Chocolate Sorbet

Finally Friday! I don't know why, but this week has seemed particularly long. Probably because I'm about to get a cold, and have been sniffly for a few days. Oh well, I'm looking forward to the weekend!

I know I've posted a lot about sweets this week (and still not about suovas, I'm sorry!) and to make up for it - how about nothing sweet at all next week? Well, we'll see. Anyway, here's a really simple and really delicious chocolate ice-cream for you. Or a chocolate sorbet, more accurately - but it's rich and smooth like an ice-cream. I definitely don't miss the dairy in this.

As virtually all other ice cream I've been making this summer, this, too, is from David Lebovitz' excellent book The Perfect Scoop. I know I sound like a broken record, especially with all the other bloggers giving praise as well, but he deserves it. This is brilliant.

I followed Clotilde's lead and halved the recipe, and didn't blend it - it turned out super smooth anyway. I used a little more dark chocolate, just because I had some that needed using up. And on that note, I used two different kinds - half was a dark Lindt, half a very dark Michael Cluizel. I served it with supremed mandarin oranges, but it was very good on its own as well. I think a scoop of creamy vanilla would have been perfect with it too - that's for next time.

This is an entry for Brazilian Linda's sweet event Lördagsgodis (="Saturday Sweets") - which is in Swedish. The theme this week: chocolate.

Chocolate Sorbet
Makes about 1/2 litre (2 cups)

275 ml water
100 g sugar
40 g cocoa
95 g chocolate (at least 70% cocoa)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Mix sugar, water and cocoa in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Finely chop the chocolate and add it, as well as vanilla and salt. Cool completely, preferrably overnight or at least for a few hours in the fridge. Churn in your ice-cream machine.

Recipe in Swedish:
Chokladsorbet

New books

You should know by now that I love cookbooks. I have an entire bookshelf in my living room with just my cookbooks, and I will happily read them curled up on the sofa, with a big mug of tea. My idea of a great night! Anyway. This fall looks extremely promising! Two of my favorite cookbook authors, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson, are releasing new titles: Jamie At Home and Nigella Express. There's lots going on in Sweden too - tonight I'm off to see what Prisma Bokförlag has to offer this fall. And then there are of course cookbooks by fellow bloggers, which I find extra exciting. There's Lisa Förare Winbladh's new book, Ditt Nya Skafferi (="Your new cupboard") which I know will be wonderful, since I was lucky enough to recipe-test for it.

And then, there's the one with the photo up top: I Mormors Berså (="In grandmother's garden") by Kinna Jonsson and Märta Jonsson. Kinna has a food blog - here - and I was lucky enough to be invited to her parents farm this summer when we were in the neighborhood. The book is all about baking, and it holds family recipes from five generations. Kinna has spent a lot of time going through old, handwritten recipe books, trying out recipes and finally collecting them into this beautiful book, which is designed by her sister Elina (who blogs as well) and published by their family publishing company. If you read Swedish and love baking - I urge you to order this book! As a bonus - not that one is necessary, because this will be lovely - Kinna is hosting a pick-up-your-book-party that I'm really looking forward to.

Daring Bakers: Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart

I'm a Daring Baker! Yes, indeed! I've seen this group emerge over the past half-year or so, and I've been wondering about how to join. It finally dawned on me that all I had to was ask - so I did. And I'm in!

The way this works is that each month has a challenge - one member of the group decides on a recipe, and everyone makes it. No alterations are allowed (unless specified) and some of the recipes will be well outside of your comfort zone. That's the point.

This was my first challenge, and it was for a tart. Great, I don't even like tarts that much, was my first thought. However, it was for a milk chocolate and caramel tart - and if anything can makes a tart good, it's milk chocolate and caramel. So I was pretty eager to bake this! It had three basic elements - the pastry dough, the caramel layer and the milk chocolate mousse layer. And an optional topping of caramel shards - I went my own route here.



My first problem was the dish. I don't have a tart pan with a removable bottom. I thought I did - I'm sure I had one before - but I couldn't find it. And it probably would have been too small anyway. So I used a regular pie dish.

I made the pastry the day before and let it rest over night. It was soft - very, very soft. I didn't think I would be able to roll it out, so I didn't even try - I did what I usually do with tarts, cut it into thin slices and patched them together. That worked out nicely.

The great thing about the Daring Bakers is that you're not in it on your own. There's a whole group of bakers, all working with the same challenge, and there's always someone to ask if things go wrong. So, before I even started, I knew that many were having problems with the pastry which is definitely not like normal pie dough.

It's much more cookie-like, and it has baking powder in it. Now, that means it's going to rise - so I had to weigh it down during the blind baking, something I normally skip. I've never used pie weights before - I don't have any pie weights (but I'd love a set of ceramic beans) so I used dried peas. It worked out reasonably well, and my dough didn't puff too much, nor shrink down the sides. It smelled rather strongly of cinnamon, which also many of the others had said.

For the caramel, I used the original dry method of melting the sugar, caramelizing it and then adding the rest of the ingredients. It worked reasonably well - the sugar seized like crazy when I added cream and butter, but after fifteen minutes of stirring, all lumps had melted and it was perfectly caramelized. Nice.



The mousse was a very simple one - just melted milk chocolate folded into whipped cream. I used Lindt milk chocolate, which in hindsight was not the best choice. I find Lindt very sweet and caramelly - which is nice for eating, but was a bit over the top in this tart. Anyway - I had no problems with it, but I had read that many found it a bit difficult to spread it evenly across the tart. Spreading is not my strong side, so I decided to pipe it on instead. That worked out well - except that it started to melt towards the very end, and the middle of the tart shows a little bit of that. Oh well - no worries, as I had plans to cover the whole thing in caramelized hazelnuts.

