfect match, right ?
2) France & Germany: Homemade hummus from Franco-German food blog La cuisine de Geraldine
Hummus is a great guilt-free snack for binge-watching. It's beloved all over the world, tasty and healthy. But even more importantly - it's super simple to knock up and there is nothing like making your own.
"Traditional hummus is a made of cooked chickpeas seasoned with olive oil, lemon and generally garlic. Tahini, a sesame puree that brings smoothness to the hummus is also added." explains Geraldine, a French food blogger, photographer and influencer (367K followers) living in Germany.
"However in many industrial hummus, you will find sugar (too much sugar). And olive oil is often replaced by refined rapeseed oil or sunflower oil, less good for health". Here is her recipe from "La cuisine de Geraldine" without garlic.
Ingredients
- 400 g cooked chickpeas, 1 can
- 40 ml olive oil
- 8 g tahini
- ½ yellow lemon (juice) or 1 lime (juice)
- 1 pinch of chili flakes
- 20 ml of cold water
- Pepper
Preparation
ADVERTISEMENT- Drain the chickpeas.
- Reserve a few chickpeas for garnish.
- Put all the ingredients without a blender and mix until you get a smooth paste.
- Pour the hummus into a small bowl. Add the whole chickpeas, a drizzle of olive oil and a few dried peppers.
We promised you easy to make and healthy snacks, well the next one is also cheesy, perhaps even more than Eurovision. What's more this recipe comes from one of the UK's most famous blogs, and it's made in Liverpool. Poetry on a plate.
3) UK: Cheese and Apple toastie from Liverpool famous blog Pinch of Nom
The founders of Pinch of Nom, Kate Allinson and Kay Featherstone used to have a restaurant together for several years in Liverpool, where Kate was the chef. They created their blog in 2016 to help people lose weight by learning how to cook gourmet healthy recipes at home. Kay and Kate are now bestselling cookbooks authors and a global phenomenon.
According to the famous bloggers, this toastie will be "ready in under 10 minutes" , and "you only need three ingredients to take our cheese and apple toastie from grill to plate."
Preparation
Preheat the grill on the medium setting. Place one slice of bread on the grill pan rack and spread half of the cheese over in an even layer.
Place the apple slices over the cheese in a single layer. Spread the remaining cheese over the apple slices.
Place under the preheated grill for about 2 minutes until the cheese is melting and the apples are starting to soften a little but still retain some crispness.
Place the remaining slice of bread on top of the cheese and apple. Grill for a further minute until the bread is toasted and lightly golden.
Place the remaining slice of bread on top of the cheese and apple. Grill for a further minute until the bread is toasted and lightly golden.
As the organisers of this year's Eurovision Song Contest have vowed to make it a celebration of Ukrainian culture, so are we.
ADVERTISEMENT4) Ukraine: Pyrizhky by Ukrainian chef Olia Hercules
Pyrizhky, as they are called in Ukrainian are savoury buns stuffed with various fillings. They are typical Ukrainian street food. We chose a recipe from Olia Hercules, a London-based Ukrainian chef, food writer and food stylist. She is also known to have established #CookForUkraine, a initiative that raised more than 1.8 million euros for relief efforts in Ukraine.
Olia Hercules fills Pyrizhky with split peas, onion and chorizo but they "can be easily made vegetarian or even vegan by substituting the Kefir for water or nut milk and leave the chorizo out"
Ingredients
- 250 ml kefir
- 7 g sugar
- 2 g salt
- 350-400 g flour
- 7 g fast-acting yeast
For the filling
- 200 g split peas
- 3 tbsp oil
- 2 large onions, finely diced
- 200 g cooking chorizo, finely chopped
- A pinch of salt
- A pinch of black pepper
- 300 ml oil for shallow frying
Preparation
ADVERTISEMENT- To make the dough mix the kefir with yeast, sugar, salt and add 350 g of the flour, all in one go. Mix this using a spoon. The dough will look quite wet – that’s what you want. Cover it and leave somewhere warm for an hour to rise.
- Meanwhile cook the split peas until they are soft, drain and let them cool.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onions and a generous pinch of salt. Cook over a medium-low heat for about 15-20 minutes or until they look nice and brown.
- Take the onions out and add to the bowl of peas.
- Cook the chorizo for 3 minutes or until just cooked. Scrape the chorizo and the flavoursome oil into the peas and onions.
- When the dough doubles in size, flour the surface really well and pour the dough out onto the surface. Then keep sprinkling the top of the dough with flour and using a dough scraper or floured hands keep on folding it in on itself. It should remain very soft, but should become less sticky.
- Divide the dough into 10 pieces, they should each weigh about 70 g. Knead a little flour into each piece, so they become less sticky. Then one by one, flatten each piece out into a circle (about 12cm diameter) and add 2 tbsp of the filling in the middle. Bring two edges up and pinch them together, then flip it over onto a floured surface, seam-side down and flatten the bun gently with the palm of your hand. Keep them on a floured tray or board until ready to fry.
- Have a plate lined with kitchen paper – to absorb the oil – at the ready.
- Take a large frying pan and fill with oil. It should be a good 2-3 fingers deep. When the oil is hot and shimmering, carefully lay in the bun, put as many as the pan would fit to make turning comfortable for you. Cook them over a medium heat, lowering the heat if you feel the buns are starting to colour too quickly. Cook for about 2 minutes or until the underside is golden and gently flip and cook on the other side until golden brown.
- Then lift out and drain on the kitchen paper. Serve.
Last but not least : italian food. And I am not talking about pizza. Here is a recipe of "polpette" (meatballs), a typical italian dish, made here with aubergines, to eat of course while listening "Due vite", the song of the italian candidate Marco Mengoni.
5. Italy : Polpette di Melanzane della nonna (aubergines balls from my grandma) from Italian blog "le ricette di Gessica"
Gessica Runcio is a Sicilian food blogger creating simple, quick family recipes that she learnt with her grand-mother. "For a more delicious version of aubergine balls, add cooked ham or stringy cheese to the mixture, they will be even tastier." she says
- grapes
- 2 aubergines (mound, medium)
- 1 garlic clove (crushed)
- 3 tablespoons of flour
- 10 tablespoons breadcrumbs
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- 4 tablespoons grated Grana Padano
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Boil the diced aubergines in water and salt
- Then drain well and let them cool.
- Mix with: eggs, salt, cheese, flour, parsley and garlic.
- Gradually add the breadcrumbs, until a soft but at the same time compact dough is shaped.
- Form the balls, panate them and fry them in seed oil, until golden brown.
And if after trying those, you still wanna have pizza, on her blog "Giallo Zafferano", Gessica has many homemade pizza recipes too.
Hope you will enjoy our Top 5 snacks as much as Eurovision. And what if, this ranking (Sweden, France, UK, Ukraine, Italy) was also the result of the Eurovision competition... Let's vote !
