Daring Cooks November: 寿司

...or sushi, as it's usually transcribed. Contrary to what many people believe, sushi is not about raw fish. No, the essence of sushi is the rice, dressed with rice vinegar.

Our hosts this month was Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The bite me kitchen. I must give a special thanks to them: they have spent a lot of time in the forums answering questions, giving advice and encouragement.

The challenge came in four parts:

1. Making perfect sushi rice, and then using it to make:
2. Dragon sushi roll – an avocado covered inside-out rice roll with a tasty surprise filling
3. A decorative spiral roll
4. Nigiri - the litte "pillows" of rice with various toppings

Spiral roll spread out, Jenny adding the final touch: roe.

As I said above, sushi does not have to be about fish. The private Daring Cooks forum, where members can showcase their creations, was filled with people taking the most creative and mouth-watering approaches to sushi. As we love fish and seafood, we decided to go down that more traditional route, but with a regional twist to it.

Since we intended to share the outcome between more than just our four eyes (apparently legend has it that the Japanese eat with their eyes, the Koreans with their stomachs and Chinese with their noses), we made way more than what the challenge called for, and enlisted a cousin of Markus and her boyfriend to help with the eating part. We ended up making:

1. Two dragon rolls (one dragon and one caterpillar) filled with smoked eel and “pressgurka” (a Swedish “fresh pickle” cucumber, recipe below).
2. Two spiral rolls with salmon, shrimp, roe, cucumber, avocado and mango.
3. One California roll (salmon, avocado and cucumber).
   
4. One Japanese coin roll with salmon and pressgurka (we used the pictures on this page to guide us).
5. Plenty of Nigiri with avocado, salmon and smoked shrimp.
   

Trilobite, the ancestor of dragon roll.

Making sushi is something we have wanted to try for several years now, but never found the time to (alright, we had time, but there's something to be said for a good kick in the right direction as well, so thanks again to Audax and Rose for that kick!). We really had a good time making the sushi (apart from all the rice washing and straining, which might be necessary, but no fun waiting for), and will definitely be making it again (otherwise we end up spending a fortune to let someone else have all the fun!). 'Nuf writing, picture time!


Dragon roll, took Markus an hour to carve, an hour I tell you! (An hour of good fun that is.)


Not as scary as the dragon, but equally delicious: the caterpillar roll.


Japanese coin rolls, apparently these look like ancient Japanese currency. Spiral rolls in the background.


Day-after-lunch. We were defeated by the sheer amount of deliciousness the day before, so two rolls made it to our lunch table: one spiral roll and one California roll, along with pressgurka (which works surprisingly well with sushi), gari and wasabi.


Close up on the spiral roll.

Pressgurka
Pressgurka is normally made in thin slices, but thin sticks works better when filling sushi so that's what we used. This is usually served with fish, but also works with steaks and such. We were served something very similar to this, minus the parsley, at a Korean restaurant in Hong Kong. Maybe that's why so many Swedes seem to like East Asian food – the sour, tangy and sweet flavors are very similar in these two kitchens.
Press- is a prefix from the word pressa which means “to press”. It's because the cucumber is pressed down using something heavy before the liquid is poured over the cucumber. Gurka is cucumber. That concludes today's Swedish lesson!

1 cucumber, cut in thin slices for traditional pressgurka, or in thin sticks for use in sushi. If making sticks, remove the seeds from the cucumber before using.
3/4 tsp table salt
1 dl water
2 tbsp vinegar (acetum)
2-3 tbsp sugar
2-3 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Place the cucumber slices or sticks in a suitable bowl. Sprinkle the salt on top and mix around a little bit. Place a plate or something similar on top, the plate should touch the cucumber. Put something heavy on top of the plate, I usually take my mortar and pestle. The weight will press down on the cucumber (hence the name) and make it release liquid. Let it stand with the weight on for about half an hour. In the meantime, mix water, vinegar (acetum) and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Add the parsley. Pour the mixture on top of the cucumber and mix around a bit. Let it rest for at least half an hour before eating. Best eaten fresh, but it will keep in the fridge for 2–3 days.

The other recipes can be found at the Daring Kitchen – Command HQ of this Blogosphere quadrant.

Fine print a.k.a. blog checking line
The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

Rice pudding

Autumn is approaching quickly now. We're still getting some nice and sunny days, but the air is getting crispier and the days shorter. Summer in Sweden means short nights - we're not getting midnight sun where we live, but around Midsummer there's only a couple of hours of darkness. As autumn approaches I always get surprised when the sun is starting to set before 10pm. But I know this is only the beginning - before long, it will be dark by four in the afternoon.

This desert is warm, sweet and comforting, and the smell and taste of coconut always brings me back to a faraway beach. Perfect for a chilly, dark autumn evening then.



