Fried chili and rosemary polenta with mushroom ragout

One of the reasons I wanted to try a vegan diet for a month was to challenge myself to cook new things and experiment. I've been in a bit of a cooking rut, cooking the same or similar things repeatedly. To get more inspiration, I decided to buy a new cookbook with vegan and/or vegetarian recipes. I went to Waterstones close to Piccadilly circus, one of the biggest bookstores in London. To my surprise, although they did stock quite a lot of vegan/vegetarian cookbooks, none of the vegan books they had were particularly appealing. Most of them had no pictures, and I'm sorry, for me cookbooks are all about raising interest and appetite, and for that I need pretty pictures. Shallow, I know, but that's what I want. Cookbooks are my food porn.

Anyhow, instead of buying a vegan book, I ended up buying River Cottage Veg Everyday by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall instead. And I'm so pleased with this book! Loads of amazing recipes, a third which are vegan and loads of others that easily could be adjusted. In addition, the introduction captures a lot of my own thinking on eating and cooking delicious food with more vegetables and less meat.

I've combined and modified two of the recipes from this book into the below recipe of fried polenta with mushroom ragout. This is a seriously tasty comfort dish, with crisp polenta wedges and a deeply flavourful mushroom ragout. Not a vegan and want to make something really indulgent? Stir in some hard goat cheese, parmesan or mature cheddar in the polenta before you spread it out. The polenta slices would also be great served with a tomato sauce, or eaten as snacks with a romesco or garlic dip.

Fried chili and rosemary polenta with mushroom ragout (serves 4)
Polenta
1.5 dl quick-cook polenta or semolina
2 dl water
2 dl milk (I used fresh full-fat soy milk)
1 cube vegetable stock
1 tbsp olive oil
1 red chili, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
100 g sweetcorn
salt and pepper

Mushroom ragout
650 g mushrooms (I used a mix of chestnut mushrooms, portobello and large flat mushrooms), thickly sliced
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves chopped
150 ml wine, red or white
150 ml water
1 cube of vegetable stock
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp corn flour
salt and pepper
olive oil

First saute the red chili and garlic for 2 min in olive oil without letting the garlic colour. Add the rosemary and set to the side

Add water, stock and milk to a pot and bring to the boil. Pour in the polenta while stirring. I find it easiest to use a whisk for this

Cook for 4-5 min while stirring until the polenta is quite thick

Remove from the heat and stir in sweet corn and the garlic, chili and rosemary mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste

Tip the polenta on to a cold surface and spread it smoothly into an even disc, about 20 cm thick. Leave to cool completely

While the polenta cools, prepare the mushroom ragout.

Fry half of the mushrooms in olive oil in a large frying pan. When they start to concentrate and caramelise, add half of the shallots, garlic and thyme, and some salt and pepper, and fry for a couple of minutes more.

Transfer mushrooms to the side and fry the other mushrooms in the same way.

Return the first batch of mushrooms to the pan. Add the wine, water, vegetable stock and soy sauce. Simmer for about 15 min until the liquid is reduced to 1/3-1/2.

Stir the corn flour into a little water to form a loose paste, and then stir it into the ragout to thicken the sauce

Taste and add salt/pepper if necessary

Cut the polenta into slices or wedges, brush lightly with olive oil, and fry either in a non-stick pan over medium heat for a couple of minutes on each side until golden, or on a baking sheet under the oven grill

Serve the polenta wedges with the mushroom ragout

Smaklig måltid!

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!

Potato gnocchi with tomato sauce

I've tried making gnocchi before, and it was a disaster. Instead of beautiful fluffy potato pillows, I got chewy and doughy clumps...., quite disgusting. I wanted to give gnocchi another go, and after reading loads of different recipes, I decided to use one of my food heroes, Jamie Oliver's, recipe. This recipe use baked potatoes instead of boiled potatoes, the idea is that this will result in drier and fluffier potatoes for the gnocchi, thus requiring less flour and lighter gnocchi. I was so right to trust Jamie, the result was great! I served the gnocchi with tomato sauce and Parmesan, but if you want to be really indulgent, serve with Gorgonzola cheese and fried sage....

If you aren't cooking all the gnocchi, they can be frozen on a tray. Once frozen, they can be stored in bags and then cooked by dropping directly into boiling water for 1-2 min, super easy when you need a quick meal.

