Eggs In Caves

A simple but slightly odd breakfast dish. This recipe makes one, so simply make one for each person.


1 bread roll
1 egg
1 slice of ham
1-2 slices of cheese


Cut off the top of the roll and remove some of the insides of the roll to make a hole large enough for an egg to fit.

Crack the egg into the hole, then puncture the yolk without breaking it. (This is so it doesn't explode when you cook it in the microwave)

Cover the hole with the slice of ham and then the cheese.

Place on a plate and cook in the microwave at full effect for 1-2min. (The cheese should just be beginning to melt)

Serve with any breakfast accessories you prefer.



Enjoy!

Simple Norwegian Fish Paste

This might be slight different way to eat fish than what you are used to but kids tend to like the creamy texture. It's made quite simple by baking it in the microwave oven. Remember to use a dish that can handle being in the microwave.


400g fillet of cod (or similar white fish)
1tsp salt
1/2 pinch ground white pepper
1/2 pinch cayenne pepper
1tbl potato flour
2dl cream


Thaw the fish if it was frozen, then chop it into cubes.

Put the fish cubes and the rest of the ingredients in a food processor and then blend until it is a creamy batter.

Pour the batter in a oblong or rectangular dish and cover it.

Bake it at half power for 10-11min.

Let sit for about 10min to let the temperature even out.

Overturn it on to a dish and cut it into slices.

Serve with sour cream mixed with dill and shrimp or anything that goes with fish.



Enjoy!

Almond Peaches

A quick and easy dessert made all the easier by using canned peaches and store bought almond paste.


1 can of peaches in syrup (ca. 825g usually)
200g almond paste
1/2dl syrup from the canned peaches
30g almond flakes


Set the oven to 250ºC.

Grease an oven safe dish and place the peaches in it cup side down.

Grate the almond paste finely. (Easier to do when the paste is cold)

Beat the syrup together with the almond paste using an electric whisk.

Spread the mixture evenly between the holes in the peaches and sprinkle the almond flakes over the top of them.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 10-15min.

Serve slightly warm with vanilla ice-cream.


Enjoy!

Salad With Chicken Liver

A friend asked me to put a recipe for chicken salad as return for a favor, but I can never do exactly as I'm told. Chicken liver is something that a lot of people have little to no experience with but can easily be used to make something special that isn't too expensive.


300g chicken liver
lettuce (amount and type up to you but enough to cover each persons plate)
150g mushrooms
2 shallots, sliced
1 apple
1dl beef or veal stock
apple cider vinegar



Clean and rinse the lettuce and place nicely on each plate.

Slice the mushrooms and fry them in butter for about 5 min then remove them from the pan.

Fry the chicken liver and shallots in the pan for 6-8 min. The liver should be juicy and slightly pink inside and the onion transparent.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Put the mushrooms back to the pan.

Splash some vinegar over the liver, onion and mushroom then pour the stock on and let the liquid evaporate a bit.

Peel and core the apple and cut it into strips and splash some lemon juice over them so they don't turn brown.

Place the liver mix on the beds of lettuce and sprinkle the apple strips over.

Red Pesto

A nice variation of the ordinary green pesto that gets it's red color from the sun dried tomatoes in it. The pine nuts have been replaced with walnuts or hazelnuts.


10 sun dried tomatoes in oil
25g Parmesan cheese in pieces
1 garlic clove
25g walnuts or hazelnuts
1dl basil, roughly chopped
2 pinches of salt
1dl olive oil


Place the tomatoes and pieces of cheese evenly in a food processor.

Add the garlic, nuts, basil and salt and blend until you have an even mixture.

Whilst you are blending add the oil a little bit at a time so that the mixture has time to absorb the oil before you add more.

Serve with grilled or fried beef, with lamb or game, or mix it with spaghetti for a quick pasta dish.

Boiled Iceberg Lettuce With Bacon

This recipe might seem a bit odd but when you boil iceberg lettuce lightly it tastes a little bit like asparagus. With the bacon this makes a nice and fresh dish for when you aren't terribly hungry. This recipe works for 4 people but that's easily adjustable.


