Pickled red onion

Here is another condiment that is great on a sandwich, in a salad or together with a grilled spicy sausage. I made a baguette with merguez sandwich, spinach, feta, tomato jam (recipe to come) and pickled red onion, and that was definetly one of the best sandwiches I ever had. Another more simple but still yummy sandwich is crisp bread with mature cheddar cheese and pickled onion.

The recipe is based on this one by Jonas Cramby, where he made a fabulous looking sandwich with pulled pork and pickled onion.

Pickled red onion
2 large red onions, finely sliced
1 red chili, finely chopped
2 dl apple cider vinegar
0.5 dl sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of mint

Heat up the vinegar with the sugar, salt and bay leaf

Stir in the onions and cook for 30 sec

Remove from the heat and add the red chili and sprig of mint

Let marinate for at least 2 h

Remove the mint, and store in an airtight container for up to 1 week 

Baconnaise

Sorry for the absence, but I've been busy travelling and working and generally feeling stressed and anxious over everything. I've actually cooked loads to try to relax, maybe some of these recipes will make it all the way to the blog.

Anyhow, I went to a friend's house for BBQ yesterday, first one for me this year after an abysmal summer here in the UK. I decided to make baconnaise, what could be a better condiment to grilled burgers? I've wanted to baconnaise for ages as I love anything with bacon in it. Bacon is one of the main reasons I can't be a vegetarian, that salty smokey flavour, mmmmm.

So I did a bit of research and read a couple of recipes on various sites, and this is the recipe I came up with. It includes actual bacon, not just bacon fat, as I really wanted a strong bacon flavour. It was yummy, but yes, you can kind of feel your arteries clog up while you eat it. I fried 12 rashers of bacon, and used 6 of the rashers in the baconnaise. Though if you're like me, you will have no problem finding use of the remaining 6 crispy rashers...

I used to hate making mayonnaise, that it was so difficult and took ages to get really thick. Then I learned how to make mayonnaise using a hand blender, and suddenly it took 2 min to make perfect mayonnaise, amazing! I describe the method below. If you don't have a stick blender, you can slowly add the bacon fat to your egg mix like you would for a normal mayonnaise.

Baconnaise
12 rashers of smoked streaky bacon

neutral oil

3 egg yolks

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp smoked paprika

0.5 tsp chili flakes

black pepper

Fry the bacon rashers in a pan until crispy, remove rashers to plate to cool

Pour the bacon fat into a bowl to cool

Finely chop 6 of the bacon rashers to a grainy powder

In a tall beaker, add egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, garlic and spices

Pour the bacon fat through a sieve into the beaker. Add more neutral oil if necessary to make up a total volume of fat/oil to 1.5 dl

Take a stick blender and push it to the bottom of the beaker. Turn the blender on, it will now create a vortex where the oil is pulled into the eggs. After 1-2 min, slowly pull the blender up. Voila, you should now have perfect mayonnaise! 

Add the bacon powder to the beaker and give it all a quick mix

Taste and add more vinegar, spice, black pepper and salt to taste

Enjoy this piece of bacon heaven as a condiment for BBQs or on sandwiches

Quick lunch at Natural kitchen

Teriyaki salmon with butternut squash, Greek salad and mange tout

I had a great weekend in a mostly sunny London. Saturday was one of those days when you have no idea what to wear, I had both sun glasses and umbrella with me, and a cardigan, and ended needing all of them at some point. Though I did lose my cardigan somewhere when bar hopping in Angel later. Can live with losing the cardigan, but quite sad that I also lost my favourite scarf :( I really need to get better on keeping track of my possessions!

Earlier on Saturday I managed to go to the gym and then went for a quick lunch on Marylebone high street. I went to Natural kitchen, which is a combination of deli and cafe, and ordered from their counter on the ground floor. At Natural kitchen, they have a long counter with loads of different salads, quiches, chicken and salmon to choose from. You can also order from a selection of cakes and drinks at the counter, and then take a seat at one of their tables. Upstairs they have a more formal cafe with table service.

I got teriyaki salmon with three different salads, butternut squash with pine nuts and sage, Greek salad with tomatoes and feta, and mange tout and green beans with Parmesan cheese. The salmon was tasty, and the salads were yummy as well, in particular the one with butternut squash. To drink, I ordered a refreshing kiwi, apple and mint smoothie, and cafe latte. All together for £14, which I though was pretty reasonable.