Coconut rice pudding

2 servings

2 dl unsweetened coconut milk
3/4 dl milk
25 g brown sugar
1/5 vanilla pod
55 g glutinous (sticky) rice

Pour the coconut milk and milk in a sauce pan. Split open the vanilla pod, scrape out the seeds an put them in the pan. Throw in the scraped-out pod as well - it still has a lot of flavor in it. Add the sugar and the rice. Bring it to a slow simmer over very low heat. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring very frequently. Serve immediately.

Risotto Marinara

The original recipe for this risotto comes from Swedish chef Marcus Samuelsson who runs the restaurant Aquavit with branches in New York and Tokyo. In its original form, it is a tomato and crab risotto which is served together with pan fried zander and shiitake and truffle sauce. I made the whole dish a few years ago and it was delicious. Tomato, crab, tarragon, coconut milk, zander, truffle and shiitake sounds like a huge crash of conflicting flavors, but they work remarkably well together. When I make it again I will make sure to post the recipe. Swedish readers can find the recipe in Allt Om Vin 1/2007, p. 84. The version I made tonight is very tweaked, but the basic idea is the same.

This risotto is a bit more labor intensive than others, but it's well worth the extra effort. The addition of whipped cream, egg yolks and cheese may seem unnecessary, but believe me, it's not. Taste the risotto before adding it - it will still taste nice, but after that final touch the risotto gets a much more rounded and sophisticated flavor. It goes from "good" to "oh yum". If you happen to have some black truffle sea salt in your kitchen, like we do after my trip to Gotland, it is delicious to sprinkle the risotto with a few grains.



Risotto Marinara

4 servings

3 tbsp cream
3 3/4 dl tomato juice
1 3/4 dl water
1 3/4 dl unsweetened coconut milk
1 tbsp concentrated vegetable stock
2 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot
1 garlic clove
1 tsp dried tarragon
2 dl arborio rice
3 tbsp dry white wine
2 egg yolks
3/4 tbsp mushroom soy
1 tbsp finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese
200 g mixed seafood (we used a mix with squid, octopus, blue mussels, clams, and shrimp)

Whip the cream into soft peaks. Cover and put it in the fridge.
Mix tomato juice, water, coconut milk and concentrated vegetable stock in a pot. Bring to a simmer, and then leave it on very low heat. It should be barely simmering.
Peel and finely chop the shallot and garlic.
Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the onion, garlic and tarragon and sauté over medium heat until the onion is soft.
Add the rice and stir until all the grains are glazed with oil. Add the wine and stir until it has evaporated.
Stir in about one deciliter of the tomato liquid, stir, lower the heat and let it simmer slowly until almost all the liquid is absorbed. Then add an other deciliter of liquid, wait until it has absorbed and keep going until you have added all the liquid deciliter by deciliter. Stir occasionally. When it's done, he risotto is creamy and the rice slightly al dente. If you run out of liquid before the risotto is done, you can add some simmering water. Add the seafood mix together with the last tomato liquid. Let the risotto simmer slowly for about five minutes.
Get the whipped cream from the fridge and stir in egg yolks, soy and cheese. Remove the risotto from the heat and stir in the cream mixture.
Serve immediately.

Daring Cooks August: Viva España!

After last month's daring excursion into the field of molecular gastronomy, the Daring Cooks went back to basics this month with a rustic Spanish dish: Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes by José Andrés. Our host is Olga from Las Cosas de Olga and Olga's Recipes.

José Andrés is one of the most important Spanish chefs at the moment, and has trained under Ferran Andria at El Bulli, named the world's best restaurant. He now lives in Washington DC where he owns several restaurants. The recipe Olga chose for us comes from his US TV show Made in Spain. You can watch André make the dish here.

We made a few changes to the recipe. We couldn't find cuttlefish, so we exchanged that for a frozen seafood mix which had squid, octopus, blue mussels, clams, and shrimp. We didn't have the patience for boiling and cleaning fresh artichokes, so we got canned artichoke hearts. Also, no Spanish rice to be found in Uppsala, so we used Italian arborio rice. It's commonly used in risotto and is very good at soaking up flavors, so it was a good substitute. We halved the recipe, except for the sofregit, which will be used in some future concoction.

The optional part of the challenge was allioli, which I guess is a Spanish version of aioli. We were given two recipes, a traditional one with only garlic, olive oil, salt and lemon juice, and a modern one which also has an egg and uses a different method. We made the traditional recipe, using a mortar and pestle to bash the garlic and then slowly mushing in the oil, drop by drop- it's very cool that you can get something akin to mayonnaise from bashed garlic and olive oil. The allioli was very garlic-y! We are playing our yearly croquet championship with a group of friends tomorrow, and joked that we will only have to breathe on the balls and they will roll off! I liked the allioli and nearly finished the spoonful I put on my plate, but putting only a tiny amount of allioli on each bite. Markus found it way too sharp and didn't finish it.

