This Easter have been very food orientated, went to two Easter dinners two days in a row for example, and really indulged in heaps of delicious food. For the first dinner, I made white chocolate and lemon curd truffles, and they were a definite hit. My only creative streak is cooking, as was very clear when we during the party played the boardgame Cranium... As part of the game, I had to try to make a microscope out of clay, you would think with me being a scientist that would be easy, but I so failed at that. Very embarrassing.
Anyhow, this is an incredibly easy recipe, and the result is amazing. Soft lemony centres encased with white chocolate, yummy! I used Sainsbury's Taste the difference lemon curd (my preferred ready made one) as I didn't have a lot of time, but of course the truffles may be even better with homemade curd. Something I really would like to try is to do the same with blood orange curd or rhubarb curd, I think that would be really lovely too.
For the white chocolate encasing the centres, I used white chocolate chips. These melt at a higher temperature, and thus doesn't melt as easily in room temperature, making it easier to serve and eat the truffles
Lemon curd chocolate truffles (20 truffles) 200 g white chocolate (I used Green & Black's), chopped 1 dl lemon curd 1 tbsp double cream 200 g white chocolate chips
Melt the white chocolate. I usually melt chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave the following way and find that it usually gives a perfect result without burning the chocolate: Start with 1 min at full effect, stir the chocolate, and then stir every 10-15 sec at full effect until completely melted
Stir in the double cream.
Stir in the lemon curd, one tablespoon at the time, until you have smooth glossy mixture.
Leave the filling in the freezer for 1 h
Using a melon scoop or a teaspoon, take out balls of the filling and use your hands to shape them further into spheres. This is quite messy to do, try to work as quickly as possible to avoid the filling to become to soft and start melting
Put the chocolate/lemon curd balls back in the freezer for 1 h to harden before dipping them in white chocolate
Melt the white chocolate chips.
Stick a toothpick into each lemon curd ball, and dip them into the melted chocolate. Leave on a sheet of baking paper to harden.
I am so incredibly happy and proud today, because one my best and oldest friends, Sigrid Barany, has today won Swedish Masterchef!!!!!! The Swedish Masterchef is similar to British and Australian Masterchef, with amateur cooks competing for the title. It's been fantastic, exhilarating, and nerve wracking seeing my friend on TV, but she's been AMAZING! I can't wait to get her cook book when it comes out in April.
Sigrid have also just started a blog (only in Swedish I'm afraid) that you can follow here: Spisvärme.
I have so many memories around food and Sigrid, many from when we used to share a flat together in Uppsala. Weird cooking session in the middle of night after drinking way too much (my favourite night meal is pasta with an obscene amount of cheese, ketchup and curry....), cooking up enormous amounts of food for our joint 25 year bday party (I think we ate leftover for months afterwards), and lavish dinners for new years eve celebrations.
Another food memory is our trip to Porto in Portugal, where Sigrid, who was very tired after a Ryanair flight, ordered a bbq hot dog in a small touristy restaurant for lunch. She got a large sausage that she had to bbq herself on the table over a live flame, the result was not only a cooked sausage but that Sigrid lost part of her fringe..... We had better luck with our food going out for dinner in Porto, we found a great place that did Portuguese tapas. It was so good that we had to come back a second time, and ended up staying very late at the restaurant and got free drinks from the lovely waiting staff.
Sigrid has made me so many fantastic meals, and I'm not surprised that she won today. Now I just hope she'll come and cook for me soon here in London :)
This is one of my favourite ways to spend a Saturday morning, watching Saturday kitchen live (I love the omelette challenge!) in bed while drinking milky cardamon coffee and planning what to cook this weekend. I'm thinking of doing something with squid, if I can get out of bed and get my lazy ass down to Borough market to buy it....
Today the rain is pouring down, and my umbrella broke when I went out for Sunday roast :( I have no idea how many umbrellas I buy every year, but quite a few as they either break or I leave them on the tube. It's not the only thing I leave on the tube or bus, I have a habit of loosing everything I own, from phones to umbrellas to wallets to once a box of rat brains (that I luckily got back!). The last one was not a box of ingredients to cook with, I'm not that brave with my food, but from an experiment for work. In addition to being an amateur cook by night, I'm also a scientist by day.
Anyhow, the weather today has been awful, but yesterday it was a lovely spring day. I love spring, the lighter mornings and evenings, all the spring flowers (the daffodils are in bloom outside my house), and of course all the vegetables that comes with spring.
Inspired by spring I decided to make pasta with asparagus and scallops. This is a lovely light dish, with the green asparagus and sweet scallops, with a little tangy lemon and salty pecorino,
Linguine with asparagus and scallops (serves 2) 160 g dry linguine 1 large bunch of green asparagus 6 scallops, divided in halves 100 g pecorino cheese, grated 1 medium lemon, zest 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 pinch of chili flakes 2 tbsp olive oil 1 egg yolk, beaten salt and pepper
Snap of the dry woody ends of the asparagus. Cut of the top 3-4 cm of each stalk, and cut the rest of the asparagus in 1-2 cm pieces.