See, since there's hazelnuts in the dough, I immediately thought of caramelizing some nuts to throw on top as well. Not only would it echo the nuttiness of the pastry, and bring a much-needed crunch to this otherwise rather mushy tart, but it would also alert people that there was indeed hazelnuts in this. Hidden nuts can be a real danger - there are so many allergics nowadays.



Verdict? Ah, mixed reviews, I'd say. Sure, it tasted good. It looked good, too. It was real hard to get out of the pie dish though - not surprisingly, I should add. (Really, DO use a tart pan with a removable bottom. Do!) The crunchy hazelnuts on top was actually a big hit - I'm glad I decided to stray a little bit and add them. I served this as a dessert to our crawfish party, and to be completely honest, I think we had a little too much to drink before even getting to the dessert, and I can't remember all that much about it. So, I decided to have another piece in the morning, just to remind myself. It was still good - but not as good as the night before. The mousse doesn't keep very well so I would definitely not keep it around for more than two days.

If I make this again, I'll change quite a few things. First, I don't think I'll have hazelnuts in the pastry dough. I'd like to try something with a bit darker flavor - maybe walnuts, maybe pecans. And no cinnamon! The caramel was fine as it was, but a bit fiddly to make. I also am not sure why it has eggs and flour in it - I think I'd like to experiment with a thinner layer of straight caramel. And the mousse - well, I'd probably do a more normal mousse (something like this, stabilized with eggs) and use a dark chocolate. That would make the whole dessert less sweet, and to my palate, more interesting.

For the caramelized hazelnuts, I toasted 200 g of hazelnuts and rubbed them with a towel to get rid of most of the skins. I then mixed them with 70 g of confectioner's sugar and one teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice in a saucepan over high heat. I stirred constantly until the nuts were evenly caramelized, and then I stirred in a tiny pat of butter just to get the nuts to separate. I spread them out on a teflon baking mat (silpat would be nice!) and then separated them quickly. That's it! It made more than I used for the tart, but the remaining nuts make great snacks.

You can find the recipe for the tart, which is from Sweet and Savoury Tarts by Eric Kayser here, or here for example. I'm not re-posting it - I doubt I'll ever make it again. And to check out all the other Daring Bakers, go to the blogroll!

Cookbook Watch: Skördetid

Skördetid - Harvest Time - by Siv Key Nilson at B. Wahlstroms Publishers

Siv Key Nilson has written very many cookbooks with her husband, who is a photographer. For this book, Siv has taken her own photos - which is impressive! Her photos are beautiful - most of them are taken outdoors, with beautiful light.

The book is divided into seasons - but not all year round, since you normally don't have a harvest in the winter (at least not by natural means) so instead we get spring (with nettles, dandelions, rhubarb and asparagus), early summer (elderflower, strawberries and new potatoes), summer (gooseberries, cherries, currants, berries of all kinds) and then fall (dill, zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, apples and all kinds of vegetables). Lovely! The recipes I'm especially eager to try - there are many - are applesauce with vanilla, and a beautiful blueberry walnut cake.

If you have a garden, this book is definitely for you. And if you don't - well, you'll wish you had one! It's not availalbe in English, so sorry - Swedish only for now.

(and yes, I know I promised to post about Suovas today. However, I forgot to transfer the photos to the computer, so you'll just have to wait until I do!)

Social Networks

Wow, Facebook is really growing! I finally gave in and registered. (As Anne Skoogh, if you want to get connected!) I'm also at LinkedIn, if anyone is using that. Huh, this is confusing. Anyone else?

SHF #34 - Oatmeal Dreams

Johanna announced the theme for Sugar High Fridays a while ago, Going Local. The challenge was to make something local - something typical of your region, and preferrably with local ingredients as well. Huh. That was a tough one for me. All I could think about was nicking a couple of apples from my neighbor's yard - it seems to be a fantastic year for apples - but I've already posted so many apple pie recipes, and I couldn't think of another one.

So, well, what to do? I went to a food fair called Smaklust this weekend. A huge outdoor market - with over 300 artisanal food makers. Very cool! And although I tried and tasted many things (I'll tell you about suovas tomorrow, smoked reindeer!) I didn't buy much. Except for skrädmjöl. I have no idea what this is called in Swedish, but it's a flour made from whole, toasted oats. It's light brown in color and with a nutty scent. My flour was made at Stöpafors Kvarn, an old stone-mill in Värmland. It's not very common, and not used for much (except for a very specific porridge) but the vendor had brought cookies and that's what sold me.

I've told you about drömmar before - dreams, translated. They're a very popular type of cookie. Jessika told me that she had posted a recipe for drömmar on Epicurious, and gotten in reply that they were incredibly crumbly and that they would add an egg next time. Don't. Don't even think about it. See, what makes this cookie special is that it's incredibly tender, and yes, crumbly. It will barely hold together. And that's how it should be.

If you haven't baked with baking ammonia before, you're in for a surprise. And not a very pleasant one. Be prepared for your kitchen to smell strongly of ammonia. It will. But it'll go away fast, and be replaced with a wonderful scent of fresh cookies instead. And no, you can't substitute it for something else. Without it, you won't get the same tender crunchiness.

