Month: April 2012

Once again: asparagus with wild garlic mayo and parmesan shavings

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On Friday when Daniel and Maria arrived from the airport I had prepared a three course dinner, starting with this spring time favourite from last year; asparagus with wild garlic mayo and parmesan shavings.

I bought some lovely British asparagus from the supermarket and used some of my hidden freezer treasure of wild garlic for the modified mayonnaise recipe.

Wild garlic mayo 2.0

15 wild garlic leaves, steamed and drained

200 ml sunflower oil

1 egg yolk, at room temperature

lemon juice

salt

white pepper

Blend the oil with the wild garlic to a smooth oil. Place the egg yolk in a beaker and add the green oil drop by drop, later a little by little, while beating with an electric whisk. Season to taste with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Leave for 30 minutes to deepen its flavour.

Asparagus with wild garlic mayonnaise and parmesan shavings, serves 2

8 asparagus stems

wild garlic mayonnaise

parmigiano reggiano or other matured parmesan

extra virgin olive oil

Maldon sea salt

Break the ends off the asparagus, where it breaks naturally. Steam in salted water for 1-2 minutes. Drain. Place a large dollop of mayonnaise on each plate. Place the asparagus next to it, add shavings of parmesan, drizzle some olive oil and add a pinch of sea salt. Serve with crusty bread or as it is.

 

Scandi tip #22: Scandi article in The Telepgraph

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If you are interested in Britain’s love affair with Scandinavia, this article from the Telegraph is a good read.

But it is a reverse love affair as well, and a longer one at that. This weekend I once again have Swedish friends visiting their favourite city; London. And me.

Luckily they have been here before, so we don’t have to do the tourist attractions, instead we will explore different areas, eat good food and enjoy the fact that alcohol is cheaper here than in Sweden. And catch up of course!

Already updated: pasta with truffle oil and parmesan

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It was not long ago at all that I declared that the nicest pasta dish is served with butter, truffle oil and parmesan, perfect for a quiet night in. That it is still true. But. It gets even better if said butter is browned butter. You will almost faint while eating this – it is that good!

Pasta with truffle oil, browned butter and parmesan, serves 2

3oo g good tagliatelle

1-2 tbsp browned butter

truffle oil

plenty of grated parmesan

black pepper

Browned butter: Melt butter in a saucepan while whisking until the colour turns brown. Remove from heat and pour through a muslin cloth. Keep in the fridge.

Cook the pasta al dente. Drain in a colander. Pour the pasta back to the pan and add the browned butter. Flavour with truffle oil and plate in bowls. Add plenty of grated parmesan, black pepper and maybe a pinch of salt.

The Blue Legume, Islington

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On Saturday I met up with my friend Laura in North London. We hadn’t made a reservation anywhere but walking around Upper Street in Islington, we spotted The Blue Legume. It looked nice and cosy and Laura remembered that our friend Jess had mentioned the place. So we walked in and they had a table available.

Figuring out what to order was a little bit harder than scoring the table though. The food looked really good at the tables around us, but I noticed the cheap prices on the menu and got suspicious. Good produce costs more than bad and it just looked like this place was too cheaply priced to be able to buy good produce and still make money.

Luckily I was wrong!

Laura loves seafood and ordered the calamari after our waiter recommended it. It was nice and soft because it had been baked in the oven.

I chose the asparagus with hollandaise and was very surprised when I saw the thick but tender, and perfectly cooked asparagus stems on my plate with a lovely hollandaise.

It is not very often I am happy with a restaurant version of hollandaise/bearnaise sauce, usually they are too acidic or too runny but this one was thick and had just enough acid to cover the butter’s richness.

So I figured I might as well order the steak with bearnaise sauce as well then. The steak was hu-uge and very tender although cooked blue, and once again the sauce was very enjoyable. I really started to like this place!

So did Laura with her lovely salad topped with teriyaki salmon. It was perfectly cooked and just fell apart.

Both maincourses were really large and would have made any man working in hard labour happy, but it was a tad too much for us office girls. Sadly we were too full to even contemplate dessert. But we promised each other we would be back.

The damage? Not much at all, I think all in all around £50 for the both of us including a decent bottle of wine.

The Blue Legume
177 Upper Street
Islington N1 1RG

Simple dessert: vanilla icecream + sherry

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During Easter I managed to meet up with one of my dearest childhood friends, Karl. He lives abroad too and it is not often that we are both at home in Sweden at the same time.

Karl works in Norway as a restaurant manager and sommelier so when we met up we obviously talked about food.

He also gave me a very nice gift; sweet sherry from the year we were both born. It has been aged for so long that it has become syrupy and a bit too sweet just to drink. Instead Karl recommended it be poured over vanilla icecream as dessert.

I obviously tried this more or less straight away and it was seriously yummy. The dessert is of course very simple to make, but is still worthy to be a dinner party finale. And with homemade vanilla icecream this would be even nicer (we used bought icecream this time). Do try this at home, folks!

1982 Bodegas Toro Albala Don PX Gran Reserva

Zucca, Bermondsey – wow!