The dish was easy to make, and we will definitely be making some variation of this in the future - I can see a lot of creativity in terms of ingredients: fish and seafood, chicken, vegetarian or Spanish sausage. We sometimes make paella, normally with a combination of seafood, chicken and chorizo, and we will probably adopt this method of cooking for future paella experiments. To make the vegetables separately as a sofregit was really nice - the flavor was better and the dish didn't get watery from the tomatoes. It was very tasty, and since we for some reason made this at the very last minute (just like last month's Daring Baker's challenge) we were very glad that it was easy and straightforward to make. Thank you Olga for a great challenge!

Wanna see the other Daring Cooks creations (or maybe become a Daring Cook or Baker yourself?!)? Go to the Daring Kitchen and the recipe archive! Our lovely host Olga blogs about the challenge in English and in Spanish.


Dinner is ready! Don't you just love our kitteh table table runner?!

Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes (Arroz marinero con setas, sepia y alcachofas)

4 servings

4 Artichokes (you can use jarred or freezed if fresh are not available)
12 Mushrooms (button or Portobello)
1 or 2 Bay leaves (optional but highly recommended)
1 glass of white wine
2 Cuttlefish (you can use freezed cuttlefish or squid if you don’t find it fresh)
“Sofregit” (see recipe below)
300 gr (2 cups) Short grain rice (Spanish types Calasparra or Montsant are preferred, but you can choose any other short grain. This kind of rice absorbs flavor very well) – about 75 gr per person ( ½ cup per person) Please read this for more info on suitable rices.
Water or Fish Stock (use 1 ½ cup of liquid per ½ cup of rice)
Saffron threads (if you can’t find it or afford to buy it, you can substitute it for turmeric or yellow coloring powder)


Cut the cuttlefish in little strips.
Add 1 or 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and put the cuttlefish in the pan.
If you use fresh artichokes, clean them as shown in the video in tip #7. Cut artichokes in eights.
Clean the mushrooms and cut them in fourths.
Add a bay leaf to the cuttlefish and add also the artichokes and the mushrooms.
Sauté until we get a golden color in the artichokes.
Put a touch of white wine so all the solids in the bottom of the get mixed, getting a more flavorful dish.
Add a couple or three tablespoons of sofregit and mix to make sure everything gets impregnated with the sofregit.
Add all the liquid and bring it to boil.
Add all the rice. Let boil for about 5 minutes in heavy heat.
Add some saffron thread to enrich the dish with its flavor and color. Stir a little bit so the rice and the other ingredients get the entire flavor. If you’re using turmeric or yellow coloring, use only 1/4 teaspoon.
Turn to low heat and boil for another 8 minutes (or until rice is a little softer than “al dente”)
Put the pan away from heat and let the rice stand a couple of minutes.
Serve with allioli (see below).


Tentacled goodness!

Sofregit

2 tablespoons of olive oil
5 big red ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped (optional)
4 or 5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup of button or Portobello mushrooms, chopped (optional)
1 Bay leaf
Salt
Touch of ground cumin
Touch of dried oregano

Put all the ingredients together in a frying pan and sauté slowly until all vegetables are soft.
Taste and salt if necessary (maybe it’s not!)

Allioli - traditional recipe

4 garlic cloves, peeled
Pinch of salt
Fresh lemon juice (some drops)
Extra-virgin olive oil (Spanish preferred but not essential)

Place the garlic in a mortar along with the salt.
Using a pestle, smash the garlic cloves to a smooth paste. (The salt stops the garlic from slipping at the bottom of the mortar as you pound it down.)
Add the lemon juice to the garlic.
Drop by drop; pour the olive oil into the mortar slowly as you continue to crush the paste with your pestle.
Keep turning your pestle in a slow, continuous circular motion in the mortar. The drip needs to be slow and steady. Make sure the paste soaks up the olive oil as you go.
Keep adding the oil, drop by drop, until you have the consistency of a very thick mayonnaise. If your allioli gets too dense, add water to thin it out. This takes time—around 20 minutes of slow motion around the mortar—to create a dense, rich sauce.

José on the allioli recipe:

It's hard to think that, when you start crushing the garlic, it will ever turn into something as dense and smooth as allioli. But don't give up. It's worth the extra time and effort to see the oil and garlic come together before your eyes. Just make sure you're adding the olive oil slowly, drop by drop. Keep moving the pestle around the mortar in a circular motion and keep dreaming of the thick, creamy sauce at the end of it all.