So, let's have the recipe then! The original, which was on the mill's website, had regular sugar and added vanilla sugar, but I substituted my homemade vanilla sugar instead for most of the regular sugar, and some crunchy brown demerara sugar too. Very yummy!

Oatmeal Dreams
makes 40

160 g unsalted butter, diced
90 g homemade vanilla sugar
70 g demerara sugar
140 g skrädmjöl (toasted oat flour)
120 g white wheat flour
2 tsp baking ammonia

Mix butter and both sugars until soft and fluffy. Add the flours and the baking ammonia, and mix into a dough. Roll small balls (a little larger than a hazelnut) and flatten them. Put on a lined cookie sheet, and bake at 160°C for about 20 minutes. The cookies should color slightly (which isn't easy to see as they're brown to start with) and look cracked on top. I have a convection oven - you might need a few more minutes in a regular oven.

Recipe in Swedish:
Skrädmjölsdrömmar

Fire Roasted Corn Salsa with Feta Cheese

I told you about Cook Sister's event Waiter, there's something in my.. meatless barbecue a while ago. All I said was that I love barbecued corn, but I feel that I have to specify a bit more. As much as I love the whole cob, slathered in butter, there's something better. Oh yes. There is. Something with just a few ingredients, but with the most amazing flavor. And that, my friends, is my entry for this event.

Granted, it's not really a main dish. It could be though - I'd certainly be happy with just one big bowl of this for dinner. But more often, we serve it with a hunk of meat, some roasted potatoes, some barbecue sauce. And so should you. Now, excuse me, I have some urgent cravings to attend to...

Fire Roasted Corn Salsa with Feta Cheese

2 fresh corn cobs
neutral oil
1 tbsp olive oil
the juice of 1 lime
large handful of coriander
75-100 g feta cheese

Brush the corn with some neutral oil and barbecue them for 20-30 minutes on low or medium heat. Cut off the kernels, and mix with olive oil, lime, coriander and finish with crumbled feta cheese. Enjoy!

Recipe in Swedish:
Grillad majssalsa med fetaost

Another visit to Taxinge

I've told you about Taxinge slott before, twice. Well, we made a return visit, bringing Dagmar and her husband Fredrik with us this time. It was absolutely crowded, as there was an auction going on outside, but the cakes were as delicious as always. Although, as Dagmar found out the hard way - your eyes are often hungrier than you are, when faced with such a big selection.


Per's cake - a Sacher torte and a raspberry jam square. Incidentally exactly what he had the last time, too.


Dagmar's plate.


Mine - a mocha cake and a hazelnut cookie.

I didn't manage to take a photo of Fredrik's plate, but he had Princess Cake and a Bailey's "biskvi".

Crispy Polenta with Mozzarella & Caramelized Cherry Tomatoes

This is an entry for Grow Your Own - a one-off event hosted by Andrea's Recipes. I'm growing my own tomatoes, and I have heaps of these tiny wonders.

I've grown really fond of crispy polenta in the past few weeks. It's not something I've cooked a lot before - Per is not a huge fan of polenta, and I've never really felt inspired to make something with it, but I loved it in theory. And then inspiration hit. I'd been eyeing - and trying - Heidi's polenta fries, and then Sam posted something about caramelizing cherry tomatoes and.. wham - this dish was born. I've cooked it for two dinner parties in the past week, and I have to say, it's an absolute winner.

Crispy Polenta with Mozzarella & Caramelized Cherry Tomatoes
Serves 4, as an appetizer

Crispy Polenta with Mozzarella

250 ml (1 cup) water
250 ml (1 cup) milk
180 ml (3/4 cup) polenta
1 tsp salt
50 ml (a little less than 1/4 cup) parmesan
125 g mozzarella

Bring water and milk to a boil. Add salt and the polenta, and stir until the polenta is thick. With the polenta I use, this takes two or three minutes, but if you're using something that takes longer, just keep stirring. Add the parmesan. Spread the polenta in an oiled pan in an even layer, or on a cutting board. Leave to cool.

Use a cookie cutter or a glass to cut eight rounds of polenta. Rub with olive oil on each side and fry in the oven at 225°C for about 20 minutes. (Or do it in a grill pan, or even on the barbecue.) Turn after half the time, and add the mozzarella when there's about five minutes left.

The polenta that's left after you've cut out the rounds, can be used to make lovely crunchy chips - just cut it into small pieces, toss with a little oil and salt, and fry in another pan in the oven alongside the rounds. Awesome.

Caramelized Cherry Tomatoes

200 g cherry tomatoes, halved
4 shalotts, thinly sliced
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp sherry vinegar

Mix everything in a pot. Cook at very low heat for about 30 minutes, or longer. It should be thick and syrupy, but the tomatoes should still retain most of their shape. Divide on top of the mozzarella topped polenta rounds, and serve straight away.

Recipe in Swedish:
Krispig polenta med karamelliserade körsbärstomater

Helmy's melon salad

I know, I've posted about feta and watermelon together several times before. It really is a match made in heaven! And I think the best dish with these ingredients that I've tried was the one served to me at my friend Helmy's house. She's a wonderful cook, and also a cat breeder - the owner of all those sleepy kittens I posted about a while ago.

Her salad had watermelon, nectarine, honeydew melon, finely chopped chilli, fresh mint, oil and salt - olives and feta cheese is served on the side, and so is slices of smoked turkey. And don't forget a good grinding of black pepper on top - it keeps it from being too dessert-y.

