Author: Hanna

Nice lunch with friends

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As an ex-pat, you feel very liked and popular when you go home to visit; everyone wants to invite you over for dinner. The tricky part is to have time to meet everyone in just a week.

A couple who has invited us over for several times are Therèse and Tobbe, and this time we could gladly accept.

It was a perfect summer’s day when we got to their house for lunch the other day. They had set the table outside and Tobbe was barbequing when we arrived. We had a great time together, and enjoyed salmon barbecued in tin foil with tomatoes, leek and feta, bulgur wheat, salad and a cold caviar sauce. Very nice and fresh! For dessert we had a chocolate mousse with whipped cream and melon.

So lovely to sit outside in the sunshine, sipping on crisp white wine and just chatting away. Thank you guys, for a wonderful afternoon!

Barbecue and canapés with girolles

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The second day in Southern Sweden we spent the day in Falsterbo, a lovely little town by the seaside because Christopher was playing golf with Claes there all day, at a links course with insane amounts of water but nice views. I don’t play golf, so I spent the day with my best friend Emma (Claes’s fiancée). We gossiped a lot, had lunch at a nice café and prepared dinner for the boys. When they got back feeling tired after a day outside, we bribed them with beer to light the barbecue, while we took care of the rest of the cooking.

When we went to the supermarket I was pleased to see that they had lots of fresh girolles, that are in season now. It is my favourite mushroom and I find it really sad that I can’t buy them in a normal supermarket here in the UK. Girolles are best paired with butter and garlic and they make out a simple, but delicious, canapé.

We also had souvlaki, a nice salad with cucumber, tomatoes, leafy mixed salad, red onions and plenty of feta and another salad with giant couscous, pitta and homemade tzatsiki.

Emma gave the sauce top marks! It tastes fantastic with fat yoghurt and a big glug of olive oil. Yu-um…

I prefer giant couscous to the smaller variety, it is chewier and tastes better I think. In the salad above I kept it really simple, adding just thin slivers of red onion, herb salt, olive oil and chopped parsley. Simple yet delicious.

Girolle canapés, serves 4

100-150 g girolles, brushed and chopped

1/2 solo garlic or 1 garlic clove, pressed

a large knob of butter (enough to coat the mushrooms generously but not enough for them to bathe in)

chopped parsley

a bag of readymade brushettinis (garlic and herb if available

Fry the girolles on high heat in some of the butter. Add more butter as well as the garlic and lower the heat (so the garlic won’t burn). Season and mix in the parsley. Scoop up onto the biscuits and serve.

The first evening back home: crayfish and hollandaise

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We went back home to Sweden last Tuesday and after being picked up in Malmö we had a lovely lunch at Katrinetorp where we also had a look in their antique shop and after a quick visit at the shop Provinsen more close to home we finally got home to the summer house.

It is situated on the south coast in Sweden, only 2 km from the most Southern point in Sweden, and I love coming there and breathing the sea air.

I had wished for crayfish for dinner, so we had that as a starter, followed by barbecued fish, salad, potatoes and homemade hollandaise. To eat it outside on a blue and white tablecloth made it a perfect summer’s evening with Christopher and my parents.

For the first time I tried to make hollandaise a different way than normal (for me). Instead of melting the butter and adding it to the egg yolks, I used cold butter cut in cubes and incorpotating them into the yolks instead. It worked a charm and makes it easier not to split the sauce, since the temperature rises more slowly than with melted butter.

After dinner mum and I went for a quick stroll on the beach and I really enjoyed being home.

Hollandaise sauce sås, serves 4

3 egg yolks

150 g (cold) salted butter

1/2 – 1 tbsp lemon juice

salt & white pepper

Mix egg yolks and lemon juice in a non stick saue pan (start off with only half a tbsp lemon juice if you don’t want the sauce too sharp, you can add more add the end). Cut the butter into cubes and put one of two into the egg yolks, while whisking. Let all the butter melt before adding more and repeat this until all the butter is used. The sauce will slowly thicken and when it is thick enough, remove it from heat, still stirring, season and pour it into a cool dish to serve immediately.

Back in London

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It is insane that a week can pass by that quickly! We had a lovely time back home in the south of Sweden and got to meet up with both friends and family.