2 heads of iceberg lettuce
200g bacon
100g butter/margarine
1 1/2 liter water
2tsp salt


Clean the lettuce and quarter it so you have eight pieces.

Cut the bacon into strips and fry them crispy without any butter.

Melt the butter.

Boil the water and salt and add a little of the melted butter.

Put the lettuce in the boiling water and cook it for about 3 minutes.

Remove the lettuce from the water and drain them thoroughly.

Place two pieces of lettuce on each plate and sprinkle the crispy bacon over the top.

Serve with the warm melted butter.



Enjoy!

Moms Marinade

This marinade is something that my mother has used through my whole life and for almost every type of meat, be it pork, beef or chicken. And after you've marinade the meat you can make delicious sauce with it by heating it up to kill any bacteria left by the meat and add crème fraîche. Because the original recipe uses the American measuring system the amount of soy it is written in in cups and tbl. This amount is good for about 1-1 1/2kg of meat.


4tbl sugar
2tbl oil (a neutral vegetable oil, like corn oil, works best)
1/3 cup of (mushroom) soy (1/3 cup is 78ml so about 5tbl of soy works if you want to be somewhat exact but a little less than a dl works just fine)
1 pressed garlic clove


Use a container large enough for your meat and that won't get stained from the soy.

Mix everything together until the sugar is completely absorbed.

Then place the meat in the container and roll it around so it get's coated and poke hole in it with a fork so that the flavor can really penetrate the meat.

Let it marinate in the fridge for 3-4 hours but the longer you leave it the better. (My mother once forgot about it for 2 whole days and it turned out delicious)

Then you can grill, fry or cook the meat in the oven.

Serve the meat with anything you like.



Enjoy!

Simple Noodle Soup

This base recipe can varied with anything that you happen to have at home. Strips of grilled chicken, sliced or quartered mushrooms or even chopped sugar snap peas work very well.


400g egg noodles + water for their boiling
1 liter of water
2 cubes of chicken stock
3tbl soy
1-2tbl rice wine vinegar or sherry
1tsp brown sugar


Boil the noodles in water for 4-5min. Rinse them in cold water to halt their cooking and then drain them.

Pour the 1 liter of water in a pot and add the stock cubes, soy, rice wine vinegar, and sugar and bring to the boil.

After a few minutes, when the cubes have dissolved, add the noodles and let simmer for 2 minutes.

Add any grilled chicken, mushrooms or peas.

Serve the soup with a green herb of your choice chopped and sprinkled over it.



Enjoy!

Ovenpancake

This is a Swedish classic that my sister loves. I use the name of the plain one but the more common one has fried salted pork in it, but pork pancake doesn't sound as good.


3 eggs
8dl milk
4dl flour
1/2tsp salt
300g salted or smoked pork belly or bacon cut into small pieces (optional)


Set the oven to 225ºC.

Grease an oven pan with medium high sides.

Fry the pork or bacon as crispy as you want it and place it evenly spread in the pan (if you're using it).

Beat the eggs just so they mix together.

Add half the milk and all the flour and salt.

Stir this into a smooth batter and then mix in the rest of the milk.

Pour it in the pan (over the pork) and place in the middle of the oven.

Bake for 30 min or until it's a wonderful golden color.

Cut into large squares and serve with lingonberry jam or any jam that isn't to sweet.


Enjoy!

Fried Rice With Beans

This dish is the perfect accompaniment to roasted or fried chicken. Use a wok if you have one but a large frying pan works just as well. For extra tasty fried rice put it in a bowl and cover with water for a little while before using it, to get rid of a lot of the starch.


3tbl vegetable oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
ca. 2 1/2dl long grain rice
1 green bell pepper, diced
1tsb chili powder
6dl boiling water
100g canned corn, drained
225g canned kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2tbl chopped fresh coriander/cilantro (different name, same thing)


Put the pan on medium heat and let the oil get really hot.

Fry the onion for 2 min or until it get soft.