Cod with Pesto & Tomatoes

I don't eat nearly enough fish - but I'm always on the lookout for nice, easy recipes. I guess part of it is that I don't like to handle fish very much - at least not if it doesn't come ready-prepared, so I don't have to fiddle with skin, bones and such. I know, I should get better at this - but for now, I'm happily buying frozen cod, and that will do very nicely for this little recipe. My favorite cut is the cod "back" - a thickish piece of fish, that's more substantial than traditional fillets.

Cod with Pesto & Tomatoes
Serves 2

2 pieces of cod "back"
2 tomatoes, preferrably homegrown or at least as local as you can get them
4 tsp pesto

Slice the tomatoes and arrange on two pieces of foil. Add a teaspoon of pesto to each serving. Cover with the fish, and drizzle with more pesto. Carefully fold the foil into a tight package, and bake at 200°C for about 10-15 minutes. Serve with boiled potatoes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Torskrygg med pesto och tomater

Rosenhill

Dagmar recently suggested we'd find a place to pick berries, as neither of us has much of a garden. We found Rosenhill - it sounded promising.


Tomatoes

Well, as it turned out, nothing was really in season, except for basil and onions, so we didn't pick anything, but we had a nice day out anyway. A tip is to call ahead, if you want to make sure they have something specific. But I bet they'll have loads of apples soon!


Apples, apples, apples

However, Rosenhill has more than picking fruit and vegetables to offer. They have a café and a small ecological store, a large porch where you can sit down to relax, and a nice "give-and-take-store", where you can leave your unwanted things, and pick up others. One person's trash, is the other ones treasure! (I found some very nifty cookie tins!)


Old tools can be rather beautiful


The plums were very unripe - except for this one.

This weekend in Stockholm...

If you're in Stockholm this weekend, you should check out Smaklust. It's a large food market - for three days only - with over 300 food artisans. It's all about small-scale, homemade, slow food and ecological - you won't find any mass-produced, long-travelled stuff here.

I'm particularly looking forward to the food workshops - I'm going to one on Saturday about reindeer meat! You should go too - check out this pdf for a full programme.

Rhubarb Elderflower Crumble

Rhubarb is one of my favorite fruits. (Or hey, is it a vegetable?) I've tried growing my own with no luck (I'll have to plant another next year) but I've been lucky enough to get some from my mother in law. I made this amazing crumble the other night, and it was so tasty I know it's one of those I'll make again, and again. The recipe is from Två Systrars Söta cookbook, by the owners of the Cookbook Café.

I didn't make any huge changes, but I used my homemade vanilla sugar instead of their recommendation of regular vanilla sugar (but if you want to use that, just use 100 ml regular sugar, plus 2 tsp vanilla sugar for the filling, and 2 tsp vanilla sugar for the topping.) Simply stick a couple of vanilla pods - broken up is better - in a pot of sugar. Shake it around a bit. Fill up with sugar as you use it.

And the crumble topping didn't work at all with their recommended amount of flour (200 ml) - it was a paste, and definitely not crumbly. So, I added more flour gradually until I get the texture I wanted. I advise you to do the same.

Serve the crumble warm with vanilla custard or ice cream.

Rhubarb Elderflower Crumble
Serves 6

1 kilo (2 pounds)rhubarb
150 ml elderflower cordial (undiluted)
50 ml sugar
50 ml homemade vanilla sugar
50 ml potato flour

Crumble topping:
100 ml sugar
300-400 ml flour
125 g butter, softened
1 tbsp homemade vanilla sugar
finely grated peel of 1/2 lemon
100 g white chocolate, coarsely chopped
100 ml pine nuts

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Cut the rhubarb into smaller pieces, and mix with the elderflower cordial, both sugars and the potato flour. Pour into a large pie plate and bake for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the topping. Mix flour, butter, sugar, vanilla sugar, lemon peel and white chocolate in a large bowl and use your fingertips to rub it together until you have a crumbly texture. Add more flour as you need to.

Sprinkle across the rhubarb and then add the pine nuts. Bake for 10-12 minutes, but be careful to not let the crumble get burned.

Recipe in Swedish:
Rabarber- och fläderpaj med smultäcke

Weekend Cat Blogging - Glinda & Kelly

It's been a few weeks since you got a glimpse of my cats! I better remedy that - and since I shot a few new snaps of Glinda and Kelly last night, here you go! Kelly, as always, looks like the princess she is. She'll always pose prettily for the camera.



Glinda on the other hand is much less of a lady. Here, she's enjoying her kitty-sized beanie bag, which is perfect for allowing her to lounge in any position she wants. Such as this one.

In cattery-related news, we hope to let Kelly have a date soon, with another longhaired British gentleman, and there'll also be a litter, hopefully, after Glinda's full sister, Gisele. Very exciting!

For a round-up of this weekends cat blogging, head over to Catsynth!

Cookbook Watch: Very Swedish

Finally. Finally I'm able to tell you about a really good book about Swedish food - that's available in English! This gem of a book is called "Very Swedish" or in Swedish, "Längtans Mat" (which means food that you long for) and is written by Annica Triberg. (At Max Ström publishers.) It truly is the best book of this genre that I've found in a long time, and I'm happy to say that it's also a really beautiful book. Max Ström publishers focus on beautiful books with lots of photos, and this is no exception. There are beautiful nature photos from all over Sweden (by Tore Hagman), and excellent food photos. (By Per Hanung)

My copy is as you can see from the photo, in Swedish. I sent an English copy to friends in Canada though, so I know that it's just the same as this one - I hope they'll enjoy it! Let me point out some of the recipes you'll find in this lovely book: Cured salmon (gravlax) with "head-waiter sauce" as the book calls it, I'd call it a Dill-Mustard sauce, but sure, "head-waiter sauce" is the literal translation. Or how about salmon pudding with clarified butter? Potato cakes with bacon? Saffron pancake? (Really more of a rice pudding.) Baked apples with custard?