Smoked salmon mousse canapes

For the Easter celebrations, I did a smoked salmon mousse served on crostini as canapes. To me this is a very Scandinavian dish, with a traditional combination of smoked salmon, dill and lemon. To make it more festive, you can top the canapes with caviar, I used red caviar, which comes from lumpfish (stenbit), and sea roe, which comes from the capelin fish (lodda). In Sweden, you can buy jars of different types of caviar in every supermarket and it is used in a lot of different seafood dishes. The most common type of caviar sold in Sweden though is smoked cod roe, this is sold in tubes (Kalles kaviar) and a popular spread on crisp bread or on boiled eggs. I love Kalles kaviar, I can eat it as it is directly from the tube... It is one of the things I really can get serious cravings for.

In the UK, caviar is not as common, I usually only find the red or black from lumpfish at Waitrose, or I buy it from one of the Swedish shops, Scandinavian kitchen or Totally Swedish. Not everyone I served caviar to has really liked it though, I remember once when I still worked at KCL, when to celebrate finally publishing a paper, I brought cava and canapes with red caviar to work. The only people that really liked it where from Luxembourg, Russia, Scandinavia and France....

Anyhow, caviar is delicious, and if you get a chance you should try it. However it's actually not an ingredient in this salmon mousse, so don't worry if you're not a caviar fiend. This is an incredibly quick and easy festive dish, done in minutes.

Smoked salmon mousse canapes (around 30)
200 g smoked salmon, finely chopped/minced
150 g philadelphia cheese
0.5 dl creme fraiche
1 dl dill, finely chopped
0.5 dl chives, finely chopped
0.5-1 lemon, juice and zest
1 small pinch of chili flakes or cayenne pepper, or a few drops of Tabasco sauce
1 pinch of black pepper
salt

Stir together the smoked salmon, soft cheese, creme fraiche and herbs. If you want a smoother texture and pinker colour, you can mix it using stick blender but I like it a bit coarser

Add chili flakes/cayenne/Tabasco and black pepper, and the zest from half a lemon and a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste, and add more lemon, salt, and pepper if necessary

Serve on for example crostini or crackers, or you could serve this on crisp lettuce leaves as well. Garnish with caviar, dill, chives, slices of smoked salmon or lemon

Imaginative brunch at Providores

Chorizo with sweet potato, egg, garlic labne
and star anise cashew nut praline

Providores at Marylebone high street is by far one of my favourite places to eat brunch, and is considered by many as one the best places for brunch in London. They have a lot of interesting dishes with influences from all of the world, like Turkish eggs with yoghurt and chili butter, but also traditional fry-ups. A word of advice though, if you want to have brunch when they open at 10 am on weekends, you better get there before they open, as it is very popular and fill up quickly.

I last went to Providores a couple of weeks ago, and had a beautiful plate of grilled chorizo with sweet potato and miso hash, a soft boiled egg, garlic labne and star anise cashew nut praline. It sounds a bit weird but worked very well. The star anise praline added an interesting dimension to the dish, giving it a bit of crunch and a sweet yet salty aniseed flavour. The hash though was more like a mash. A very nice mash, but I guess I was looking forward to more of hash or hash brown with a crunchier texture. It was still very tasty, and an excellent start to the weekend together with a nice cup of flat white coffee.

Asparagus, egg, and spinach on toasted cornbread

My company choose a dish with British asparagus, egg, and spinach on toasted cornbread that went down very well, but a dish of sweet potato tortilla with feta and urfa chili yoghurt was a slightly disappointing as it was served cold. As this was quite a chilly morning with a light drizzle, it was not the right dish for the day.

Tortilla with sweet potato and feta

Anyhow, if you want a brunch with imaginative dishes, I recommend a visit to Providores. They also do amazing tapas in the evening, but if you want to go to the tapa room on the ground floor, where the brunch is also served, you might have to queue for awhile unless you arrive early. Upstairs, in their dining room, they also serve tapas and larger dishes, and it is possible to reserve a table there.

Mussels with garlic, chili and bacon

I know it's a bit late to now, in beginning of April, to write about new years resolutions, but better late then never. One of my resolutions this year is to cook more things I rarely or never cook, and to be honest, this may be the only resolution I have any chance of fulfilling...