Lower the heat and add the rice, pepper and chili powder and cook for 1 min.

Pour over the boiling water and bring it to the boil again, then lower the temperature again and let simmer for 15 min.

Mix in the corn, beans and coriander and let everything heat through, stirring from time to time.

Place in a serving bowl and serve immediately, garnished with extra coriander on top if you wish.



Enjoy!

Rhubarb Melt

This is, in my mind, the simplest and most delicious way of preparing rhubarb. Preferably use relatively young rhubarb stalks because as they grow larger the outer layers become thicker and you will have to peel them. The original recipe says to serve it cold, which is tasty, but I prefer it serve warm on vanilla ice-cream  and let them melt together into a delicious mush.


6 rhubarb stalks (ca. 700g)
1 - 1 1/2dl sugar (you can exchange the ordinary sugar for brown sugar if you wish)


Wash the rhubarb and cut it into 5cm long pieces.

Put them in a lightly greased oven safe dish and sprinkle the sugar over them.

Cover the dish with tin foil.

Place the dish in the oven and cook them at 225ºC for 15-20min or until they are soft.


Serve with vanilla ice-cream.



Enjoy!

Cabbage Pudding

Another Swedish classic that is getting more and more uncommon these days. Seems a bit strange to me since a lot of people seem to lapse into nostalgia when I speak about it. The perfect accompaniment to this dish is lingonberry jam but since it is very difficult to find outside of Scandinavia you can serve it with any kind of cranberry or red/blackcurrant sauce or jelly. It uses a 50/50 mix of ground beef and pork but you can use pure pork if you prefer, pure beef can work as well but it can become quite dry.

1 large head of cabbage (ca. 2kg)
700g mixed ground meat (50% beef and 50% pork)
2 1/2 - 3dl water
1tsb salt
1 pinch ground white pepper


Clean the cabbage, quarter it and cut away the hard stem.

Slice it into thin strips.

Fry them slightly until they have gained a light brown color and are a bit soft but stir from time to time so that they don't turn black and get burnt. (There tends to be so much cabbage that you'll have to fry it in batches)

Mix the meat, water, salt and pepper into a loose mass.

Put half of the fried cabbage in the bottom of an oven dish with high sides.

Spread the meat over it and cover with the rest of the cabbage.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 45min at 175ºC.

Eat it on its own with any jelly or jam described above or have it with boiled potatoes and brown sauce in addition to the jam/jelly.



Enjoy!

Parisienne Salad

You can most often find this salad in taverns and pubs in and around Paris where they usually serve it  as a starter but it works very well as a light lunch. The clove of garlic is used in what may seem like an odd way, you cut it in half and rub the inside of the salad bowl with it for just a slight hint of garlic.


200-300g mushrooms
200g boiled or smoked ham
200g Swiss cheese
4 tomatoes
1 head of iceberg lettuce
1tbl red wine vinegar
4tbl olive oil
1tsb french mustard
1/2tsb dried tarragon
1 clove of garlic (optional)
chopped parsley


Stir the mustard into the vinegar and add the oil. Then flavor it with the tarragon and some salt and pepper.

Cut the clove of garlic in half and rub the inside of the salad bowl with it.

Clean and cut the mushrooms into rough slices. Put them in the bowl and pour the dressing over them and mix carefully so you don't break the mushrooms to much. Let soak for about 20 minutes.

Slice the ham into strips that aren't too thin.

Cut the cheese into small cubes or into strips similar to the ham.

Quarter the lettuce and cut off the stem, then slice it into thin strips about 1cm thick.

Cut the tomatoes into wedges.

Mix everything except the tomatoes and parsley together in the bowl.

Decorate the finished salad with the tomato wedges and sprinkle the parsley over the top.


Enjoy!