---

Previously completed challenges:
July 2009: Skate, traditional flavors powdered
June 2009: Chinese dumplings (part one and two)
May 2009: Zuni's Ricotta Gnocchi

Paper Chef 43: Trifle of caramelized couscous and baked peaches

After missing last month's challenge, the deer eaters are back in the Paper Chef business! In July it was Sijeleng of Javaholic who did the best cook-up of the ingredients chicken, almonds, corn and fish sauce, and now got to pick the ingredients for Paper Chef #43: couscous, fresh chilies, peaches and rosemary.

Lovely picks! We decided to go sweet this month, and make a desert couscous dish. This took on many transformations in our brain before we settled on this version. First, the idea was to just make sweet couscous (using fruit juice instead of water as liquid for the couscous) to be served with peaches poached with rosemary, chili and maybe some vanilla. But the peaches were too hard for poaching and there was no suitable poaching liquid in the house (simple suryp = too boring), so I decided to bake them instead, and use the chili and rosemary in a honey glaze.

While pondering the creation over loads of laundry, I thought that it could need some sort of added tang and freshness to balance the heat and sweetness. My mind went to plain Turkish yoghurt, and the idea of a trifle was born. A normal trifle has sponge cake, custard, whipped cream and fruit, this one would have sweet couscous, yoghurt and baked peaches - hey, we've taken liberties with falafel before, so why not with trifle now?

Markus came up with the quite brilliant idea of caramelizing the couscous in order to make it less grainy and more crunchy. The end result turned out more yummy than we had hoped for. The caramelized couscous especially was a big hit that I can see us making again. The crunchy, caramel flavored couscous, the smooth and creamy yoghurt and the soft, honey-sweet peaches, still warm from the oven, with the punch of the hot chili and the fresh forest flavor of rosemary. Delicious!



Trifle of Caramelized Couscous &
Baked Peaches with Chili-Rosemary Honey Glaze

For the caramelized couscous:
1 dl peach-raspberry juice*
1 dl couscous
1 tbsp butter
1 dl brown sugar

Bring the juice to a boil. Stir in the couscous grains, cover with a lid and remove from heat. Let it stand until the liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes. You can do this part well in advance. For the caramelization, heat up a frying pan, add the butter and let it melt. Add the sugar and give it a good stir. It won't melt like white sugar does (and won't splatter either), you will get more of a soft brown butter mixture. There might be some lumps, but that's no biggie. Add the couscous and stir constantly for a minute or two. Watch carefully so it doesn't burn. Spread the couscous out on a plate (this way it will get more crunchy) and set aside until you are ready to serve.

*The only decent peachy juice the store had was a peach and raspberry blend. If you have plain peach juice, that's what you want to use.

For the baked peaches:
2 peaches
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
½ tsp fresh red chili, finely chopped
2 tbsp honey

Halve the peaches and remove the pits. Place them in an oven proof dish, and top each peach half with a a quarter of a teaspoon of butter. Bake in a 225°C oven for about 15 minutes, or until the peaches are going soft. In the meantime, mix the honey with the chopped fresh chili and rosemary. Drizzle the honey over the peaches, and bake for five more minutes.

To assemble:
6 tbsp plain thick Turkish yoghurt

You can get two big deserts out of this (one peach/person) or four smaller ones. Serve in individual transparent bowls or glasses - you want to be able to see the different layers. Layer the trifle starting with couscous in the bottom, then yoghurt and top with a peach half. Repeat if you're making two big deserts. Garnish with a small sprig of rosemary.



Note: the chili made this quite hot, so another idea would be to infuse the honey with a whole piece of chili and a whole rosemary sprig that you fish out before pouring it over the peaches.

Pasta Express

An easy and tasty pasta dish that let's you have dinner on the table in 15 minutes. The same ingredients, minus the pasta, also makes a mighty good sandwich. I guess you can make cold pasta salad out of this too, but then you probably want to use shorter pasta, like fusili or penne. I don't really like cold pasta so I've never tried it.



Pasta Express

Serves 2

2 portions fresh tagliatelle
A handful of arugula (rocket)
A couple of cherry tomatoes
2 avocados
75 g chévre (goat cheese)
½ dl pine nuts
Olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Roast the pine nuts in a hot, dry skillet. Watch closely so you don't burn them! Quarter the cherry tomatoes (or halve them if they are really small). Dice the avocado and the cheese.
Boil the pasta according to the directions on the package. Drain it and toss in some olive oil. Add the veggies and cheese, season with black pepper and mix everything around. Top with the pine nuts before serving. Done!

