Smoked salmon, saffron, and orange pirogues

Look who's back :) I've had such a crazy busy autumn with quite an intense mix of work, studying, moving, and although I have been cooking, there just haven't been enough time and energy to also blog about it.

Anyhow, I made these little pirogues or pasties recently. Saffron and oranges are two common flavourings for a lot of typically Swedish Christmas treats. Here I incorporated saffron and oranges with smoked salmon in puff pastry pirogues. The results is a salty tasty treat with a hint of sweet citrusy zest, perfect as a starter or served with drinks. The pirogues can be made the day before, and served cold or hot.

I was lazy and bought puff pastry. If you too feel like not making your own, buy a high-quality all butter puff pastry.

Smoked salmon, saffron and orange piroges (30 mini pirogues)
1-2 packages of puff pastry
300 g smoked salmon
200 g cream cheese
0.5 g saffron
1 dl chives, finely chopped
1 dl dill, finely chopped
1 orange
black pepper
pinch of chili flakes
1 egg, beaten

Heat the oven to 200C

Prepare the saffron; I find it easiest to grind the saffron threads with a pinch of salt using a pestle and mortar to a powder. I then add a little water, this makes it easier to transfer the saffron and infuse it into the other ingredients

Mix salmon, cream cheese, saffron, chives, dill, chili flakes, zest from one orange, and juice from half an orange in food processor to a coarse mix. Season with black pepper.

Roll out the puff pastry, and cut it into squares roughly 4 x 4 cm

Add 1-2 tsp of the filling to each square, fold over the pastry to a triangular shape and join the edges. Crimp the edges using a fork to form a seal

Transfer the pirgoues to a lightly oiled baking tray and brush the top with egg wash

Bake for 10-20 min until golden brown

Transfer to a cooking grid to cool, or serve directly

Smaklig måltid!

Meet Mr Kenwood

I have finally bought myself a food processor, and hopefully that means less blood in the coleslaw and more grated beetroot salads!

I've been ill for the past week, got a pesky cold and nasty cough. I'm feeling really sorry for myself, in particular as it meant that I spent last bank holiday weekend in bed. Not fun :(

Anyhow, since I bought this beautiful machine earlier, I could treat myself to mango milkshakes, yummy! Highly recommended when you feel sorry for yourself. Just blend one ripe and juicy mango with 1-2 generous scoops of vanilla ice cream and enough cold milk to make one pint of tropical sunshine to enjoy :)

Summer holiday and food in Sweden

The beautiful Swedish west coast

 

Back in a hot and sunny London after a fantastic holiday in Sweden. One week full of great times with family and friends, and of course lots of food. Swedish cheeses, sausages, my dad's BBQ pork, crayfish, filmjölk (soured milk, you eat like yoghurt for breakfast), cinnamon and cardamon buns, salty licorice, my mum's citrus aioli, chantarelles, raspberries, fermented herring, licorice ice cream....

I know, it sounds like I did nothing but eat, but in between all meals I also managed to visit the west coast with both my Swedish and Danish family, my home town Uppsala, and Stockholm, and see lots of my friends and their kids, including the newest addition, the tiny 5 day old son of two of my best and oldest friends. Not bad for one week ;)

Here's a couple of pictures from my holiday

Grundsund on the west coast

Reimersholme in Stockholm, where I had ice coffee and cardamon buns with Sofia by the water just outside her flat

Beef cheeks with truffle potato mash at Rolf's kitchen in Stockholm with Sigrid. Read her blog (Swedish only) here

My parents place outside Uppsala

Toast with chantarelles - possibly the best thing ever

Raggmunk - Swedish potato pancakes with bacon and lingon berries

Fermented herring on crisp bread with fresh potatoes and red onion - and of course schnapps

My grandma's beautiful raspberry cake

Peanut butter truffles

 

I'm going home to Sweden today for one week, so looking forward to just relaxing and meeting family and friends! I wanted to bring a small treat home with me, and decided to make salted caramel chili chocolate truffles. That does sound awesome, doesn't it? As you may have noticed though, this post is not called salted caramel chili chocolate truffles...

The reason is that I couldn't get the caramel to work. Seriously annoying, it shouldn't be that difficult! The first batch I had too much water in as I decided to freestyle and not read any recipes before. Second batch I burned and then spent 20 min cursing as I tried to get the caramel mess out of the pot. Third batch, well, the less that is said about the third batch the better. Then I was out of sugar, and patience. Clearly this was not the day to make caramel!

