Chèvre is always nice. This time it was extra nice. We had a Middle Eastern dinner tonight; Occo Bucco with cauliflower couscous. The chèvre desert was exquisite and this is how it is done:
Cut a red onion into half circle slices. Place the onion in a saucepan. Add 1/2 dl water, 2 tbsp of cane sugar, 1/2 tbsp of red wine vinegar and some salt. Boil for five minutes. Add 1 dl of sultana raisins, boil for another minute and leave to cool.
Cut 150 gr chèvre into slices and place them into an ovenproof dish. Warm the cheese in a not very hot oven for a while until it starts to slightly melt. Add the raisin-onion mixture on top and serve with craker bread. To Swedish people I recommend “Vilmas sesame & vallmo knäckebröd”.
Recipe derived from "Allt om mat", julspecial 2011
An easy to make, and in our house very popular dinner, is the chicken baguette meal. We slice chicken in thin slices and spice the slices generously with American barbecue spice. The chicken is left to absorb the spices for a bit and then grilled in the grill pan. Everyone makes their own sandwiches at the table and puts whatever he or she likes in them. These are the ingredients on offer:
- lettuce or spinach
- red onion
- peppers
- tomatoes
- homemade guacamole
- mayonaise
- sour cream
- french mustard
- bacon
This recipe for green thai curry is derived from Systembolagets recipe site. The dish is easy to make and fantastically tasty.
This is how it is done:
Cut 600 grams of chicken into cubes. Cut four carrots into thin slices and half a leek into slanted slices. Finely chop one green chili, 50 grams of ginger and one garlic clove. Fry all but the chicken in some oil on high heat. Crush two strands of lemongrass. Add lemongrass, three lime leaves, two teaspoons of fish sauce and three teaspoons of green curry paste. Fry for another minute. Add two cans of coconut milk (original recipe says one but we added two) and a deciliter of water. Add salt and leave to simmer for five minutes. Fry the chicken for a couple of minutes on high heat. Add to the curry and leave to simmer for another five minutes. Take the lemongrass out.
Serve with fresh lime, fresh coriander and jasmin rice.
The original recipe.
After having decided to make fish tacos for dinner I asked my social network for recipe ideas. Many arrived, and in the end I settled for this one from my American Twitter friend Octover. It was nice, easy to make and thanks to lime and cilantro, very fresh tasting. This is how it was done:
For a creamy sauce, firstly combine the following ingredients:
2/3 dl cup thinly sliced green onions
2/3 dl cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 tablespoons of mayonnaise
3 tablespoons of sour cream
1 teaspoon grated lime rind
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, minced
In another bowl mix the following ingredients to make a spice mixture for the fish:
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
Sprinkle the spice mixture onto both sides of the fish. I used 750 grams of cod fillets. Place fish on oiled baking tray and bake at 225 degrees for about 9 minutes or until fish easily flakes. When fish is done place in a bowl and break into pieces.
Heat the tortillas (we used deep fried corn tortillas) and add fish, sauce and shredded cabbage. Enjoy!
Recipe used, although slightly changed.
My surprise dinner after having been away in Kraków for five days was red Thai chicken curry and Kalli made the curry paste himself.
This is how the paste is made:
Blend the following: 3 shallots, 3 garlic cloves, one walnut sized piece of ginger peeled and chopped, one lime zested and juiced, 1 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground black pepper, one lemon grass stalk roughly chopped.
Fry the paste in a bit of oil pour in one can of coconut milk. Add meat and desired vegetables. Cook for about ten minutes.
Serve with rice. The dish was delicious and the smell in the kitchen was fantastic while the curry being cooked.
This dinner turned out a very pleasant surprise. While cooking it I was quite skeptical, but in all its simplicity it turned out wonderful.
This is how you do it:
Beat a couple of egg whites on a plate adding salt and pepper. Turn as many chicken fillets in the egg white as you want to serve, and turn them thereafter in finely grated Parmesan cheese. In the mean time, boil some new potatoes and heat some frozen peas. Cook the chicken in a grill pan coated with tin foil. We ended up frying it in oil for the last few minutes. When the potatoes and peas are done, mix them with fresh spinach leaves. Make a dressing out of white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and mix this in with the vegetables. All is now ready to be served.
This is where the original recipe is derived from.