Paper Chef 39: Salmon and bulgur falafel with artichokes and blackberry butter

This is our first time ever participating in the food blog event called Paper Chef! The rules are simple: you are given four ingredients, and out of those you have to create something delicious. Three ingredients are randomly chosen from a suggested ingredient list, and the fourth is picked by last month's winner. In addition to picking the ingredients, last month's winner also gets to be the judge of this month's Paper Chef. Sounds cool, huh?! For all the details, and to read up on past Paper Chef challenges, go to the Paper Chef blog.

I have looked at some past months' ingredient picks, and compared to some of them - fig, mint, anchovy, and polenta or dried chili pepper, barley, vanilla pod and beef, this month looked very easy to me! Last month's winner Adrienne of Hungry Bruno picked artichokes, blackberries, bulgur (bulgar) and salmon (the first three being random and the salmon being her pick).

It didn't take us long to figure out what to do with these four ingredients. Our recipe isn't the healthiest (it's deep fried stuff with a butter dipping sauce, people...!), but if we may say so ourselves it turned out really well. Yeah, we know it's not real falafel, but we had to call it something and it sounds better than "salmon balls", right?!

It has been great fun doing the Paper Chef challenge for the first time and I hope that we will participate often in the future!



Salmon and bulgur falafel with artichokes and blackberry butter

Makes about 15 "falafels"

For the salmon and bulgur falafel:
2 dl water
Pinch of salt
1 dl bulgur
500 g salmon
1 egg
Pinch of salt
Pinch of black pepper

For deep frying:
Flour
Eggs
Breadcrumbs
Neutral cooking oil

For the blackberry butter:
4 dl frozen blackberries
½ dl water
1 tbsp sugar
100 g butter

For the artichokes:
Artichokes (one per person)
Salt
Water for boiling

Making it all:

1. Bring the salted water for the bulgur to a boil. Add the bulgur, lower the heat and cook for approximately 8 minutes. Set aside.
2. Clean and dice the salmon. Put it in a food processor and mix using the pulse button until it's coarsely chopped. Mix salmon, bulgur and egg in a bowl, season with salt and pepper and put it in the fridge.
3. Bring salted water to a boil in a pot big enough for the artichokes. Boil for 40-50 minutes depending on size. Strain and rinse immediately with cold water. Set aside for later.
   
4. Bring the blackberries, water and sugar to a boil. Let it reduce for 5-10 minutes. Pass it through a strainer and set the puré aside for later.
   
5. Melt the butter and put it aside.
6. Prepare three plates, one with flour, one with lighly whisked egg and one with breadcrumbs. Keep these ingredients at hand because you will probably run out before having done all the salmon falafels.
   
7. Heat the oil to 190°C.
   
8. Get the salmon-bulgar mix out of the fridge and roll it into meatball sized balls. Roll them first in flour, then in egg and last in breadcrumbs. Deep fry a couple at the time until they are golden brown.
   
9. Clarify the butter. Put the blackberry puré in a bowl and layer the butter on top. This is purely for show - when you dip it will mix together anyway, but it looks nice!
10. Serve the salmon-bulgur falafel and artichokes as finger food with the blackberry butter as dipping sauce.

The Daring Bakers go to Italy...and cooks!

March held a lot of excitement for the Daring Bakers. First of all, our beautiful new website was launched. Make sure to go check it out, because it is very nice! And then, there was the challenge....

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I had to read that a couple of times before getting that yes, we were actually making lasagne. Lasagne as in pasta with ragu and cheese and bechamel. No chocolate, no buttercream, no folding in of stiffly whipped egg whites. Nope, this time we were to make our own pasta dough. That's an interesting challenge, people! Thanks Mary, Melinda and Enza for your creativity and for surprising us with this!

Oh, before I continue, I should tell you that all the recipes can be found on the websites of our lovely hosts. They are long, so I will not repost them here.

Day 1: Buying new stuff
The Daring Bakers will never force you to go out and buy fancy new kitchen equipment in order to complete the challenges. We were thus given instructions on how to hand roll pasta dough, into lasagne sheets the thickness of a paper. I read the instructions, and told Markus that we probably would want to buy that pasta machine that we'd been talking about on and off for years. Yes, handrolling would have been even more of a challenge. But see, without a pasta machine we would probably never have made pasta ourselves again after this challenge. Now that we have a pasta machine, we've started talking about all the wonderful pasta concoctions we want to create (gorgonzola and walnut ravioli, anyone?). We also needed a new dish for the lasagne. A large rectangular stoneware dish is something we have been missing in our kitchen for a long time (it's very hard to make lasagne in an oval shaped dish since pasta sheets are, well, not oval), so I went and bought us a very pretty Le Creuset dish. See, we're helping the economy! (Not ours, though.)