So what to do instead? I was after that combination of salt and sweet and chocolate, so what could I do instead? Peanut butter truffles of course! I tweaked this recipe from Joy of baking, and it was so easy to do, no pesky caramel to make, and are crunchy, salty and sweet. Quite like one of my favourite sweets from the US, Reese's peanut butter cups.

Have a great weekend wherever you are, I'm going on vacaaaaaaation :)

Peanut butter truffles (makes approx 30 truffles)
300 g of crunchy peanut butter
30 g of butter
approx 1-2 dl icing sugar
approx 1-2 tsp salt
200 g dark chocolate (60-70%), chopped

Add peanut butter and butter to a bowl, and microwave for 1 min to soften. This could be done in a pot on the stove as well

Combine well, then add enough sugar to make a loose dough that can be easily rolled

Add salt to taste. Obviously adding the sugar in the step above will make it sweeter, and if you're a salt aficionado like me, you need to balance it with adding more salt

Roll the dough into balls and leave on tray in the freezer for 1h or overnight

Melt the chocolate

Dip the peanut butter balls in the chocolate and place on a baking sheet

Leave in the fridge for 1 h

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks or freeze

Merguez and feta sandwich with tomato jam and pickled red onion

Not to brag, but this could possibly be one of the best sandwiches ever. Spicy sausage with salty feta, sweet tomato jam with middle eastern spices, tart pickled red onions and the zing of fresh mint. Yummy yummy yummy.

I've posted the recipe for pickled red onions before, see below for the recipe for the tomato jam. This tomato jam has a middle eastern touch, with cardamon and cinnamon. If preserved properly, it will last for a long time, otherwise use within one week. Tomato jam is great on sandwiches, or together with poached eggs or an omelette. Basically anything you can serve with ketchup, you can serve with tomato jam instead.

Merguez and feta sandwich with tomato jam and pickled red onion (serves 1)
1 ciabatta or small baguette, toasted
1 merguez sausage (I bought mine from the great butcher at Natural kitchen in Marylebone), fried and sliced
feta cheese, sliced
salad leaves of your choice, for example iceberg, ruccola, spinach or little gem
tomato jam
pickled red onion
fresh mint, chopped

Toast the bread in the oven or in a frying pan, drizzle the bread with a little olive oil

Add salad leaves and tomato jam, then merguez sausage and feta cheese

Top with pickled red onion and fresh mint leaves

Tomato jam
1 kg of tomatoes, chopped
1 dl brown sugar
1 red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 large lemon, zest and juice
3 bay leaves
2 star anise
5 cardamon pods
1 tbsp salt
5 cm fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp chili flakes
0.5 tsp cinnamon
0.5 tsp black pepper

For the tomato jam, combine all ingredients in a medium sized pot

Bring to the boil, and then turn down the heat to a simmer

Let simmer for 1-2 h, stirring occasionally, until it has a thick and jammy consistency

Taste and adjust the seasoning

Add to clean glass jars and store in the fridge for up to a week

Pasta with green pea pesto and feta cheese

I think I have mentioned previously that I'm going to start on a part-time MBA program in September. I love science, but I want to learn more about business and finance and hopefully that will give me more opportunities in the future.

Anyhow, the MBA tuition fee isn't exactly cheap, so right now I need to save a lot of money. Fingers crossed, I might get a scholarship, but otherwise I'll have to live on quite a restricted budget for the next two years. One area I need to spend less money on is food. I'm already quite good at saving money when it comes to food as I cook most of my own meals for example and I try to eat according to the seasons (so no expensive strawberries in January for example). Still, I need to improve. So from now on (or actually since beginning of the summer, this is a recipe I did earlier but didn't manage to post at the time), this will be a gourmet on the cheap blog. It is possibly to eat great food for very little money.

This dish is one example that food doesn't have to cost a lot, or be complicated to do, to be delicious. I used one of my staples, frozen green peas, in this dish. If you have fresh green peas you can use that instead, but green peas is one of the few vegetables that I think freeze really well.

I use the term 'pesto' in the loosest possible way here, as there is no pine nuts or parmesan in this recipe, just peas, basil, onions and spices blended to a 'pesto' like sauce.