Gnocchi with tomato sauce (serves 4)
Gnocchi
750 g potatoes
1-2 egg yolks (1 large or 2 small)
1 tsp salt
1-2 dl flour
0.5 tsp black pepper
1 pinch grated nutmeg

Tomato sauce
1 can of high quality tomatoes
1 garlic bulb, cloves sliced in thin sections
1 tbsp capers, finely chopped
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped
0.5 tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 pinch of chili flakes
1 pinch of sugar
salt and black pepper

olive oil

Parmesan cheese, grated
black pepper

Bake the potatoes at 225C for about an hour until soft

While the potatoes are cooking, make the tomato sauce. First saute the garlic in olive oil in a pot on gentle heat for 2-3 min, then add the capers and chili flakes. Saute for another minute, then add tomatoes, tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, and herbs. Simmer for 30 min. Add water during the cooking if the sauce starts to get to thick or dry. Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Let the potatoes cool slightly, and then, while they are still warm, scoop out the flesh. Put the potatoes through a ricer or sieve into a large bowl

Add the egg yolk(s), salt, pepper, and nutmeg, stir into the potatoes. Add enough flour to bind the mixture until you have a doughy consistency. The dough should keep together, but be soft and supple without being wet or sticky. Be careful not to add too much flour as the more flour added the firmer the gnocchi will be.

Divide the dough into three parts, and on a flour dusted surface, roll each part out into long roll around 2 cm wide

Cut the rolls into 1-2 cm long pieces, and using a fork lightly press down on each piece to make a ribbed pattern

Let the gnocchi rest for 10-15 min on a floured tray.

Cook the gnocchi in gently boiling salted water for 1-2 min, or until they float to the surface

Serve with the tomato sauce, a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and freshly ground black pepper

Smaklig måltid!

Linguine with asparagus and scallops

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.

Smaklig måltid (bon appetite in Swedish)!

Summery lemon pasta with chicken

Back to reality after returning from holiday.... Not exactly ecstatic over going back to work, but at least it's summer now and I've also moved so the commute to work is much better. Coming back from holiday also means starting to cook again, and that's lovely. I do miss cooking when I'm traveling. Partly because it drives me crazy walking through the fantastic food markets in China or elsewhere and see all the lovely produce and not have anywhere to cook it.

As it is summer now, at least it is possible to find good fresh vegetables and fruits also here in the UK. One of my new flatmates told me about a street market close to where I now live that apparently got good veg and fish, so I really need to check that out soon.

I don't like food to be to heavy during the summer, and this green and lemony pasta feels very fresh and light. It is inspired from a recipe for Sicilian lemon pasta. Sorry for the poor picture, I left my camera at a friend's house so had to use my phone.

Summery lemon pasta with chicken (4-6 portions)
500 g pasta, I used penne
4 chicken fillets, sliced
1 tbsp Colman's mustard powder
0.5 dl light soy sauce
3 garlic cloves, pressed
1 tbsp honey
2 zucchini, sliced
4 spring onions, sliced
1 bag of rocket, roughly chopped
1 bunch of basil, chopped
150 g mange tout or sugarsnaps, roughly chopped
juice from 4-5 lemons
zest from 1 lemon
1 red chili, finely sliced
0.5 dl virgin olive oil
150 g parmesan cheese, grated
black pepper
salt

Start by marinating the sliced chicken in a marinade of mustard, soy sauce, 1 pressed garlic clove, and juice from 1 lemon for 30 min

Beat lemon juice from 3-4 lemons (number depending on size and juiciness), with the zest of 1 lemon and the olive oil. Add the grated parmesan and 1 pressed garlic clove. The sauce will become thick and creamy. Add more lemon juice or a little water if very thick. Add pepper and salt to taste. If the lemons are very sour, add some honey or sugar to balance it.

Start cooking the pasta. If you like me use pasta like penne that takes 10-15 min to cook, you got time to cook the vegetables and chicken while the pasta cooks. Otherwise prepare the rest before boiling the pasta as it should be piping hot at the time of serving.

While the pasta cooks, first fry the zucchini until it starts getting golden, then add spring onions, 1 pressed garlic clove, the red chili and mange tout and cook for a couple of minutes.

Fry the chicken until golden. The honey in the marinade will give it a caramelized finish.

Once the pasta is al dente, pour of the water and return the pasta to the pan. Stir in the sauce, the parmesan will melt as it is mixed in to the pasta. Then stir in basil, rocket, the vegetables and chicken. Grind over some black pepper.

Serve immediately. If you like, sprinkle over some additional lemon zest and fresh finely chopped red chili.

Spaghetti alla Norma - pasta with roasted aubergine

I love Italian food! A lot of my appreciation and first insight into how to cook Italian food is thanks to Davide, who I was living with when I moved to London the first time to work as a waitress, and who is an amazing cook. One of my most memorable meals will always be the 10 (!) course dinner he cooked when I decided to go back to Sweden to study.