We got back last night to a pretty much closed London, the shops on our high street closed early and we were lucky to get a take away pizza before they closed as well. It seems like it was a quieter night last night though, and plenty of police on duty.

I will tell you all about our holiday as soon as I have caught up on work, washed some clothes and sorted the photos. Tomorrow in other words. 🙂

Brownies with the best chocolate frosting

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I like to bake for the office because that way I get to try new recipes and the cakes will get eaten (by others than me) and most people in my office like something sweet with a cup of tea.

Normally we buy cakes for the office once a month to celebrate that month’s birthdays, but in July I was asked to make them instead.

I suspected these brownies to a crowd pleaser, and they were. The deep chocolate dense brownie together with the sweeter fluffy frosting was absolutely amazing. The brownie would have been nice on its own as well, but the frosting made it so much better. This frosting is the best chocolate frosting I have come across so far. Very chocolatey, but not too sweet because of the cream cheese. In the future I will definitely try this on cupcakes and in other cakes.

The recipe is courtesy of the Hummingbird Bakery, from their first cookbook. The recipe calls for walnuts and some dark chocolate, but I substituted that for hazelnuts and milk chocolate which worked wonders, so use what you like.

Brownies with the best chocolate frosting, makes 18-20

5 eggs

500 g caster sugar

100 g cocoa

120 g plain flour

250 g melted butter

30 g roughly chopped nuts (i.e. walnuts or hazelnuts)

30 g roughly chopped chocolate (I used milk chocolate)

Frosting:

200 g icing sugar

75 g softened butter

30 g cocoa

150 g cream cheese, cold

Bear eggs and sugar fluffy and white. Add flour and cocoa, then the butter. Mix thoroughly. Fold in the nuts and chocolate and pour into a lined baking tray. Bake for 30-35 mins in 170C. Leave to cool completely.

Beat icing sugar, butter and cocoa with an electric mixer. Add the cream cheese and beat for five minutes, not longer. Spread onto the cold cake. Cut into squares and serve. 

More birthday celebrations: Nopi

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The Friday after my biryhday I got to celebrate becoming a year older together with my London based friends. We met up in the bar The Living Room after work and enjoyed a few drinks, and then we crossed Regent St and went for dinner at Nopi, a new restaurant from the team behind Ottolenghi.

Our table was a large communal one in the basement just outside the kitchen. On the ground floor is was a different atmosphere with small tables of two and four and busier than downstairs. We enjoyed being left alone a bit and to enjoy each other’s company.

To start with we were served homemade nice bread and the most amazing carrot dip. It was all orange (of course) and we could taste lemon and cumin in it. A great start to the meal, and a dip I definitely want the recipe for!

We were a group of eight, and therefore had a group menu, consisting of eight dishes all in all. We started off with two vegetarian dishes, both absolutely fantastic. The first one was a tomato salad with wasabi mascarpone. It sounds simple and it was, but the flavours were lovely. The tomatoes were great produce and the mascarpone dressing had just a hint of wasabi, enough to flavour it but not enough to make it spicy.

We also had an aubergine tart on crisp thin pastry with the mildest and creamiest goat’s cheese I have ever tasted. Fabulous dish, especially for aubergine lovers like me!

The first of the hot dishes to arrive was grilled mackerel with lentils. My sensitive stomach can’t really do lentils, but I had a forkful anyway and it was really nice. A very fresh and summery dish.

The nicest dish (I think we all agreed on that) was one of the simplest ones; broccolini and a most amazing mash. I have never had such a good mash in my life time, and yet my own versions are quite good. 🙂

Next was the meat dishes, like this smoked duck breast with nectarines, beetroot and a sweet sauce. The meat itself was perfect and had a lovely smoked flavour, but I didn’t tink the necatines and beetroot was a great match, not for each other and not with the duck.

We then had twice cooked (barbecued) chicken, which was really nice, but it is still just chicken. I prefer to eat more unusual things in restaurant, things I can’t cook myself…

For dessert we had white chocolate icecream (lovely but didn’t taste that much of white chocolate) with berries and financiers with coffee and pecans, with a maple cream.

I am not that keen on coffee, but this was just a hint and it worked really well with the pecans. The maple cream was superb and after a while we came up with the ultimate way of eating this dessert (i.e. getting as much cream onto the financiers) by dipping the whole little cake into the sauce bowl. Yum!