Pyttipanna

Pyttipanna is a Swedish dish that means "small pieces in a pan". It's traditionally made purely of leftovers but it's much more common now to use prime ingredients if your making it yourself (most people buy frozen ready made pyttipanna). This version is a mix of the two because it uses raw potatoes but leftover meat. This recipe uses the three base ingredients potato, onion and meat but you can add fried mushrooms, sausage or ham, or almost any type of root vegetable to vary it. The key characteristic of pyttipanna is that whatever you choose to put in it you make all the pieces approximately the same size. The typical size of the dices tends to be 1cm by 1cm but that's only because the frozen products are that size, just try and keep them kinda small and the same size and it wont matter.


8-10dl diced raw potato
2 chopped yellow onions
4dl diced meat that is already cooked (anything from roast beef to fried pork chops)
salt
pepper
1 egg per person/serving

Rinse the potato cubes in cold water so that the starch is washed away. (otherwise the will stick together during the frying) Then let all the water drain.

Fry the potato cubes until they are golden brown then remove them from the pan and repeat the process with the onion and then the meat.

Once the meat has gained some color mix everything together and season with salt and pepper.

Fry each egg in the way each person likes and place on top of their portion.

Traditionally served with pickled red beets but ketchup works quite well with it.


Enjoy!

Bacon Wrapped Cod With Pea Purée

A simple recipe that goes extremely quick (the fish anyway). The purée is a nice variation to that classical fish accompaniment, the pea. Can be served with just these two dishes but you can of course have boiled potatoes and a salad with it.

600g fillet of cod or other similar white fish
1 package of bacon (ca. 140g)
2 1/2dl frozen peas
1/2dl crème fraîche or sour cream
1/2dl chopped chives
salt
pepper

Thaw the fish if it's frozen.

Season them with salt and pepper then wrap the fillet with the bacon slices.

Place them in a ovenproof dish and place them in middle of the oven for about 10min at 250ºC.

Boil the peas in lightly salted water according to their own instructions, then drain them.

Put them in a blender or use a handheld one and blitz them to a paste together with the crème fraîche or sour cream.

Stir in the chives.

Serve the fish and purée with boiled potatoes, a salad and a slice of lemon.


Enjoy!

Lemon Sorbet

A very light and refreshing dessert that fits nicely after a big dinner.


juice from 2 lemons
zest from 1/2 lemon
5dl water
2dl sugar
1 egg white
1/2dl icing sugar

Pour the water, sugar and zest in a bowl and heat it at full effect in a microwave for 5-7min.

Then remove the zest.

Let the mixture get cool and add the lemon juice.

Place in the freezer until it turns into a thick almost frozen sludge (a few hours should do).

Beat the egg white and icing sugar into a hard foam.

Mix this into the near frozen sludge and freeze for another couple hours.

Serve scooped into small bowls and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint or a thin chocolate wafer.


Enjoy!

Roman Lamb Stew

Roman dishes tend to be fairly quick to cook and with loads of herbs and spices. The main reason for this seems to stem from the fact that Rome was the major trading hub of Italy and therefore had access to lots of spices and had to have the food ready for travelers.

1tbl oil
1tbl butter
600g lamb cut into 2 1/2cm cubes (1 inch)
4 garlic cloves
leaves from 3 thyme sprigs
6 anchovy fillets (sardeller to the Swedish)
1 1/2dl red wine
1 1/2dl lamb stock
1 tsp sugar
ca. 60g black olives, halved
2tbl chopped parsley


Heat the oil and butter in a large pan that can fit a lid on it and fry the lamb for 4-5min until they are nice brown all the way around.

Crush the garlic, thyme and anchovy into a smooth paste using a mortar and pestle.

Pour the wine and stock into the pan and then stir in the paste, adding the sugar at the same time.

Bring to the boil, then lower the temperature and let simmer with a lid on for 30-40 minutes or until the meat is tender. Remove the lid for the last 10 minutes so that the sauce can reduce a little bit.

Add the halved olives and mix thoroughly.

Sprinkle the chopped parsley over the top and serve with fluffy mashed potatoes.


Enjoy!

Aniara Salad

The name of this salad comes from a Swedish science fiction story (that nobody has ever read) that was made into an opera and this salad was invented for the premier.