Spaghetti alla Norma is a classic Sicilian recipe with tomatoes and fried aubergine. It is delicious, but that aubergine really do soak up a shocking amount of olive oil. Something I really like is the Middle Eastern dish baba ganoush, a dip of roasted smokey aubergine, so I decided to instead of frying the ingredients for this dish, I would roast them in the oven instead. The result was delicious, with a soft smokiness and that rich flavour of roasted garlic and roasted peppers.

Spaghetti alla Norma - Sicilian pasta with roasted aubergine (4 portions)
2 small-medium aubergines
2 red peppers
2 red chillies
1 large red onion
1 garlic bulb
1 can of good quality plum or cherry tomatoes
small bunch of fresh basil
1 tbsp capers
0.5 tsp smoked paprika
a pinch of sugar
olive oil
salt and pepper
parmesan or pecorino cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Cleave the aubergines lengthwise. Add a little olive oil at the bottom of a oven tray, and place the aubergine halves with the cut side down in the tray. Drizzle with a little more olive oil. Roast in the oven for 45 min until the aubergines are black and wrinkled. Take out and let cool down. Once cold enough to handle, scrape out the soft flesh.

While the aubergines are roasting, half and take out the seeds of the red peppers and chillies. Place in another oven tray, and add the quartered onion.

Cut of the top of the garlic bulb, exposing the cloves within. Place in the tray with the peppers, chillies and onion, and drizzle olive oil over all the vegetables. Roast for about 25 min until the skin of the peppers and chillies are charred and the garlic cloves are soft.

Take the charred peppers and chillies and place in a plastic bag and leave it to cool down (the steam coming off in the bag will make them easier to peel). Once cold enough the handle, remove the skin and squeeze out the garlic cloves.

Using a blender, blend all the roasted vegetables, including onions and garlics, with the canned tomatoes, basil, capers and smoked paprika. If I would do this during the summer, I would roast 4-5 good tomatoes as well, but as it is so difficult to find good tomatoes at this time of year, I opted for good canned tomatoes instead.

Add a pinch of sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with spaghetti and grate over some parmesan or pecorino cheese when serving.

Enjoy!

Osso bucco brisket with celeriac mash

What to do on a rainy November Sunday? Cook of course! I love slow-cooked food, it requires a minimum of work for maximum of taste. This is a version of a classic Italian dish, Osso bucco. Osso bucco should be made with veal shanks, or possibly lamb shanks instead, but if you do like me and go food shopping on a Sunday afternoon, the meat counter can be quite empty. Today I instead used brisket, which is one of my favourite meats for slow-cooking.

I think osso bucco is traditionally served with saffron rice or risotto, but it's great served also with polenta or potato gnocchi. My original plan today was actually to make gnocchi, but I felt a bit lazy and ended up making celeriac mash instead. I used half potatoes and half celeriac, I think the mash becomes to watery with just celeriac. I think mash is the ultimate comfort food, smooth, silky, buttery, mmmm.....

Osso bucco brisket with celeriac mash (4 portions)
800 g brisket, sliced into 2 x 3 cm cubes, or 4- 6 thick slices of veal shank (2-3 inches), or 3-4 small lamb shanks
2 carrots, sliced
2 yellow onions, chopped
300 g celeriac, finely chopped
8 garlic cloves, chopped
1 can of whole tomatoes
1 bottle of white wine
8 bay leaves
1/2 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp sage
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
2 cubes of beef, veal or chicken stock
flour
salt and pepper

For the mash
500 g celeriac, chopped
500 g potatoes, chopped
milk
2 cubes of chicken stock
butter

Gremolata
1 small bunch of parsley, finely chopped
grated lemon zest from 1-2 lemons
1 garlic clove, grated

Start by dusting the meat with flour, and then browning it at high heat and lightly season with salt and pepper

Saute onions, carrot, celeriac and garlic for 5 min in large pot.

Add the meat, wine, bay leaves, tomatoes, herbs and stock cubes to the pot.

Cook on medium heat until the wine has reduced to 1/2 the volume.

Cover the pot with a lid and continue cooking the osso bucco at low heat for a couple of hours until the meat is tender. Alternatively cook in the oven at low temperature. Add more water if necessary if the stew is going a bit to dry and concentrated.

While the osso bucco is cooking, make the mash.

Add the chopped potatoes and celeriac to a pot, cover with milk and add the chicken stock.Cook until the vegetables are soft.

Drain and reserve the remainder of the milk. Puree the vegetables, add 50 g of butter and enough of the reserved milk to give a smooth consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the osso bucco with the mash and sprinkle over gremolata. Enjoy!