Day 2: Making the Ragu alla Contadina (Country style ragu)
According to the challenge we could use our own favourite meat ragu recipe (or a vegetarian one for those with such proclivities). We decided to use the given recipe for a Ragu alla Contadina and that was a good decision.
The recipe asked us to buy whole meat and grind it ourselves. We don't own a meat grinder (yet) and one thing with foreign recipes is that cuts of meat are hard to translate. I think different countries use partly different cuts, so when faced with "boneless veal shoulder or round" and "beef skirt steak", I don't really know what to ask for in Swedish in the grocery store. The solution was to buy ready-ground veal and beef. There was no ground pork though, so we got a slice of pork loin and ground it in the food processor. I don't think that was ideal cause it ended up chunky rather than ground, but once it got cooking it was okay.
So, here's a picture of the mise en place for the ragu. The carrot kind of escaped under a plate.



Yup, that's a bottle of store-bought stock between the wine and the glass of milk. The recipe called for chicken or beef stock, preferably home-made. We used store-bought game stock. I've never made this in another way so I can't compare, but we thought it worked with its meaty, earthy flavour. Oh, and that glass of milk is not 100% milk since we ran out when we had almost poured two cups, so we had to top it off with 2-3 tablespoons of cream. I can't imagine that had any negative impact on the flavour...
Making the ragu was very straight-forward and posed no problems. It took a bit of time (most of it consisting of letting it bubble slowly on the stove and stirring once in a while) but it was well worth it - it was absolutely delicious! The meat had an almost melt-in-your-mouth consistency and we had to stop ourselves from "tasting" it over and over again ("are you sure it doesn't need more pepper? Let's have another taste."). But in to the fridge it went and we went on to making the pasta...

Day 2, later: The big challenge - making the Pasta Verde dough
I think I read the instructions for this three times before starting. Making a well out of flour, putting the eggs and spinach in the middle, stir that together and then gradually incorporate more and more flour from the sides of the well. We cut down on the spinach (the recipe called for 300 g, we used maybe 100 g) but I still found it very hard to do as the instructions said because the spinach kept creeping away and ending up outside the flour well. Here's an action shot (where you also can see the new pasta machine in the background, and the pretty snow-covered trees outside our kitchen windows):



There seemed to be an awful lot of flour, and when the dough had reached a stage where it was "satiny, smooth and very elastic", there was quite a bit left:



We decided to leave that flour out, because our dough was pretty and smooth green ball:



We wrapped the dough in plastic and let it rest in room temperature. After an hour or so, we noticed that it wasn't ball shaped anymore, but had started to float out and go all soft on us. D'oh! We decided to wing it and add more flour rather than to start from scratch, and after more kneading and slightly nervous resting we did a small test run through the pasta machine and - success! I guess we should have trusted the recipe and used all the flour to begin with, huh? Ah, hindsight, always so lovely... Rather than rolling out all the dough and drying it, we put it in the fridge to be rolled out the day after - the day of lasagna-making!

Day 3: Making the lasagna, and enjoying it with a good wine and a good friend.
We heated the ragu over low temperature on the stove, and made the bechamel sauce. We did some tinkering with the measurements for the bechamel (4 tablespoons of flour and 4 tablespoons of butter can't both be weighing 60 grams!) but other than that, there were no problems. Then came the moment of truth: making the pasta sheets! The dough seemed to have held up nicely in the fridge and still had the right feel to it. Markus turned the handle of the pasta machine around and around again, and our poor old IKEA kitchen table which was unsteady to begin with became even more squeaky.



The pasta sheets came out beautiful and the dough was a breeze to work with. We skipped the step of pre-boiling the pasta since we doubted that the very thin sheets would survive boiling without breaking apart and/or sticking together. Instead, we went straight to assembly, layering pasta, a thin spread of bechamel, then a thin spread of ragu and over that a generous sprinkling of parmesan cheese. We got six layers of pasta in our lasagne, then we were out of both pasta, ragu and bechamel - perfect!
We had invited a friend over for dinner, and the lasagne was a success. We found that instead of tasting like pasta baked with meat and cheese, like lasagne usually does, this one had all the components melting together into a wonderful, flavourful unity. We ate the whole thing (to Markus dismay, who wanted leftovers for his lunch box) and combined with a couple of bottles of Chianti and many laughs, it made for a wonderful evening.

Today's lunch special

Since I work from home and don't have any co-workers to remind me that it's lunch break time, I sometimes forgot to eat during the day. Not a good thing, I know. But I try to get better, and today I was starving by lunch time so it was impossible to forget to eat. I decided to have a lunch date with my new friend kamut again. I won't give an actual recipe for this since it so easy to make, but here's how I went about it.



