I really like Nigella. Even though she loves to eat in bed (I prefer a proper table) and has a spoon in her dressing gown pocket. 🙂
Most of her recipes are really good, especially her cookbook Nigella Express is perfekt for weekdays when you’re in a rush. This recipe, where you marinate the meat after cooking it, than before, comes from that cookbook.
Do you like Nigella?
A slightly out of focus photo of my new Le Creuset dish, in the colour Granite. Love it!
Steak slice med citron och timjan, serves 2
300 g rump steak (preferrably thick)
2 cloves of garlic, smashed up
1/2 lemon, zest and juice
1 tsp salt
black pepper
40 ml olive oil
3 stalks of thyme, just the leaves
Cut the fat off the meat and fry it in olive oil a couple of minutes (2-3 mins) on each side. Meanwhile mix the ingredients for the marinade. Put the meat in a dish and marinate each side for 4-5 minutes. Slice it into small pieces and put it back in the dish and serve it. A potato gratin and broccoli are good accompaniments.
I was incredibly proud of myself on Sunday! I made poussins for the first time and they were (if I may say so myself) delicious! The meat was tender and very moist and the flavours from the seasoning really came through. Then the roast potatoes (first time as well) were perfect, the parsnips lovely and the creamy gravy the last addition to a perfect meal. Both Chris and I were quiet, concentrating on the food. 🙂 Try this!! Promise!
All prepped!Don't they look pretty?!
Poussins with rosemary and lemon, serves 2
2 poussins
100 g softened butter
parsley, finely chopped (or Gourmet Garden works here)
1 glove garlic, pressed
1 lemon, the zest
2 rosemary sprigs
1 clove garlic, cut into four
salt and pepper
olive oil
Make a cut in the skin above the breasts on each poussin, along the whole breast, so you have a pocket. Mix the softened butter with lemon zest, pressed garlic, parsley and salt and pepper. Divide it into four and fill the pockets on the birds. Next put a piece of garlic in each pocket and divide the rosemary sprigs and put them into the pockets too. Season with salt and pepper all around. Heat up some olive oil in an oven proof frying pan (no plastic handles) and fry the birds for circa 3 minutes on each side, on medium-high heat, or until the poussins have a lovely colour. Next pop the frying pan in a 200 C oven for 150-20 minutes, depending on the size. Make sure the meat is cooked through by making a cut by the leg, you want cooked meat and clear juices. Enjoy!
I served it with roast potatoes, roast parsnips (parsnips, olive oil, salt and white pepper and some fresh rosemary, 30-40 mins, 200C) and a creamy gravy (creme fraiche and cream, soy, colouring soy, chicken stock, rowanberry jelly to taste) with some of the cooking juices from the poussins. Sooo good!
I have spent two nights in Southampton with my dear friend Gaby, relaxing, gossiping, shopping, eating and talking about food. It has been a few really nice days and she has spoiled me tremendously. On Thursday evening she cooked herb crusted rack of lamb with Potatoes Boulangère. The recipes are Gordon Ramsay’s from the F word, and it was delicious!
Yesterday we had a lovely day in Winchester, looking in shops, having a lovely Croque Monsiuer for lunch, and cakes in the afternoon and in the evening we had cheese, charkuteries and bread followed by Gaby’s apple crumble.
After you’ve made these, I promise you won’t long after the IKEA ones anymore, but theseinstead. So very humble of me, but there is a vast difference between homemade and store-bought meatballs. I made meatballs from a kilo of mince yesterday and Christopher made the comment that I made meatballs to last us for 3 days. Boy, was he wrong! After Nick, our dinner guest, Christopher and myself had eaten there were seven left. Out of 45. And we had a starter…
I have also added a new category; Typically Swedish, if you’re curious about Swedish cuisine.