This book will give you a really good introduction to classical Swedish cooking. I really recommend it for anyone who might be interested.

You can find a lot of Swedish recipes right here, of course - have you seen the "Swedish" category in the index recipe on the right? Some of the ones I've posted are also in the book (well, the recipes are not the same, but the dishes are) - such as Jansson's Temptation, Västerbotten Cheese Pie, Christmas Ham, Kroppkakor, Kåldolmar, Swedish Meatballs, Tjälknöl, Elderflower Cordial, Crisp bread, Sandwich cake, Gingerbread cookies and much, much more.

Cold-risen Bread

Cold rising is so convenient when baking. it means that instead of letting your dough prove at room temperature for an hour or two, you let it rest for much longer, in the fridge. And it's not only convenient, it actually makes for a very tasty bread too.

I've found that you can't just take any recipe and let it rise cold overnight - but some recipes work very well, and I haven't tried enough to know for sure what works or doesn't work. But this one, this one works oh so well. This is perfect for a weekend breakfast - just make the dough tonight, and you'll have freshly baked bread tomorrow morning! Ah, the wonder!

The stronger flour you use here, the more gluten development you will get, and that in turn gives you a chewier bread. I recommend Manitoba Cream flour for those Swedes that can get it, or Vetemjöl Special. Or whatever strong bread flour you happen to have.

Cold-risen Bread
Makes 15

50 g fresh yeast
500 ml (2 cups) cold water
1 tbsp sugar
1,5 tbsp salt
1 tbsp neutral oil
1 kilo strong flour

Crumble the yeast into a bowl. Add water, sugar, salt and oil and mix. Add the flour gradually, and work by hand or with a machine for at least ten minutes. (I had my Kitchen-Aid on the lowest setting for five minutes, and five more on the next setting.) The dough should be very elastic and hard, not sticky.

Put the dough in a clean bowl, and cover lightly with a tiny bit of oil. Cover with clingfilm and leave to rise in the fridge overnight. (A plastic box with a lid works very well too.)

On the next day, roll the dough into small buns, put on a cookie sheet and leave to rise at room temperature for about 40 minutes. Bake at 225°C for 12-15 minutes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Kalljästa frallor

Red Espresso

I was approached a while ago by a salesman who wanted to send me a sample of a new product that's launching in Sweden this fall: red espresso. Huh? What's that? Well, it's tea. Roobios tea, red tea, that you make the same way you would espresso. (In an espresso machine, or possibly in a moka pot on the stove.) Interesting concept. I tried it this morning, in a moka pot. And my impressions? Well, I have to say, it does look sort of like espresso. (But red.) It's thicker and more viscous than regular tea. No crema, which I really didn't expect even though the website says you can get it, since I used a moka pot rather than my espresso machine. It smelled pretty bad - very strong and very bitter. I cautiously took a sip - and promptly added sweetener. Another sip, and hey - pretty good stuff! It still smells rather terrible, but the flavor was good. Very smooth and strong.

I'll try it in my espresso machine as well, with some foamed milk to make a tea latte, but I'm not sure it's something I'll love. Fun concept though!

Chicken Tarragon Cous-Cous

This recipe was actually sent to me by one of my readers, in Australia. It's absolutely brilliant, and I'm really glad I tried it. It's perfect for hot days, as you can eat this cold (or heat it in the microwave if you prefer) and this makes a lot so you can easily prepare some lunches in advance. Pretty great for back-to-work! (And umm, of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, I changed a few minor things as always, but the main part is the same.) Another great point about this is that it gave me a chance to use up some of my tarragon - I have a huge plant that's really thriving in the garden.

Chicken Tarragon Cous-Cous
Serves 4-6

1 kilo chicken breasts
2 lemons, juiced
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger
500 ml chicken stock
500 ml cous-cous
6 tomatoes, diced
70 g bacon
1 leek, sliced
1 red bellpepper, diced
6 cloves of garlic, minced
200 g cashew nuts, natural - not roasted and salted
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large bunch of tarragon, chopped
salt, pepper

Grate the ginger and cut the chicken into strips or large dice. Fry the chicken in one tbsp of olive oil and when it's browned a little, add the ginger and the juice from the lemons.

Bring the stock to a boil, and pour it over the cous-cous. Add the remaining spoonful of olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap and leave for five minutes. Then add the fried chicken and the tomatoes. (Or use the tomatoes to top each serving instead - this is useful if you plan to eat this for several days, since tomatoes tend to go a bit bland and watery in the fridge.)

Dice the bacon and fry until crispy. Add the leek, bellpepper, garlic and cashew nuts, and fry for three minutes. Add to the cous-cous. Stir in the tarragon, and season with salt and pepper.

Recipe in Swedish:
Cous-cous med kyckling och dragon

Barbecued Corn

Does it get much better than this? Corn, lovingly brushed with a tasty oil, and barbecued on low-medium heat for a long time. Incredibly tasty!

Want more veggies on the grill? Perfect - Cook Sister is hosting an event for exactly that: Waiter, there's something in my... meatless barbecue! Join in - I know I will!