An old weekend favorite. Of course the very best mussels are to be had at Akkurat on Söder, but we try to make do with our own once in a while. We buy plenty of mussels, most of the time more than we manage to finish. This time we got about 1,6 kg for two people. Half would have been enough.
First thing to do is to clean the mussels. Empty them into the sink, grab a steel wool cleaner and start scraping. Any opened mussel, which does not close, should be thrown away.
Then get the ingredients ready: three finely cut shallots, four cloves of garlic, one chicken stock cube, two bay leaves and some chopped parsley, three dl of white wine (dry but fruity – not oaked) and four dl of cream.
Start off by frying the mussels in a bit of olive oil for a short time. Add the rest of the ingredients, put the lid on and cook for about 5-7 minutes. Any mussel not having opened should be thrown away.
Serve with, bread, chips and a dip sauce.
The boys didn’t fancy mussels so we made them some breaded fish to go with the chips – fish and chips style. We got a couple of fresh cod fillets and
1) Coated them in flour
2) Then coated them in egg
3) And finally coated them in bread crumbs
Then we fried the fillets on medium heat and served them with ketchup, lemon and fries.
This is a really good pizza dough recipe. We make pizzas quite often and everyone designs his or her own pizza from an array of toppings.
This is how the dough is made:
Mix the following
25 g yeast ( I use dry yeast)
2 ½ dl lukewarm water
2 tbsp oil
½ tsp salt
ca 7 dl wheat flour
Leave to rise for a minimum of 30 minutes. Then flatten on baking board with a rolling pin before the toppings are added. We always double the dough recipe to either make extra pizzas to use for packed lunches or to make some rolls for next day’s breakfast.
My vegetarian pizza before it hits the oven:
Kalli’s egg, salami and green chilli pizza:
In looking for of a nice dish to welcome Kalli home from his two day cruise to Åland with, I decided on this räkrisotto. I found the recipe in “Allt om mat” nr 18/2010.
This is how it’s done:
Peel 500 grams of prawns, finely chop 3 shallots and 2 cloves of garlic, julienne 3 carrots, chop 1 red chilli into fine pieces.
Fry onion and garlic in oil for 3 minutes. Add chilli and 3 dl of arborio rice. Fry for another minute.
Mix 4 dl of dry white wine and 8 dl of prawn fond. Add about a third of this to the rice and vegetable mix. Now let it boil slowly. Add liquid slowly by slowly as it absorbs into the rice, and stir regularly.
Add the carrots after about 10 minutes. Leave to cook for another 15-20 minutes. it is important to stir regularly.
Rinse 1 lemon. Grate some of the peel and squeeze the juice out.
Add prawns and 3 dl of grated parmesan to the risotto. Add lemon rind, lemon juice and salt to taste. (Be careful not to add too much rind as it gives a bitter taste)
In the original recipe chives were added to the risotto and it was garnished with horse radish flakes. This I did not try but I am sure it would have added a nice touch.
A delicious dinner! We picked up some very nice beef yesterday and on deciding what to make from it we settled on goulash soup. There is an array of goulash recipes on the net but one we thought seemed really nice we found on Jamie Olivers homepage. To go with the soup we made some Hungarian farmers bread. It turned out very nice and moist; probably thanks to the use of pressed potatoes.
This is how the stew was made: Saute 500 grams of onion, 4 cloves of garlic and 2 green peppers diced. Add and brown 1 kg of beef diced in small cubes. When cooked, add 2 tbsp of paprika and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add 4 dl of beefstock and let the liquid reduce to half. Add some marjoram, 2 tbsp of caraway seeds, 2 good splashes of vinegar, 4 tomatoes cut into squares and 2 tbsp of the tomato purée. Then add 2,6 liters of beef stock and simmer until the meat and vegetables are tender, about 1½–2 hours. Add the potatoes, plus any remaining stock and a little water if it’s looking too dry, and simmer until the potatoes are cooked.
The bread: Mix 25 grams of yeast with 2,5 dl of lukewarm water and 2 tbsp of oil. Grate 2 cooked potatoes and add into the liquid. After that add a tsp of salt and 2,5 dl of whole wheat flour and 4 dl of white flour. Mix and leave to raise for 40 minutes. Then kneed and form into a round bread. Leave for 30 minutes and then bake for 30 minutes in a 200˚ oven.