Swedish meatballs, about 45
500 g beef mince
500 g pork mince
2 eggs
200 ml plain breadcrumbs
1 large onion, finely chopped
salt, white pepper
Crack the eggs into a bowl and break them up, add salt (more than you think), pepper and breadcrumbs. Leave it for a couple of minutes to swell. If the mixture seems very firm, add 1-2 tbsp water and stir it in. Next add the chopped onion and the mince. Make sure you incorporate it well, the mince has to mix as well as mixing it with the breadcrumbs. This is easiest done with a wooden spoon. When it is all incorporated, roll the mixture into balls, either small (1,5 cm in diameter) or larger(3 cm in diameter). In my family we make larger ones most of the time, and the small ones for holidays. Dip your fingers into a bowl of cold water in between rolling each ball, it makes it easier to roll. Fry them in butter on medium-high heat at first, until they are nice and crisp and brown on the outside, then turn the heat down to medium-low and let them cook through. Roll them around a lot as not to burn them, and check if they are cooked through, by cutting one in half. Serve with boiled potatoes, carrots, a creamy gravy and a nice jelly (I had rowanberry) or lingonberry jam.
You easily make a creamy gravy by heating up single cream, adding beef stock, salt, pepper, soy sauce, a tsp rowanberry jelly or other jelly and colour it darker with a colouring soy sauce (you can get this from a Swedish shop, and possibly Ikea food) or try and darken it with as much regular soy sauce (a dark one) as the taste permits.
An easy and tasty everyday dinner are these tasty greek lamb scewers with tzatziki, a simple sallad and toasted pittas. The meat doesn’t need to mariande for more than 20 minutes, so it is easily done when you get home from work, or why not put the meat in the marinade in the morning and it’s all ready to get cooking when you get home from work?!
Use a very hot pan The tzatzikiYum!
Souvlaki, serves 2
400 g lamb
oilve oil
soy sauce
1/2 lemon, juice from
2 cloves garlic, pressed
3-4 tsp oregano
salt
black pepper
Cut the fat off the meat and cut it into cubes. Put the meat in a bowl and pour the ingredients for the marinade over it (more oil than soy), stir, cover with cling film and put in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
Put the meat onto scewers and fry in olive oil in a very hot pan until the meat is cooked through and they have a lovely colour. It would work even better on a grill pan or on the barbecue.
Tzatziki, serves 2
300 ml strained greek yoghurt
5 cm cucumber
2 small or 1 large cloves of garlic
salt
white pepper
Pour the yoghurt into a bowl. Grate the cucumber coarsely, and squeeze it to drain from water. Add the drained cucumber to the yoghurt, add the pressed garlic, salt and pepper. The garlic flavour will become stronger after a while, so leave it for 10 minutes or so until you taste it and add more garlic if needed. Pour over a little olive oil before serving.
I made a simple salad of cucumber cubes, thin slices of red onions, olive oil and lemon juice to serve with this, but make any salad you like and maybe add some feta. Serve with toasted pitta bread.
How many of you have seen the film Julie and Julia? As soon as I finished watching the film I just had to buy the cookbook at Amazon. I have read it and love it, but most recipes are time consuming and not everyday dinners perhaps. At least not for me when I come home grumpy and need something quick. But yesterday, I had a whole day to cook, and I thought it was a perfect opportunity to start autumn in my kitchen, with a nice stew. Even though I worship the sun, I am actually longing for the autumn. I want it to be a few degrees cooler so I can start wearing autumn clothes, and enjoy the season as the trees drop their leaves. Instead it is 18 degrees and the flat is roasting when I have the oven on for more or less a whole day. Supper, however, was delightful! It was exactly so delicious I had pictured it in my head, and that is usually quite difficult to live up too.
I converted the recipe to metric and centigrade and divided it by three to serve two.
The cookbook!The finished casseroleBoeuf bourguignon with roast potatoes
Julia Child’s Boeuf bourguignon, serves 2
60 g streaky bacon
olive oil
450 g stewing steak, cut into cubes
1 small carrot, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
salt & black pepper
10 g plain flour
230 ml red wine (Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone, Burgundy, Chianti)
130 ml beef stock
2 tsp tomato paste
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/4-1/2 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
6 small onions (such as shallots)
150 g button mushrooms
Cut the bacon into lardons. Simmer rind and bacon for 10 minutes in water. Drain and dry. Preheat oven to 230C.