Gooseberry Elderflower Curd

When I grew up, we had gooseberries on our driveway. Well, technically I think the bushes were in the neighbors yard, but I firmly believed that whatever happened to hang over into our yard, was mine. I don't have any gooseberry bushes anymore, but I sometimes miss their intensely sour skin and sweet sugary insides. And when I found this recipe for gooseberry curd with elderflower, in BBC Good Food, I knew I had to get some. Lucky me - Kinna who has a lovely blog (in Swedish) and her mom gave me a huge bag of freshly picked berries! And most of them made it into this nice curd. (And some into a very, very good meringue pie!)

Do try this, if you happen to have any gooseberries! It's a sweet curd - not as sharp as lemon - but you can probably reduce the amount of sugar a little if you want something a little less sweet. I love this served over strawberries that have been left to macerate in some elderflower cordial, with meringues and mascarpone-vanilla-yogurt cream. Delicious! I also used up one of my jars for a lovely raspberry meringue semifreddo, but I'll tell you about that another day. (Yes, I do have quite a backlog!)

Oh - and if you don't have homemade vanilla sugar (if you read this blog regularly, you totally should by now!) - just use regular sugar and the seeds from 1/2-1 vanilla bean.)

Gooseberry Elderflower Curd
makes 2 small jars

500 g gooseberries
100 ml water
140 g homemade vanilla sugar
100 g sugar
3 tbsp elderflower cordial
85 g cold butter, diced
3 eggs, beaten

Mix the berries and the water in a pot. Boil for five minutes, until the berries burst and are soft. Press through a sieve.

Add the sugars, the cordial, butter and beaten egg to the gooseberry purée. Put the bowl on a pan of barely simmering water, and stir constantly until the curd has thickened. This will take about 20 minutes.

Pour into cleaned and preferrably sterilized jars. Keep them in the fridge, or the curd won't thicken as much as it should. Use quickly once you open them - they won't keep for very long because of the eggs and butter.

Recept på engelska:
Krusbärscurd med fläder

Crawfish Party!

Yesterday we had a traditional Swedish Crawfish party. I've told you about crawfish before - it's a very special thing in Sweden, and it's very seasonal. August is the time for crawfish parties - you can buy frozen crawfish all year, but that doesn't mean that you should - it's much more special to have it once a year. The traditional parties involve lots of booze, crawfish, bread, cheese and great friends - and that's exactly what we had.

Sweden import most of its crawfish from China, Spain or Turkey, where it's prepared especially for the Swedish market, with Swedish recipes. I made my own brine for the crawfish, since the one they come in is usually a bit boring and sometimes outright disgusting. It's simple - you just mix 2,5 litres of water, 100 ml of beer, 3-4 tbsp salt, 1/2 tbsp sugar and one onion, pour over a bunch of flowering dill and let it cool. Pour over one kilo of crawfish, and let it sit for 3-4 hours before serving.



Lena brought two lovely Västerbotten Cheese pies. (Recipe for my version of this, here.) In addition to this, I had made some nice dill bread (will tell you all about that another day) and two desserts; a special one for the Daring Bakers, and a frozen raspberry semifreddo that vanished in an instant!



And Martin brought amazing flavored vodka! The yellow one has oranges and grapefruit, the red one raspberries and strawberries. Very yum!


Danne, demonstrating the sucking

Everyone has their own rituals for eating, but most goes something like this - break off the claws. Suck the legs of the crawfish, break open the claws and eat the meat. Remove the tail - some will now also suck the head and the body of the crawfish, but many skip that part. Clean the tail, removing the intestine and the shell, and devour. Yes, it's a lot of work for very little food, but it's fun!



You also have to wear funny hats, and have - preferrably - serpentines and other fun party toys. Regardless of how old you are.

Recipe in Swedish:
Kräftlag

Café Ett

When we were in Dalarna earlier this summer, we went on a day-trip to Orsa. They have an excellent zoo, with mostly bears but also siberian tigers, wolverines, wolves and lynxes. New this summer were the tigers that had just moved in when we were there, and a couple of really gigantic bears - very impressive.



Feeling a bit peckish, we drove into Orsa for a light lunch at Café Ett. This is a really nice little café and if you're ever in the vicinity, stop by! They make great caffé lattes, and the sandwiches were delicious too.

They have a good webshop too, with espresso machines, coffee and delicious coffee candy from Caffé Mauro.

Café Ett
Dalagatan 1
Orsa

Blackberry Serrano Salad

Blackberries are in season - but if you're not lucky enough to have them where you live, you can definitely use frozen as well. They hold up fairly well when you thaw them - just let them rest on some paper towels to catch some of the juice, and you'll be fine.

The idea for this salad comes from Christer Lingstrom's book Den Goda Sommaren. ("The Good Summer".) And this is good indeed. Really, really good! The salty serrano ham (any dry-cured ham will do) goes so well with the sweet berries, and the bite of the spicy rocket is just perfect. I urge you to try this one!

Blackberry Serrano Salad
Serves 4

100 g rocket (arugula)
80 g serrano ham
125 g blackberries - fresh, or thawed

dressing:
125 g blackberries - fresh, or thawed
50 ml olive oil
1 tbsp runny honey
1,5 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt, pepper

Start with the dressing. Purée the berries and pass them through a sieve. Mix with olive oil, honey and vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. It's good to do this about an hour ahead, so the flavors will have plenty of time to bond.

Arrange salad, ham and blackberries on four plates, and drizzle with the dressing. Serve with a great bread, and you're all set!