Heat up the olive oil in a frying pan and add the chopped asparagus. Fry for 1-2 min and then add the garlic, fry for another few min, take care to not burn the garlic. Stir in a pinch of chili flakes and the 3/4 of the lemon zest, put the pan to the side.
Cook the linguine in plenty of boiling salted water according to pack instructions. Add the asparagus tips for the last 2 min of cooking time.
Drain the pasta, reserving 1-2 dl of the cooking water.
Return the pasta to the pot, stir in the egg yolk, fried asparagus, and cheese. If the pasta feels dry, add in some of the reserved cooking water, I usually add in around 1 dl.
Divide the scallops in halves, and fry in olive oil in a hot frying pan for 1-2 min on each side until golden.
Add the scallops on top of the pasta, sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper and the rest of the lemon zest.
Reading a recent post on Picki picki about broccoli side dishes reminded me of a broccoli dip/spread/sauce I used to do quite frequently last year, and I made it again last weekend. I use it as a spread on fresh bread, or as a dip for carrots when I'm trying to be healthy (while conveniently forgetting the fact there is quite a bit of cheese in the dip), or I stir it into pasta for a quick dinner.
The dip can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container for a couple of days but loose some of its vibrant green colour.
Broccoli garlic dip 1 medium-sized heads of broccoli 1 lemon, juice 2 garlic cloves, minced 3-4 tbsp olive oil 100 g parmesan, grated a pinch of chili flakes salt and pepper
Cook the broccoli florets in lightly salted water for 2-3 min.
Drain the water and mix the broccoli with the other ingredients. I use a stick blender to do this.
Add salt and pepper to taste
Enjoy!
And since that was such a quick recipe, you now have time to see Peacock, a lovely film with a fanatastic performance by Cillian Murphy :)
This weekend I have done nothing but cooking, walking in the sunshine (really felt like spring this weekend!), and streamed a lot of TV shows. Had a bit of catching up to do after holiday in Thailand (hot and sunny and white beaches and amazing food and quality time with my parents = great holiday). I'm quite addicted to shows like Vampire Diaries and Secret Circle. I know, I know, I am 36 years and watch teenage TV soaps about vampires and witches... What can I say, they're my guilty pleasures. I had brought my work laptop home, but, as usual, I haven't even taken it out of the bag yet. As it's now 8 pm, I'm guessing it will stay in the bag until tomorrow....
Anyhow, I love Korean food like bulgogi, bibimbap and kimchi, and luckily there are some nice, and cheap Korean restaurants in London, like the 3 or 4 restaurants on St Giles street and there is also a good one on Finchley road, Seoul. This weekend I decided to try to cook something Korean myself, and Korean spare ribs sounded like a good idea. I've actually never cooked spare ribs in my life, strange in a way because I love good sticky and tender ribs, and decided it was a good project for a weekend. I read a few recipes online, and from them made up my own.
First I had to go to Camden to get the spare ribs at Morrison's. Here in the UK I hardly ever see spare ribs at my usual Sainsbury's or Waitrose store, but Morrison's, another chain of grocery stores, often have good butcher and fish monger sections in their stores. I know, I should have gone to a proper butcher, but that felt like to much hassle. Easier to jump on the 274 to Camden... Coming back from Camden I went up to Finchley road, and went to an Asian supermarket, Natural natural, that's next to Waitrose. It's quite a small shop, and for anyone who wants a larger variety of Asian/Korean products, I would recommend going up to K-mart in Golders green instead. Anyhow, I got Asian pears, kimchi, and gochujang, a Korean hot red pepper paste, I needed and then went home to cook.
This recipe takes some time, but it is not labour intensive as most of the time is due to marinating or cooking the ribs. And believe me, it is so worth the time, because the ribs are amaaaaazing!!!! The ribs were so tender that the meat was almost falling of the bones, and covered with a sticky, hot and sweet glaze.
I served the ribs with kimchi and a coleslaw with lime and sweet chili, which was so good it really deserves a post of its own but is included here anyway. My mum makes a similar coleslaw, and it goes really well with any kind of barbecued meats.
Though how I ever thought that sticky ribs would be good as lunch box food I don't really know. Better bring some wet wipes with me to work tomorrow....