In the casserole dish, sauté the bacon in oil over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Leave casserole aside. Reheat until fat is almost smoking before you sauté the beef.
Dry the beef; it will not brown if it is damp. Sauté it, a few pieces at the time, in the hot oil and bacon fat until nicely brown on all sides. Add it to the bacon.
In the same fat, brown the sliced carrot and onion. Pour out the sautéing fat. Return the beef and the bacon to the casserole and toss with salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Place casserole uncovered in the middle position of preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to oven for 4 minutes more. (This browns the flour and covers the meat with a light crust.) Remove casserole, and turn oven down to 165C.
Stir in the wine, and enough stock so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic and herbs. Bring to a simmering point on top of the stove. Then cover the casserole and place in lower part of the preheated oven. Regulate heat so that liquid simmers very slowly for 3 to 4 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.
While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms. Leave them aside until needed.
Put butter and oil in a frying pan and wsit for it to get bubbling, then add the onions and sauté over a moderate heat for about 10 minutes, rolling the onions about so that they brown as evenly as possible. Be careful not to break their skins. You cannot to expect to brown them uniformly.
Then pour in 100 ml or so of beef stock and a small bay leaft, some parsley sprigs and a little thyme. Cover and simmer slowly for 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but retain their shape, and the liquid has evaporated.
Place a frying pan over a high heat with some butter and oil. As soon as you see that the butter foam hasbegun to subside, indicating that it is hot enough, add the mushrooms (washed, well dried, left whole if small, sliced or quartered if large). Toss and shake the pan for 4 to 5 minutes. During this the mushrooms will first absorb the fat. In 2 to 3 minutes the fat will reappear on their surface, and the mushrooms will begin to brown. As soon as they have browned lightly, remove from the heat.
When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve placed over a saucepan. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms over the meat.
Skim fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two, skimming off additional fat as it rises (I didn’t need to do this). The sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If too thin, boil it down rapidly. if too thick, mix in a few tablesppons of stock. Taste carefully for seasoning. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables.
Cover the casserole and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times. Serve in its casserole, or arrange on a dish surrounded with potatoes, noodles or rice, decorated with parsley.
Tradionally, boiled potatoes are served with boeuf borguignon but we chose to serve it with roast potatoes, and it was perfect. The middle of the potatoes are a bit liked boiled potatoes, but the outsides are nice and crisp.
I have never roasted potatoes this way, but it seems to be the common way of roasting potatoes for a Sunday roast.
Roast potatoes
Peel potatoes and either leave them whole or cut in half, or if exceptionally big potatoes, cut in quarters. You want quite big pieces. Boil the potatoes nearly done, for 15 minutes or so. Place on a hot roasting dish and coat them lightly with either vegetable oil or (even better) goose fat. Roast in 200C for about 40 minutes.
We roasted them for 30 minutes or so on the same temperature as the casserole, 165C and then turned it up to 200C when I was thinning/thickening the sauce and roasted them for another 20 minutes. It works fine to heat up the vegetables in the casserole on this temperature for a few minutes.
I’ve wanted to try this recipe for a while, and finally got around to it on Sunday, but I exchanged the beef for lamb. For once I actually followed the recipes but I was slightly disappointed. I think I just require more flavours in my cooking to be satisfied. But on paper it is a good idea, so I am sure I will modify it and make it more flavoursome! Stay tuned… The lamb however was really good!
Shoulder of lamb with root vegetable hash and parsnip puree, 2 portions
Half shoulder of lamb
olive oil
salt & black pepper
1 packet fresh rosemary
3 small parsnips
butter, softened
cream
root vegetables (I chose potato, carrot, celeriac and swede)
rye bread
Rub the lamb in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Make small cuts in the meat and stick the rosemary into the meat. Add some garlic too if you like, I had ran out. Place the meat in a oven dish and cover with tin foil, place in 180 C oven for about 2 hours. After 1,5 hours, start cooking the trimmings.