Recipe in Swedish:
Sallad med björnbär och serranoskinka

Hattori Sushi Devil, again

My plate, an order of Ginza. 8 different pieces of sushi.

I know, I've told you before. The best sushi in Stockholm. It's at Hattori Sushi Devil. For sure. And I'm not just saying that because head chef Peter Forsberg happens to be my brother in law - they really *are* the best.


Peter, scooping up my very favorite: squid salad

We eat there regularly, though not as often as I would really like to. They have a very small restaurant with just a few seats, so unless you're planning on takeaway, be prepared to wait for a while or avoid the lunch hour. Everything is made a la minute, which means that yes, it will take longer, but you won't get any boring, dried-out sushi that you won't want to eat anyway. It's well worth it.


Beautiful miso - always included

Unfortunately, no sushi bars in Sweden are allowed to serve alcohol (becuase according to Swedish law, you can only serve alcohol if you have a hot kitchen), so the drinks are limited to water, green tea (free) and Firefly which is a pretty cool drink.



Peter mixes his own flavored soy - there's a ginger, one with shiitake, one with bonito (smoked tuna) and my favorite, a citrusy one that I think has yuzu in it.

The guys are really getting recognition - several papers and magazines have written about them, and they're being asked to cater a lot of big functions. Well, as long as I can get my sushi fix, I'm really happy for them. It's well deserved!

Hattori Sushi Devil
Tegnérgatan 43 (Subway: Rådmansgatan)
08-22 44 00

Caramel Oatmeal Muffins

We had our first regular weekly early morning meeting today, and I tried to add some cheer by bringing in some muffins. These muffins are really tasty - the delicious topping with crunchy caramelly oatmeal is irresistible! They hold up well in the freezer too - I admit that I made these a few weeks ago, and just gave them a quick spin in the microwave this morning.

I use Swedish filmjolk which is a kind of soured milk. You can use buttermilk, and I think regular yogurt would work nicely too.

Caramel Oatmeal Muffins
Makes 12 regular-sized muffins

2 eggs
200 ml (0.8 cups) sugar
50 g melted butter
300 ml (1.2 cups) flour
1,5 tsp baking powder
125 ml buttermilk or Swedish filmjolk

Topping:
90 g melted butter
50 ml (0.2 cups) homemade vanilla sugar (or regular sugar + 2 tsp commercial vanilla sugar)
200 ml (0.8 cups) rolled oats
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp cinnamon

Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy. Stir in melted butter, buttermilk or filmjolk, flour and baking powder. Divide among muffin cups.

Mix all the ingredients for the topping, and add a good dollop to each muffin.

Bake at 200°C for 10-12 minutes. Watch them closely so the topping doesn't burn!

Recipe in Swedish:
Muffins med krispig havretopping

Slow Cooked Beef Tenderloin - Tjälknöl

Today is a very special day - we're having a guest blogger! Welcome, Danne! (He's married to one of my dearest friends, Tesse. I wrote about their wedding, here.)
That's all from me - over to Danne. //Anne

When Anne asked me so politely if I wanted to guest blog, I just couldn’t say no. So here is my contribution: Slow Cooked Beef Tenderloin.

The Swedish name is “tjälknöl”, which roughly translated would be frost-bump.

The reason for that name is that you start the cooking with frozen meat. I use beef tenderloin even if it’s more often used on elk steaks, roast beef and such "bigger" pieces of meat.

You place the frozen piece of meat on the bars in the oven (75-90°C). (You might want to put something under the meat cause there will be some dripping.)

Let the meat stay in the oven until it reach the right temperature. For beef tenderloin that is 58-62°C. (If you use other meat, you have to check what the appropriate temperature for it is.)

Before the meat is ready in the oven, I prepare the marinade. How much you need depends on the size of bowl you will use later on, so for a large bowl, you need to double (or even triple) the basic marinade recipe.

The marinade is made of 1 litre of water, 100 ml of salt, some ground pepper and 2-3 bay leaves.

Mix some of the water and all of the salt in a pan and bring to a boil. (The only reason for this is to make the salt dissolve into the water more easily.) Then you add the rest of the water and spices. (You have to let the marinade cool off before you use it.)

Place the cooked meat in enough marinade to have it covered and place it in the fridge. I keep the tender sirloin there for about 6 hours. If you use a shorter time the meat will not take enough flavour. On the other hand, if you let it stay too long, it will make the meat a bit too salty. If you should use the recipe on larger pieces of meat, more time will be needed. Over night could be necessary.

When the meat has been in the marinade you wrap it in aluminium foil and keep it in the fridge until its time to eat it.

The result is meat that is extremely tender. It just melts in the mouth and has a touch of flavour from bay leaf. (Should you use another kind of meat, like elk, you can replace bay leaf with for example juniper berries.)

This way of preparing the meat is very easy. Even if the time it needs to be in the oven and in the fridge is long, the actual time used for doing something with the food is very short. When I was preparing the food for our wedding, my wife and I had time go and get some coffee with Anne and Per, while the meat was in the oven.

You can serve the meat with whatever you like, weather that is potato salad or potato gratin. It fits perfectly with almost anything!

Enjoy!

Blogging By Mail - goodies from Brazil!

I got my Blogging By Mail package last night! Ooh, very exciting this one - I could see from the box that my package came all the way from Brazil! It was sent by Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen, and as the theme was "my favorites", she sent me several of her favorite candy.