We were full in a nice way when leaving the restaurant just before midnight, and I definitely want to go back. The food feels quite healthy and I love the Middle Eastern spices.

Nopi
21-22 Warwick Street
London W1B 5NE

Mazarin cake

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When my colleague Nicolas, who never eats cake because it is not his thing, tried this cake the response was not what I had expected. He loved it and said it was probably the best cake he had ever had. I was, as you might expect, quite surprised!

But the cake is good. Very good, even. It contains plenty of marzipan, and is full of flavour although it only contains a few ingredients and it needs nothing else, but if you want to serve it as dessert I would suggest lightly whipped cream and some fresh berries.

This is a very effortless cake, yet very rewarding and is perfect as the end of a casual meal among friends or when having people over for tea and coffee at the weekend.

Mazarin cake, serves 8

Crust:

125 g marzipan

125 g butter

250 g plain flour

1 egg

Filling:

300 g marzipan

150 g butter

2 eggs

To decorate:

Icing: 150 ml icing sugar and 1-2 tbsp water

sugar pansies

Crust: Mix marzipan and butter until smooth. Add egg and flour and pinch it together to a dough. Do not work the dough too much. Chill for 30 minutes and then either roll out the dough and place it in a pie dish or press it into the pie dish.

Filling: Mix marzipan and butter until smooth. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly. Pour it onto the unbaked pie crust and bake for 40 minutes in 175C. Leave to cool completely before icing.

Mix the icing sugar with water until smooth and runny. Spead it onto the cake. Place the decorations and leave for the icing to dry. 

Bubble tea at Bubbleology

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In Soho, a stone’s throw away from China town, a few bubble tea vendors have popped up recently.

Last week, Jenny and I, went to Bubbleology to try it out. We expected a cold tea with bubbles bursting of flavour, and were actually slightly disappointed.

There were two types of tea to choose from; milky or fruity, with lot’s of different flavours like mango, strawberry, caramel, chocolate… The same type of bubbles were added to the teas if one didn’t request any of the special ones at the counter. We tried the regular thing, one mango and one passionfruit and were sorry to discover that the tapioca bubbles (more like a chewy ball actually) were quite slimy and didn’t taste much.

I loved the big straws though, which easily carried the bubbles (boba, I’ve been told they’re called) to your mouth. But after having enjoyed half the tea, we were a bit bored of the bubbles. Not even the tea on it’s own was that nice, it tasted more like squash with a bitter tea-after taste.

However, it was fun to try, and checking out all the Asians drinking the milky versions, we felt that maybe we could give it another go.

To learn more on bubble teas, have a look here.

Friday food

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Staying in the summer house means no internet, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make, so instead of the usual Friday update I will show you what we like to nibble on on Fridays.

We really enjoy nibbles, but for dinner they need to be quite substantial. Pork rillette with pickled onions and cornichons is good, together with some nice crusted bread. And chakuterie; parma ham filled with a mixture of cream cheese and chopped sunblush tomatoes (it’s lovely!), chorizo and saucisson. We also shared a baked camembert, which is pure heaven. Adding onto the French theme we also had some proper French butter with sea salt crystals. Together with chilli mayo and crema di balsamico this was a lovely meal.

Homemade frozen yoghurt

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I have almost become obsessed with the healthier alternative to icecram – frozen yoghurt or the shorter – fro-yo. But I think it is wrong that it costs more than icecream to buy it, and decided to try and make it myself. At the office.

It was very easy to make, and it tasted just like the real thing, only downside is that it doesn’t freeze that well, it gets too hard.

But luckily (?) there are other fro-yo obsessed people in my office, and they were happy to help me eat it.

I only added agave nectar to the yoghurt for that nice tart taste, and that is what chains like Snog use as well.

Frozen yoghurt, 1 l

2 x 500 g greek style yoghurt, 10 % fat

100 ml agave or to your taste

Mix yoghurt and agave in a bowl. Taste and add more if you like. The frozen product is slightly more tart the before it is frozen, so add a bit more agave than you think is needed. Pour into an icecream maker and  let it do its magic for around 40 mins. Enjoy straiht away.