1/2 cauliflower
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
250g peeled shrimp
2 1/2dl cooked rice
50g olives
1/2 yellow onion
3-4dl Rhode Island dressing
salt and pepper


Break the cauliflower into small florets.

Peel the onion and chop it and the peppers into tiny pieces.

Mix all the ingredients with the Rhode Island dressing and flavor with salt and pepper.


Enjoy!

Peanut Chicken

This is a recipe I found in a British cook book from the seventies that I thought was quite tasty and worth putting up here. It can be quite heavy with the milk and cream but this can be countered with something like Thai sweet and sour chili sauce.

5tbl oil
1 chopped yellow onion
2tbl flour
salt and ground black pepper
4 thighs or breasts of chicken
1 1/2dl chicken stock
1 1/2dl milk
1tbl peanut butter
2tbl cream
50g salted peanuts

Heat up the oil and braise the onion for a few minutes and then move it to a casserole dish leaving the oil in the pan.

Mix the salt and pepper into the flour and roll each piece of chicken thoroughly in it.

Brown the chicken in the oil until nice and golden brown then move them to the casserole dish as well.

Pour the stock into the pan then whisk so that all the flavor from the pan comes lose.

Add the milk and peanut butter and heat up.

Pour the mixture over the chicken and onion and cover with a lid.

Put the dish in the oven for 50min at 180ºC.

Mix the cream into the sauce and ladle some over the chicken again.

Garnish with the salted peanuts and serve with rice or any potato dish and a green salad.


Enjoy!

Roquamole

This is a creation of Nigella so all credit goes to her. I am merely posting this here so I can find it easier. It works extremely well with tortilla chips and dippable vegetables. Can also be used in tacos or similar. You can easily skip the jalapenos or onions if you want, they are there for more flavor and texture.
You may also want to add a little bit of lemon/lime juice to keep it from turning brown.

125g Roquefort or St. Agur cheese
60ml sour cream
2 ripe avocados
35g sliced pickled green jalapenos (5-8 slices)
2 finely sliced spring onions (scallions)
1-2 pinches of paprika powder


Crumble or mash the cheese in a bowl and mix it with the sour cream.

Mash in the avocados using a fork.

Roughly chop the jalapenos and stir in them and the sliced onions into the mix.

Pour into a serving bowl and dust with the paprika.

Serve with tortilla chips or vegetables suitable for dipping.


Enjoy!

Weekends Off

I've decided to not post on weekends anymore so as to not lose steam, unless it's a special occasion of course.

Spiced Vinegar

This vinegar makes for a nice addition for dressing or as a condiment on its own. You can easily add a sprig of your favorite herb to add more flavor. You may have to make the stick shorter so that you can place a lid on the bottle you use.

2 cloves of garlic
2 shallot onions
1 thin wooden stick (barbeque skewer or similar)
2dl white wine vinegar
herb sprig (optional)


Peel the garlic and onion and halve them if they are too big.

Carefully thread the garlic and onions on the stick so they don't come apart.

Place the stick in a wide necked bottle or similar and pour the vinegar into it.

(Add the herb sprig at this stage if you want it).

Heat the vinegar in the microwave for about 1min.

Put a lid on it and let stand for a couple of days before using it.

Keep in a cool place with a lid on and leave the onion, garlic and herbs in.


Enjoy!

Almond Flarns

These chewy cookies are the perfect accompaniment to ice-cream or fresh berries. Flarn is Swedish for a thin or flat cookie or biscuit.


100g chopped almonds
1dl sugar
1tbl honey
100g butter
2tbl flour
1tbl milk


Set the oven to 200ºC.

Mix and heat almonds, sugar, honey and butter in a saucepan.

Add the flour and milk when the butter has melted.

Let simmer for 1-2 minutes.

Spread teaspoon sized dollops on a baking paper covered pan. (don't place them too close together because they spread quite a bit)

Bake in the middle of the oven for 5-6min until they have a nice golden grown color.

If you want them bent for something a little fancier let them cool off a little bit and place them on a rolling pin or bottle.

Otherwise just let them get cold as they are.

Keep in cookie jars with tight lids.


Enjoy!