MY favorite of those was definitely the peanut brittle - pé-de-moleque - that you see in the middle of the photo in the large, round box. Yum! I graciously donated some of them to Tesse who happened to be over for the taste-testing - Tesse is an avid golfer, and these are perfect to stick in your bag for a quick mid-course pick-me-up.

There's also Dulce de Leche sticks - very sweet!, a sort of banana candy that's really interesting and intensely banana, and Brazil's answer to M&M:s, Confeti!

I love getting to try goodies like these, from the other side of the world. I love how diverse this planet is, and how we can all learn from one another. Blogging By Mail may seem like a small thing, but really, I think it's important to share your culture, and this is a good way to do it. So, a big thanks to Patricia for my lovely package, and to Stephanie for hosting this round.

And - head over to Katie at Other People's Food - she's the one I sent a package to, and she has a really nice blog!

Tortellini Salad

It's a really beautiful day today. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and I'm back at work. And that feels fine! I'm off to the gym in a short while, and I'm looking forward to the week. Not usually this perky - but today really feels like a good day.

I watched the latest episode of Top Chef last night. Frozen pasta meals, like the chefs had to prepare, are usually not very exciting, but they come in handy sometimes. I'm more interested in microwavable food, since that's all I can eat at work, but I might feel inclined to experiment a bit more with the methods for freezing and packing.

But of course, food is always best eaten fresh. And this fresh tortellini salad is wonderful. Perfect summer food, and make sure to try it while you can still get good asparagus.

Tortellini Salad
Serves 2

250 g fresh tortellini with your favorite filling - we bought a mushroom variety
1 handful cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
100 g smoked ham, sliced into strips
1 bunch (about 250 g) fresh asparagus
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
salt
pepper
parmesan

Trim the asparagus by breaking off the woody part of the stalk. (Just flex it gently - it breaks at the right point as if by magic!) Boil in salted water for 4-5 minutes, then immediately remove to a bowl of icy cold water.

Boil the tortellini - you can use the asparagus cooking water to save wated and energy.

Cut the cooked asparagus into smaller pieces, halve the tomatoes, slice the onion and the ham. Drain the apsta and toss with all the other ingredients. Drizzle with oil and vinegar, and season with salt and pepper.

Top with some shaved parmesan cheese.

Recipe in Swedish:
Tortellinisallad

Homemade Strawberry Cordial

I wish I could give you a recipe, but sorry. I haven't made this myself. Thankfully, my friend Danne has, and I've been lucky enough to taste this wonderful strawberry cordial on several occasions this summer. It's really summer in a bottle, the very essence of warm, sunny days.

Swedish Crisp Bread with Caraway

Ha! One new year's resolution down! (And sigh, four to go!) I finally made crisp bread, Swedish Knäckebröd. Was it hard? No. Was it expensive? Oh no. Was it time consuming? A little. And a little messy, too. But was it worth it? Oh, yes. I actually made two batches while I was at it - I'll post about the second kind in a few days.

This is a pretty basic recipe, and you can use it as a base to play with. Feel free to add other seeds if you prefer! The one piece of equipment that you might not have is a knobbly rolling pin, a kruskavel. It looks like this. Not absolutely necessary to have, but it does help here.

The traditional shape is large rounds with holes in the middle - the holes are actually for storage, because these were traditionally hung on a stick, from the ceiling.

Swedish Crisp Bread with Caraway

25 g fresh yeast
500 ml (2 cups) tepid water
2 tsp salt
600 ml (2,4 cups) coarse rye flour
600 ml (2,4 cups) wheat flour
2 tsp caraway seeds, bashed in a pestle and mortar
2 tsp sesame seeds
2 tsp linseed

Crumble the yeast into a bowl and add some of the water. Stir until the yeast is dissolved, then add the rest of the water, and all other ingredients. Mix by hand or with a machine until the dough starts to form. Add extra flour if it's too sticky. You don't have to knead it much, just enough to get a proper dough that holds together. Remove the dough to a clean bowl, cover and leave to rise for one hour.

Shape the dough into a large, thick rope and divide into 15 pieces. Roll out each piece into rounds, using a lot of flour so it won't stick. Roll it as thinly as you can (the crisper it will be!) and finish by doing a few rolls with a knobbly rolling pin, a "kruskavel". If you don't have one, prick the dough all over with a fork. Use a small glass or a cookie cutter to remove a hole from the middle of the round.


Or use cookie cutters - I couldn't resist making a cat.

Place directly on a baking sheet and bake at 200°C (that's for a convection oven, use 225°C in a regular oven) for 10-12 minuter. You have to turn them after half the time or they will burn.

Recipe in Swedish:
Knäckebröd med kummin

A disappointing dinner

It happens to me, and I'm sure it's happened to you too. Sometimes, the recipe that sounds so good on paper, just doesn't work at all. We recently had such a dinner, where all three new recipes turned out to be.. so-so. Or outright bad. Above, a salad of caramelized pears, walnuts and endives. Sounds good, yeah? Well, it was horrible. The endive was way too bitter (how on earth do you eat this stuff?) and the pears couldn't make up for it. The nuts didn't help. A strong vinaigrette or a smattering of blue cheese might have helped, though, but that wasn't in the recipe.



We served that (thankfully just for the two of us) with grilled lamb. Usually a winner, but this one was rather boring. The marinade sounded good, but it wasn't very exciting at all. And the meat was really tough and stringy - can't fault the recipe there, though.



It was served with a chili-aïoli that also sounded incredibly good, but was just bitter and nasty. Sigh. Huge disappointment, that one! Needless to say, you're not getting the recipes. Be thankful.