Korean spare ribs (serves 4) 2 racks of pork spare ribs (approx 2 kg)
Marinade 1 Asian pear, finely chopped (in all honesty, I think any large ripe juicy pear would do) 0.5 dl sesame seeds, toasted and ground 10 garlic cloves, minced 1 dl light soy sauce 0.5 dl brown sugar 1 tbsp honey 2 tbsp mirin (rise wine) 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped 3 tbsp gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste) 7 cm ginger, grated 1 tbsp sesame oil
Coleslaw 250 g white cabbage, shredded 250 g red cabbage, shredded 5 spring onions, finely chopped 4 apples, grated (I used medium-sized Cox apples) 250 g Greek yoghurt (half a large pot, approx 2.5 dl) 2 lime, zest and juice 2 tbsp sweet chili sauce 1 bunch coriander, finely chopped Salt and pepper
Toast the sesame seeds for the marinade and for serving in a dry pan. Ground half of the seeds to a coarse powder using a pestle and mortar
Score the ribs so that they can absorb more of the marinade
Mix all ingredients for the marinade together
Cover the ribs with the marinade, and leave in the fridge overnight. I think it's easiest to marinate the ribs in a large sealable plastic bag. Turn the ribs over a couple of times to make sure that all sides gets marinated properly.
Transfer the ribs with the marinade to a deep oven tray. Add the water and star anise and cover the tray with aluminium foil.
Cook for 1.5-2 h at 150C, until the ribs are tender
Combine all the ingredients for the coleslaw in a large bowl and let marinate in the fridge while the ribs cook.
Transfer the ribs to a plate, and pour the cooking liquid through a sieve and into a clean pot.
Heat up the oven to 250C or turn on the grill to its highest setting
Reduce down the cooking liquid to a sticky consistency, then add 2 cm grated ginger
Put the ribs on the grid of an oven tray. Brush on a thick layer of the glaze.
Cook the ribs in the oven/grill for 5-10 min. Watch the ribs carefully to make sure they don't burn!
Sprinkle the ribs with toasted sesame seeds and spring onions, and serve with the coleslaw and kimchi.
Enjoy!
Here's something for you to listen to while cooking, Fujiyama Mama by Wanda Jackson, queen of rockabilly.
Hi and merry Christmas and Happy New Years and long time no see. So, I decided to continue. I do like blogging about food, but I might add a post or two about other stuff too.
First out is a recipe for semlor (semla sing, semlor pl), a cardamon flavoured sweet bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream, traditionally eaten on Shrove's day, or, as it's called in Sweden, Fat Tuesday. Here in the UK the tradition is to eat pancakes on this day, usually with lemon and sugar. Really tasty too, but almost nothing beats a semla. Fat Tuesday was this week, but I hadn't time to bake then and therefore baked this weekend instead.
The other reason I decided to bake semlor is that it reminds me of home. My grandma always makes here own, usually smaller than the one's you find at the bakeries, and with her homemade slightly chunky almond paste. I thought a lot about my grandparents and family during the past weeks, as my granddad has been very ill and sadly passed away a couple of days ago. Sometimes it is very hard being an expat, you never feel more far away than on occasions like this.
Anyhow, I used a basic semla recipe, but I tweaked it a bit by adding more cardamon and changing the filling slightly. Here in the UK, you can't find mandelmassa, a less sweet almond paste compared to marzipan, and I like my filling to really taste of almonds and be a bit chunkier, like my grandma's, so I added chopped almonds to it.
The result was delicious, so delicious I had more than two. The exact number will however remain a secret as it's slightly embarrassing. In particular as I still managed to eat a full dinner....
Semlor (12 buns) 7.5 dl strong wheat flour 25 g dried yeast 0.75 dl sugar 2 tsp ground cardamon a pinch of salt 100 g butter 2.5 dl milk 1 egg, beaten
Filling 200 g marzipan or mandelmassa 150 g chopped almonds 0.5 dl milk or cream
5 dl whipped cream
Mix flour, yeast, sugar, cardamon, and salt together in a large bowl
Melt the butter, add the milk and warm to 40C, slightly hotter than finger temperature
Add the butter and milk to the flour mix, stir together to a dough.
Knead the dough for a couple of minuter, add more flour if necessary.
Leave the dough in the bowl, covered with a tea towel, to rise for 45 min
Divide the dough into 12 pieces, roll each to a small bun, and place on a buttered oven tray.
Cover with a tea towel and leave to raise for another 30 min
Brush the buns with egg wash
Bake for 10-15 min in the middle of the oven at 225C
Remove from the hot oven tray and let the buns cool down
To make the filling, coarsely grate the marzipan (this is easiest to do if you first leave it in the freezer for 30 min) and mix together with the chopped almonds and milk.
Whip the cream, it should still be a little loose
Cut of a thin lid from the buns. Scoop out a hole in the middle of the bun, this additional bread can be added to the almond paste if you like (I usually don't bother...).
Add the almond paste to the bun, and also add a generous amount of whipped cream. Place the lid on top. If you like, sprinkle the lid with icing sugar (I didn't have any at home, and don't think it's really necessary).
This Easter have been very food orientated, went to two Easter dinners two days in a row for example, and really indulged in heaps of delicious food. For the first dinner, I made white chocolate and lemon curd truffles, and they were a definite hit. My only creative streak is cooking, as was very clear when we during the party played the boardgame Cranium... As part of the game, I had to try to make a microscope out of clay, you would think with me being a scientist that would be easy, but I so failed at that. Very embarrassing.