I sliced 2 small chorizo sausages (total weight about 100 grams) and put them in an oven-proof dish. In that same dish I also threw 2 quartered tomatoes, 1 small red onion in cloves, and about 1 deciliter of large white beans. I drizzled some olive oil on top, but just a little cause I knew that the sausage was going to go all juicy in the oven, and seasoned with a bit of salt and some dried rosemary. I put the whole deal in the oven at 175 degress C for about 25 minutes. When about 10 minutes remained on the stuff in the oven, I boiled one portion of kamut. When everything was done I mixed the kamut with the sausage-veggie goodness and presto: lunch!

Kamut, a new discovery

Last week we got red beets in our organic fruit and veggie box. I love beets, Markus not so much, so I get them all by myself! Today I boiled them and made a lunch salad with a stellar flavour combo: red beets, chèvre and honey. I wanted something more substantial in the salad as well, and while browsing the rice and pasta section of our small neighborhood grocery store (overpriced and with a lot of ready-made junk - we live in a student area) I found organic kamut. I had never tried that before and was pleasantly surprised. The nutty flavour worked really well with the other ingredients (speaking of nutty: pine nuts would also be great in this salad) and the texture was pleasant - a bit chewy but not stuck-in-your-teeth grainy. A nice alternative to bulgur, quinoa or couscous. I used just-boiled beets and kamut in my salad, so it was partly warm (I think warm salads feel more filling for some reason), but it would work with cold ingredients as well. I could see a big bowl of this on a buffet table, served with thinly sliced herb-marinated roasted lamb. Mmmmmm.........



Kamut salad with red beets and chevre

1 quite big lunch portion

1 portion of kamut
3 small red beets, boiled
50 g chèvre (goat cheese)
1 handful fresh baby spinach
Honey
Olive oil

Boil the kamut as directed on the package. Slice the beets thinly. Mix kamut, beets and spinach, sprinkle the chevre on top and drizzle a little olive oil and honey over the salad.

Hot Quinoa

This is my kind of food: chop'n'fry! You basically just chop up things and add them to a hot frying pan as you go along. At the end you mix in something like quinoa, bulgur or couscous, and your done! Make sure you get something spicy and something sweet in there, and you don't have to worry too much about the other flavors.

So, today I am having (as I'm typing actually) a hot quinoa based chop'n'fry. For this particular one you need:
1 Onion
1 Eggplant (I had a rather small one)
~100g Chorizo (spicy)
1 Bell Pepper (I used a small yellow one)
8 dried Apricots
4 servings of Quinoa
Salt
butter/oil (or both) to fry in

Start by setting the quinoa cooking (follow the instructions on your particular package) and heat a large frying pan with butter. Now, the order in which you chop the foods will be the order in which they land in the pan, so it's important to do this right! Start with the onion and then the eggplant—chop up and toss in the pan. Make sure there's enough fat in the pan, the eggplant can suck up quite a lot. Next the chorizo, which contains some fat that will mix nicely in with the rest. Add the bell pepper which will also add some juices, keeping the pan from drying up. Last but not least chop'n'toss the dried apricots, which will suck up any excess moist. Make sure you stir the content of the pan every now and then during the above procedure. When the quinoa is done (mine took ~15 minutes, which is just about right), toss it into the pan with the rest. Let them all have some bonding time, and introduce them to whatever amount of salt you see fit. Enjoy!

The eggplant get a really mild, sweet taste and a soft and moist feel—sometimes iterrupted by the spiciness of the chorizo, sometimes overrun by the sweetness of the apricots. The quinoa makes you full, and onion and bell peppers seem to work with just about anything that touches a frying pan. Perfect!

Oh, and if you want some crunch, feel free to chop up some peanuts, cashews or pine nuts and add at the end—it goes really great with the rest.

Couscous and crayfish

Dishes based on couscous, bulgur or quinoa mixed with veggies and some kind of meat is somewhat of a staple in our kitchen. They are so simple to make: just chop, fry, boil and mix and dinner is done. Tonight's version had crayfish tails and fennel, two things that go really well together. The apple adds a nice acidity and fruitiness. We served it with a lemon yoghurt sauce made of Turkish yoghurt, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and black pepper.

Couscous with fennel and crayfish tails in garlic butter

4 large portions

1 small fennel
1 small red pepper
1 tart apple
Olive oil

3 dl couscous
3 dl water
½ tsp turmeric
Salt

400 g crayfish tails in water (strained weight)
1 tbsp butter, at room temperature
1 garlic clove
2 tbsp dry white wine
Salt to taste

Dice the fennel, red pepper and apple. Heat up the olive oil and fry the veggies for about 5 minutes, you still want them slightly crunchy. Set aside for later.
Bring salted water to a boil. Remove from heat, add couscous and turmeric, stir and let stand under a lid for about 5 minutes or until the water is absorbed.
While waiting for that, you chop the garlic clove very finely and mix with the butter. Put the crayfish tails in a hot pan, add the garlic butter and let it melt. It will smell quite heavenly. Add the white wine and let simmer for a minute or two on medium heat (don't overcook the crayfish, they will get dry and stringy). Now the couscous will be ready, so pour that into the pan with the crayfish, add the veggies and stir around so that the couscous absorbs the butter-wine sauce. You might want to add some more salt, but remember that the crayfish tails are quite salty. Serve with lemon-yoghurt sauce.