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We had time for another restaurant visit when my friends Malin and Tobbe were here last weekend. They wanted to go to an Italian restaurant and I gave them a short list with a few names on, and from that list they chose Zucca, which I was super excited about since it has been on my to-eat list for quite a while ago.

They are very popular, so book well in advance. I was really happy that they could find us a table and although we arrived a few minutes early our table was ready for us.

We had a seat in the dining room decorated with plush carpet and modern white glossy furniture. On one wall you have the open kitchen so regardless of where you are sitting you will have a view of the kitchen.

We started with the suggested aperitif; prosecco with pomegranate. I can never resist bubbly and this drink was refreshing and nice. After the waitress had taken our order everything was very efficient in a definitely non-stressful way. The waiting staff just did their job really well and knew when we were ready for the next step.

The bread basket consisted of three types of bread, that were all delicious but the foccacia really stood out. It was soft in the middle, nice and oily but crusty on the outside.

Next was our amuse bouche; frittata. Also very nice.

Then our starters. Malin chose the olive crostini with charkuterie and was very please with her decision.

My popo al pomodoro with burrata was pure indulgence and I savoured every bite. The ‘soup’ was full of flavour and the burrata was creamy and salty. Pure joy on a plate!

Tobbe ordered the Zucca fritti and received a smaller mountain of freshly pan-fried goodies in a light airy batter. Malin and I helped him out too and really enjoyed it.

Malin chose rigatoni with cauliflower, tomatoes and sultanas and it looked very scrumptious, don’t you agree?!

My tagliatelle with duck ragu was perfection. I enjoyed every bite.

Tobbe’s seared tuna was perfectly dark red in the middle. It was served with a picante sauce and marinated shavings of fennel and courgettes.

After all of that we still had room for dessert. Tobbe chose this scoop of pistachio icecream and it was absolutely delicious.

I couldn’t resist the pannacotta with rhubarb which felt very light although fillinf. I had to give up after half.

Malin was happy with coffee instead and while that arrived we also got these little treats, which was the only thing I wasn’t ove the moon about. The short bread was a tad too sweet and the brittle was a bit too dark and therefore tasted too much of burnt sugar. But I won’t let my opinion of these little freebies taint my view of the evening, which all in all was perfect.

I think you can see how wonderful the food was. THe wine list was also impressive with only Italian wines.

The staff was very efficient and professional and so pro active they would open the door to the restrooms for you when they saw you were on your way there. That’s service! Also the ambiance was lovely – people really seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Good food is always good food, but sometimes the price helps to make your mind up about something. In this case I would have paid a lot for the food, but the fact that it is rather cheap (including a bottle of wine for £33 we paid about just under £50 each for all of the above) just makes me love this place even more.

I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of our evening here and I will so be back. Pretty soon too, I hope!

Zucca
184 Bermondsey Street
London SE1 3TQ

Scandi tip #21: spring essentials

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Spring (and summer) my favourite part of the year, because of the weather of course. I grew up in the south of Sweden where we sometimes had snow during winter, but mostly it was just windy and freezing cold (because of the wind and the flat landscape). So you can see why we (I) looked forward to spring.

Apart from the nice weather spring comes with lots of new produce. Of course you can get similar things here but I’d thought to tell you about what we look forward to in Sweden anyway, this time of year.

Of course asparagus, both the white and green. You can use asparagus in so many different ways and you can find how here.

Broad beans are another favourite of mine that I mostly use in salads. You find recipes here and here.

As mentioned ealier this week, wild garlic is spring for me and I have a total crush on these garlicky leaves. You can use it in anything, just remember that you need quite a few leaves as a leaf on its own is very subtle in flavour.

Also radishes and cress are spring favourites too and I eat them in the simplest way possible. Butter a nice slice of sourdoug, top with a good hard cheese, add some cress and serve radishes with salt on the side. Lovely!

Spring is definitely the time of year when I’m craving salads the most. Summer works too, but by then I usually crave BBQs instead… Scandis like prawns in their salads (and sandwiches, jacket potatoes – anything…) and the type of prawn we go for is the one we can catch in our own waters, the smaller softer ones, that are usually labelled cold water prawns, Icelandic/Greenlandic or Maine prawns. Those paired with boiled eggs, lettuce and a dilly mayo is spring for me. Garlic bread optional.

 

Pork belly with rosti and creamy ‘shrooms with white wine

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Pork belly is not at all as popular in Sweden as it is here, but it is getting more and more common, which is great. It seems like pork in general is coming back after being seen as ‘fatty’ for quite a long time.

This dish has almost the same components as last time I made pork belly, and I wouldn’t say that this is an improvement – just a variation – and just as good as the last recipe.

The crispy rosti (with both potatoes and Jerusalem artichoke) is crunchy and goes well with the tender meat underneath the crackling, and the creamy mushrooms certainly add nice flavours and brings the dish together.

I ended up with some left over creamy ‘shrooms and they came to use for lunch next day as a filling in an omelette. Yummy that too!