Crumble the bread onto a hot but dry pan and make it crispy (I think it will be nicer to fry it crispy in butter though), leave for now. Peel the parsnips and cut them into pieces, place in a pan and cover with water, cook until soft. Peel the vegetables and cut them into small cubes, feel free to chop an onion too, try it all in butter until soft, season with plenty of salt and perhaps some herbs. Drain the parsnips and mix with butter and cream, season. Take the meat out of the oven when it is ready, it should be very tender at the ends. Leave to rest in the tin foil for about 10 minutes until serving. Serve with the trimmings, and sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the puree.
Sometimes I’m in the mood for really greasy food. It usually occurs when I’ve had lots of wine to drink the night before… strange isn’t it?! This happened to me on Friday, all I could think about was comfort food with melted cheese. So instead of getting a way too greasy take away I made my own junk food, and it hit the spot. 🙂
Schnitzel burger with potato wedges, 2 portions
2 pork escalopes
100 ml natural breadcrumbs
2 eggs
2 seeded large burger buns
2 slices plastic cheese
Swedish pickled red pepper
6 large Maris Piper potatoes
olive oil
Cajun spice
Start by cutting the potatoes into wedges. I kept the skin on. Then pour some olive oil onto a roasting dish, place the potatoes in it and pour over a little bit more oil, then season with the Cajun spice and flip them around a bit so that all wedges are coated in oil and seasoning. Place in an 175-200 degree oven (depending on the oven) for about 40 minutes, Check on them a few times and flip them around a bit. When they have been in the oven for 30 minutes or so and have started to soften, it is time to start cooking the meat. Beat the eggs in a bowl and dip the pork in the beaten eggs, then coat it in breadcrumbs. Fry in butter in a frying pan until the meat is cooked through and the outside is crisp. Place a slice of plastic cheese on each schnitzel and let it melt. Toast the burger buns and serve with the pickled sliced peppers (I use a Swedish pepper salad, but you can buy pickled peppers here and just slice them). Some ketchup and mayo is perfect to dip the spicy wedges in. Yum!
Last night we had the first homecooked meal by me for a while. While in Sweden we happily let my mother cook for us or went out for food. But I do enjoy to cook even on weekdays, especially when the result turns out this good. A different take on the classic chicken cordon bleu.
Turkey schnitzel with mozzarella and bacon, 2 portions
4 turkey escalopes
2 slices smoked streaky bacon
4 slices buffalo mozzarella
2 eggs
breadcrumbs
butter
salt and pepper
Fry the bacon slightly crispy. On two of the escalopes, place two slices of mozzarella, put a slice of bacon each on top and put the remaining escalopes on top of that, so the cheese and bacon is sealed in the middle.
Beat the eggs in a bowl. Place the breadcrumbs in another bowl. First dip the escalopes in the beaten eggs, then in the crumbs so they are properly coated all around. Next melt some butter in a skillet and fry the escalopes until they are crispy on the outside and cooked all the way through. Tastes great together with a creamy potato mash.
I like to cook from scratch and take pride in it, but sometimes there just isn’t enough time. When I get hungry I get really grumpy, so it’s best to get food on the table quickly. In situations like this, this is how I do it. Even though it is cheating, it tastes much nicer than a tomato sauce from a jar.
Quick (but tasty) bolognese, 4 portions
500 grams minced beef
1/2 packet smoked streaky bacon
1 can sliced mushrooms (or fresh button mushrooms)
1 can plum tomatoes (400 g)
3 tbsp creme fraiche
beef stock
1-2 tbsp Reggae Reggae sauce
a splash of Tabasco
1 tbsp chili sauce (or ketchup)
1 tbsp italian herb seasoning
1 clove of garlic, pressed
salt and pepper
Start by frying the mushrooms golden in butter, then pour over to a bowl. In the same skillet fry the bacon crispy, remove to the same bowl as the mushrooms. Fry the mince in the same pan, when done add the mushrooms and bacon, pour in the tomatoes and creme fraiche and season to taste with garlic, stock, salt and pepper and spices. Let it all cook for a few minutes. Serve with spaghetti and grated parmesan. Yum!
Scandelights 