I feel like a need a bit of a challenge, and hope this will give me a chance to improve as a cook. Among the things I wanted to try is spare ribs, that I did for the first time earlier this year (Korean spare ribs), and other dishes include mussels, squid, duck, quail, pate, crab, and souffle.

First out after the spareribs was mussels. I love mussels, but I hardly ever cook them. Stupid really, because they cook really quickly, are cheap and delicious. I decided to do a version of the classic moules mariniere with an addition of smokey bacon and a little heat from red chili. The result was so tasty that I vowed to cook a lot more mussels during this year!

Mussels with garlic, chili and bacon (serves 2)
1 kg of mussels, cleaned
3 rashers of smoked bacon, chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 red chili, finely chopped
1 dl white wine
0.5 dl single cream
1 handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil

First clean the mussels under running cold water and remove the beards/barnacles. Discard all open mussels unless they close directly when you tap on the shell.

In a large pot, heat up the olive oil and saute garlic, chili and bacon for a couple of minutes on high heat.

Add the mussels, wine and cream, and cover the pot with a lid.

Steam the mussels for 3-4 min. Stir the mussels after 2 min of steaming.

Stir in the parsley. Discard any mussels that are not fully open.

Serve in large bowls with the broth and fresh bread.

Smaklig måltid!

Fantastic dinner at Roti Chai

From front to back: Thoran, hyderbadi haleem, chicken chaat

A couple of weekends ago I went to Roti Chai, an Indian restaurant close to Marble arch, with my sister and brother in law. They are also fellow foodies, and whenever they come over to London I try to find interesting new places for us to eat. I had read a lot of good reviews of Roti Chai, and the restaurant more than delivered. The food was amazing, the service was good, and it was a nice venue with a lively atmosphere, I really recommend a visit!

The restaurant has a bar and seating area on the ground level for their street food inspired dishes, and below that a dining room with a more extensive menu. We went to the dining room, and realized we were quite lucky to manage to book a table that same very day, as the restaurant filled up quickly. On the menu they have small plates of street food inspired dishes, that you can either have as a starter or combine in the manner of tapas, main courses from different Indian regions, and a couple of desserts.

When we went there was on offer as part of the London restaurant fortnight, with a cocktail, starter, main and dessert for £25. We all choose to take the set menu, and as you could choose between four different starters and mains, we all took different ones so that we could share all of them between us. As I had read a lot of positive comments regarding their chicken 65, a common Indian street food dish with spicy chicken, we also ordered that.

Chicken 65, coconut and guava bellini

We started with a coconut and guava bellini which was tasty with a light coconut flavour. The cocktail list was amazing, and I'll definitely will go back just to try more of their cocktails. The starters we ordered, in addition to the chicken 65, was chicken chaat, a tandoori style chicken dish, crispy thoran, a dish with stir fried curried vegetables, and hyderbadi haleem, a stew of pounded wheat and lamb. All dishes were divine! The Chicken 65 carried a serious punch of chili heat, the chicken chaat was light and with zesty citrus kick, the vegetables in the thoran were so light and crispy with a lovely curry flavour, and the hyderbadi haleem, a dish I never had before, had a light cardamon flavour and a creamy, almost cheesy texture. It was a great start to the meal!

Front: Rajma chicken, chicken ishtu, spicy potatoe wedges
Back: Roti and naan, tarka dahl, Keralan fish kary

Next we had ordered three mains, Keralan fish kary, rajma chicken and chicken ishtu. These were served with steamed rice, roti, and we also ordered a garlic naan. In addition, we got two more dishes as compliments from the kitchen, spicy fried potato wedges, and possibly the best yellow lentil tarka dahl I have ever had. Seriously, I could just have had that tarka dahl and I would have been happy. The Keralan fish curry had a light coconut and curry flavour, very tasty. The rajma chicken was a stew of chicken and red kidney beans, flavoured with cardamon and cinnamon, delicious! Again something I haven't had before. The chicken ishtu was a chicken coconut stew, with a light flavour of ginger, curry and anise, also very good. I need to also mention the bread, the cumin flavoured roti and the garlic naan were all very very good, light and not greasy.

Chai creme brulee

After all that, we were all groaning after eating far more food than we should. But how could we not? The food was so yummy! Somehow we still managed to find space for dessert though, a lovely silky chai flavoured creme brulee. It was a great finish to an amazing meal. I will definitely go back, for a full meal or just for a couple of cocktails and small plates of street food inspired dishes.