Pasta with green pea pesto and feta cheese (serves 4-6)
500 g pasta, I used conchiglie
5 (3 +2) dl green peas, fresh or frozen
1 yellow onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, finely diced
1 lemon, zest
1 tsp lemon juice
1 dl chicken stock
1 pinch of chili flakes
2 dl fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
200 g feta cheese, diced
olive oil
salt and pepper

Start with heating up a large pot with salted water for the pasta.

Add the pasta to the boiling water.

While the pasta cooks, prepare the sauce.

If you use frozen peas, cover the peas with boiling water for 1 min, then drain

In a frying pan, saute the onion, garlic, chili flakes and lemon zest for a couple of minutes.

Add 3 dl of peas and the chicken stock to the frying pan, simmer for a couple of minutes

Add the peas with the stock and spices to a blender, add the basil, lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil and mix to a smooth consistency. Taste, and add more salt, pepper, or lemon juice if required.

Drain the pasta, stir in the pea pesto, 2 dl green peas, and the feta cheese.

Smaklig måltid!

Pizza with radicchio and gorgonzola

I and my sister J went to Sardinia for a weekend earlier this year. We both live abroad, I in London and J in Århus in Denmark. We see each other a couple of times a year, but I do miss my sister and want to see her more. So last year we decided to start going for a weekend away just the two of us once a year instead of buying Christmas and birthday presents. The first sister weekend was this year in Alghero on Sardinia. We had a lovely time, despite quite a lot of rain, and of course we had a lot of good food. In Alghero I had one of the best pizzas I ever had was with radicchio and gorgonzola.

When I got home, I decided to try to recreate it. The recipes I used for the pizza dough and tomato sauce are both recommendations from J, who got them from the Swedish food magazine Allt om mat The result was great, with crisp thin dough topped with slightly bitter radicchio and cheesy gorgonzola. Yum yum yum.

The recipe below is for one large pizza. Any leftover dough can be used to make bread rolls or can be frozen and used later. Likewise leftover tomato sauce can be used on pasta or frozen to be used another day.

Pizza with radicchio and gorgonzola (serves 2)
Pizza dough
3 dl water
15 g dried yeast, I use Sainsbury's fast action dried yeast
4 dl strong flour
1.25 tsp salt
1.25 tbsp olive oil

Tomato sauce
1 can of whole tomatoes of good quality
1 garlic clove, minced
5 tbsp olive oil
0.5 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sugar
2 bay leaves
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
salt

Topping
4 small radicchio heads, roughly chopped
250 g gorgonzola, cubed
100 g mozzarella, sliced
olive oil
black pepper

Start by making the dough by mixing flour with yeast and salt.

Heat up the water to 45C and add to the flour mix. Knead the dough for 10-20 min. If necessary, add more flour

Add the olive oil to the dough and knead for another 5 min. The dough should be elastic and easy to work with. Add additional flour if necessary

Cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for 40 min

Take up the dough and knead for a couple of minutes and then divide the dough into two balls. Lightly dust the dough with flour and leave on a tray covered with a lightly damp tea towel to prove for another hour

While the dough is proving, make the tomato sauce

First lightly fry the garlic in the olive oil in a medium sized pot

Add all spices, herbs and sugar and saute for 1 min, then add the tomatoes. Lightly crush the tomatoes

Cover the pot with a lid, and simmer the sauce on low heat for 30 min

Mix the sauce using a blender or stick blender to a smooth consistency. Add salt to taste. Let the sauce cool down before use

Heat up the oven to 300C. If you have a pizza stone, heat it up, otherwise do like I did and heat up a large flat oven tray

With a rolling pin, roll out one of the dough balls into a thin rectangular shape the same size as the oven tray for one large pizza. I do this on a baking sheet dusted with flour, as I think it makes it easier to transfer the pizza to the oven tray. If one dough ball is not enough, use also part of the other one. Otherwise you can freeze the leftover dough for another day

Cover lightly with tomato sauce. Don't add a thick layer, as it will usually make the pizza too doughy and it won't cook properly

Drizzle the radicchio with olive oil and sprinkle it over the pizza. It will look like a lot of radicchio, but it will wilt and shrink when it's cooking. Sprinkle over the cheese

Take out the hot tray or pizza stone from the oven, slide on the pizza and put it back in the oven

Cook for 5-10 min

Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper

Smaklig måltid!