Pork belly, serves 2 portioner

2 slices pork belly with shallow cuts in the fat

salt

a few sprigs of thyme

Preheat the oven to 125C. Place the pork in a buttered dish. Massage the salt into the rind and season the meat all over. Place the thyme on top. Leave in the oven for two hours or until the meat is tender.

Turn the heat up to 250C and fry the meat for another 10 minutes until the crackling is crisp.

Rosti with Jerusalem artichokes, serves 2

4-5 medium potatoes

1-2 Jerusalem artichokes

a knob of butter for frying

salt, black pepper

Wash the potatoes and peel the artichokes. Melt the butter in a frying pan on medium-high temperature. Grate the root veg and place in four heaps in the pan. Flatten with a spatula and fry for 3-4 minutes on each side, until crspy on the outside and cooked through. Season.

Creamy mushrooms with white wine, serves 2-3

ca 100 g button mushrooms, sliced

1 clove of garlic

some fresh thyme

butter for frying

50 ml dry white wine

150 ml creme fraiche

100 ml cream

1-2 tsp dijon mustard

a few drops sherry vinegar

1 pinch of sugar

salt, white pepper

Brown the mushrooms and garlic in butter, but make sure not to burn the garlic. Add the wine and lower the heat. When the wine has reduced to half, then add the creme fraiche and cream. Let it thicken while stirring. Add dijon, thyme, vinegar and suger. Season.

Nopi – almost a year later

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When my friends Tobbe and Malin came to visit last week, we had some really nice dining experiences. First up was Nopi, where I went for my birthday last year.

Back then we were a larger group so we sat at a big table on the lower ground floor, whereas this time we sat up on the ground floor.

The food served at Nopi is fresh small plates with unusual flavour combinations. The main menu has three sections; vegetables, fish and meat and there is also a dessert menu. Nopi recommends three small dishes per person, so that’s what we did. We got nine different ones to share.

To start we were served lovely bread to dip in a very grassy olive oil. Really nice but I did miss the dip we got last time.

Roasted aubergine with black garlic, harissa and pine nuts. This dish was nice enough but not spectacular in any way.

The heritage carrot salad with black olives, endive and orange vinaigrette was nice and fresh with nice flavours.

The courgette and manouri fritters with lime yoghurt were nice too, but none of the vegetable dishes we tried said ‘wow’ this time around. Last time those were the best.

But then this came out and blew me away: organic prawns with fennel, feta and Pernod. The prawns were wuite hot and it was really nice with the flecks of salt feta to take the edge off the heat. Also the sauce at the bottom of the pan was delicious. One of my two favourites of the evening.

Scallops with pig’s ear and a sauce made form black beans and ginger was also really nice, although the flavours could have been a little bit stronger. And you can see yourselves that the scallops were perfectly fried. Yu-um.

Malin ate this lovely fried seabass with smoked labneh and pickled lemon when Tobbe and I had the seafood.

She also had this twice-cooked chicken with myrtle salt and chilli sauce that I had last time too. I think this is a staple on the menu and so for a reason.

Tobbe’s choice of sirloin with baby leeks and pickled ginger with coriander and chilli salsa. Nice flavours!

The second of my two favourties was this incredibly tender and flavoursome ox cheek with horseradish cream and sour cherries. Amazing!

Although we didn’t over order we were still incredibly full at the end of our meal and struggled with the last few forkfuls, so there was no way we could have dessert. Instead we went to a nice bar and cocktails – less filling that way.

Nopi
21-22 Warwick Street
London W1B 5NE

Mother’s wild garlic soup

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My mother is massively into gardening and always has been, but her way of gardening has changed over the years. When I was little we had the best garden a child could ever had, because my mother grew just about anything, so you could just walk around the garden munching on fruit and berries all the time.

We had two types of cherries, two types of plums (the yellow ones were the best), strawberries, wild strawberries, serveral types of raspberries, currants, goose berries, black berries, tay berries and so on. Plus we grew lots of vegetables and I got my own vegetable patch to grow as well.

My grandmother’s garden was similar and I used to pick strawberries and eat sorrel that I picked myself while my grandmother was gardening. All this foraging as a child and my time as a scout has made me realise how much nice things nature has to offer, and at this time of year wild garlic is one of the best things you can find in the woods (or my mother’s garden).

Although mother still grows lots of edible things it is less now that I’m not there to munch away every day of the summer. Instead the garden is a lot more grown up in terms of style and incredibly pretty.

But back to the wild garlic. I have used it in mayonnaise before, which is divine and together with lightly cooked asparagus and parmesan it makes and incredible starter, but I decided to try my mother’s soup recipe with the wild garlic this time.

The ‘recipe’ is more of a sketch really as I was told no measurements, but use your own judgment and make the soup your way. Just don’t add too much stock to begin with, you can always add more later.

Mother’s wild garlic soup – a sketch

a large bunch wild garlic leaves

mild olive oil

vegetable or chicken stock

cream

maizena (corn starch) or other thickening agent

salt, white pepper

Fry the wild garlic leaves in the oil until it has wilted. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Blend the soup smooth with a stick blender, add cream and maizena and bring to the boil again. Cook until ut thickens. Season to taste.