A sort of pytt

I guess you could call this dish a more modern version of pyttipanna, the Swedish classic. Pyttipanna (wich my dictionary tells me translates as hash) is usually made of potatoes, onions, maybe some other vegetables such as carrots, and some sort of meat. It is all diced and then fried. It is a good way to deal with left overs, and is traditionally eaten with pickled red beets and a fried egg on top. More modernized version can be vegetarian, or contain fish or chicken, and if you're really radical you could even substitute the potatoes with for example bulgur, like I have done here.

The hardest part of this dish is to dice the vegetables. I know some people find repetetive kitchen tasks, such as making match stick thin julienned carrots or dicing zucchini in perfect 1*1 cm dice, relaxing. I just find it boring. But apart from chopping up the veggies, this dish is a breeze to make. My version of ajvar relish is probably not very authentic, but I thought it tasted quite close to the kind I buy in jars at the grocery store, only fresher. I didn't add any chili to the ajvar since the chorizo was so spicy, but it can of course be spiced up if necessary.


Look at all the pretty colors! (Sorry about the poor quality photo, but since it gets dark by like four here it's impossible get any decent dinner photos.)

Vegetable bulgur with chorizo and home made ajvar relish
Serves 2 + 1 lunchbox

½ onion, finely chopped
2 small carrots, diced
½ yellow pepper, diced
½ zucchini, diced
125 g chorizo (or other spicy, flavorful sausage)
4 dl bulgur
2 dl water
Salt and black pepper



Ajvar relish
2 grilled red peppers (store bought or home made)
1 tbsp tomato puré
½-1 tbsp olive oil
salt
black pepper

Fry the vegetables slowly in some butter or oil, starting with the onions and carrots and adding the peppers and zucchini after a minute or so. Bring the water to a boil and add the bulgur. Cook on very low heat until the water is absorbed; it takes about 10 minutes. Cut up your sausage in some smaller chunks; I sliced it and then cut the slices in half. Add the sausage to the vegetables and let it fry for a while. When the bulgur is done, just add it to the pan with veggies and sausage and stir it all around. Season with salt and pepper.

For the ajvar, simply put all the ingredients into a food processor and make a puree. Serve the bulgur with ajvar relish and some plain yoghurt*.

*In Sweden, we get a kind of yoghurt especially suited for use with/in food (appropriately named "food yoghurt"). It is runnier than thick Greek or Turkish yoghurt, and more sour than the kind you eat for breakfast.

Hunger strikes

The origin of this dinner is our friend Hanna, who once treated us to some awesome canneloni with mushrooms and ricotta cheese. We have tried to recreate it many times since, but like with all recipes of this kind - that is, the kind that doesn't really have a recipe - we've added and subtracted stuff and it probably bears no resemblance to the original by now. Sometimes, we add some leftover shredded chicken, sometimes, we use creme fraiche instead of ricotta, and this time, we added some gorgonzola cheese.

We were really really hungry while shopping for this, and even more hungry when making it, so we forgot that you really should pour some kind of sauce over the whole deal before baking it. Cream based or tomato based, whatever you think would work. Otherwise it really gets too dry, and I am not a fan of crunchy pasta. There should be a law that says that lasagna should have so much cheese on top that the top layer can't get hard and crunchy.

So, view this recipe as a draft. And sorry, no picture this time. We were too hungry, and frankly, this dish isn't very photogenic.

Canneloni with mushrooms, gorgonzola and spinach

serves 2 very hungry people

Fresh lasagna platters (cut to appropriate size if needed)
1 small onion
200 grams mushrooms (we used forest mushrooms)
50 grams gorgonzola cheese
1½ dl ricotta cheese
A handful of fresh spinach
Salt and black pepper

Grated cheese for topping
(Sauce of some kind to pour on top)

Fry the mushrooms and onions in some butter or oil. In a bowl, mix together the cheeses. Stir in the mushrooms and onions. Add in the spinach (you might want to tear it down a bit if the leaves are too big). Season with salt and black pepper (but remember that gorgonzola cheese is quite salty). Now get your lasagna platters, add a spoonful or so of the filling at one end and roll it up. Continue until you are out of either platters or filling. If you run out of lasagna platters, just put the rest of the filling on top of the canneloni. Now pour over whatever sauce you think would be good with this (unless you like your cannelonis crunchy. Weirdo.). Put some grated cheese on top, and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.