Category: Sauce

Wild garlic mayonnaise

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On Friday we had a simple dinner consisting of salad, tigerprawns, bread, nice Swedish cheese (gräddost) and the main act – wild garlic mayo.

I had some wild garlic left that I needed to use up and although I knew I wouldn’t be able to re-create the amazing wild garlic mayo I had at Trinity, I still had to give it a go. And it was delicious! Of course not playing in the same league as Trinity but for being homemade on the first attempt, it was pretty awesome! Especially the next day when the flavours had evolved even more.

Because of this lovely mayo we enjoyed the same starter both Saturday and Sunday (and I would happily eat it once a day for the rest of my life); green asparagus with wild garlic mayo, parmesan, extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Delicious!

Wild garlic mayonnaise

6-7 wild garlic leaves

200 ml vegetable oil, maybe more

2 egg yolks

1,5 tsp dijon mustard

salt

white pepper

Mix the oil with the wild garlic until you have a smooth green oil. In a separate bowl, mix egg yolks, mustard abd seasoning. Start whisking with an electric whisk while adding the green oil bit by bit. If you want the mayonnaise to be even thicker, add plain oil while whisking. I noticed that the mayonnaise was slightly thinner the next da.

Asparagus with wild garlic mayonnaise and parmesan, serves 2

8 sparagus stems

wild garlic mayonnaise

parmigiano reggiano or other matured parmesan

extra virgin olive oil

Maldon sea salt

Break the ends of the asparagus, where it breaks naturally. Steam in salted water for 4-5 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. 

Ottolenghi’s sweet potato wedges with lemongrass creme fraiche

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Another recipe from the wonderful cookvook Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. This book is a good influence on me, I am eating more vegs than ever before. And I certainly needed someone to introduce vegetables in a fun way to me.

The combination of sweet potato and fresh lemongrass and the sharpness from the ginger really works. A marriage of flavours.

Simple, but yet so good.

Ottolenghi’s sweet potato wedges with lemongrass creme fraiche

900 g sweet potatoes

salt

ground coriander

Sauce:

200g creme fraiche

1/2 lemongrass

50 g grated fresh ginger

juice and zest from 2 limes

salt

For serving:

finely sliced red chilli

chopped fresh coriander

Wash the sweet potatoes but do not peel them. Cut every potato in 8 wedges. Cover an oven tray with baking parchment and brush with oolive oil. Add the sweet potatoes and brush them too with olive oil. Sprinkle salt and ground coriander on top. Bake in a preheated oven on 210C for 25 minutes.

Chop the lemongrass very finely and mix with the other ingredients for the sauce. Let it mull while the sweet potatoes cook. When serving sprinkle chilli and coriander on the sweet potatoes. Serve with the sauce on the side.

Ottolengi’s leek fritters

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I love the weather here in London at the moment; it is around 20C, bright sunshine and clear blue sky. Only downside is the hay fever that comes with it (stupid plane trees!) but I love it anyway.

And when it is warmer temperatures I crave lighter food. More vegetarian dishes, fish and less heavy meat (even though I would never say no to a rare steak) and a perfect cookbook for inspiration is Ottolengi’s Plenty. I heart Plenty. After just cooking one recipe from it.

These leek fritters blew us away and although they generate quite a bit of washing up, they are worth the effort. The combination of spices works sooo well together and the garlic strong sauce with coriander and lemon is perfect to go with it. Yotam Ottolenghi sure knows what he is doing! Try this or regret it forever…

Leek fritters, serves 4

450 g leeks, trimmed

5 shallots, finely chopped

150 ml olive oil

1 red chilli, deseeded and sliced

25 g parsley, finely chopped

3/4 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

1/4 ground cinnamon

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg white

120 g self-raising flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 egg

150 ml milk

55 g unsalted butter, melted

Sauce:

100 g Greek yoghurt

100 g soured cream

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

20 g parsley

30 g coriander

Start by making the sauce. Blitz all the ingredients together in a food processor [or with a stick blender] until a uniform green. Set aside for later.

Cut the leeks into 2 cm thick slices, rinse and drain dry. Sauté the leeks and shallots in a pan with half the oil on a medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until soft. Transfer to a large bowl and add the chilli, spices, sugar and salt. Allow to cool down.

Whisk the egg white to soft peaks and fold it into the vegetables. In another bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, whole egg, milk and butter to form a batter. Gently mix it into the egg white and vegetable mixture.

Put 2 tbsp of the remaining oil in a large frying pan and place over a medium heat. Spoon about half the vegetable mixture into the pan to make four large fritters. Fry them for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until golden and crisp. Remove to kitchen paper and keep warm. Continue making the fritters, adding more oil as needed. You should end up with about eight large fritters. Serve warm, with the sauce on the side or drizzled over.

Rainbow trout with parsley potatoes, baked beetroots and hollandaise

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I like buying fresh fish, and a reasonably priced fish here in the UK is the rainbow trout. I buy most my groceries from Ocado, and trough them you can buy fresh fish prepared on the day by their fishmonger. Perfect! I love the trout fillets with the skin on, I think they taste great but they are also easier to cook. I just panfried the fillets and served them with ovenbaked beetroots, summery potatoes with parsley and a deep yellow hollandaise. I have started to buy freerange eggs from a friend of a friend’s farm, and they have a deep yellow yolk. Best eggs ever!

Rainbow trout with parsley potatoes, baked beetroots and hollandaise sauce, serves 2

2 rainbow trout fillets with the skin on

persillade

5-6 potatoes (Maris piper)

a knob of butter

2 tbsp chopped parsley

2 fresh beetroots

olive oil

Sauce:

2 egg yolks

100 g salted butter

1 lime

1 tsp vinegar

salt, white pepper

Peel the beetroots and cut into wedges. Place in an ovenproof dish, add olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake for 1hr in 200C or until soft. Peel the potatoes and cut into 2-3 mm thick slices. Rince, put in a pan and cover with water. Add salt. Bring to the boil. Drain. Place in an oven tray, add dollops of butter (approx 2 tbsp) and chopped parsley. Bake until soft and golden, 200C, about 30 mins.  

Melt the butter and leave to cool a little. Mix vinegar, lime juice and egg yolks in a sauce pan.

Fry the trout fillets skinside down in oil/butter until the meat around the sides seems cooked. Turn over and fry on the other side for a few minutes. Place skinside down again. Sprinkle persillade on top and squirt some lime juice. Turn off the heat.

Skala rödbetorna och skär i klyftor. Lägg i en form, häll på olivolja, salt och peppar. Baka 1h 200 grader. Skala potatisen och skär i 2-3 mm tjocka skivor. Skölj, lägg i en kastrull, täck precis med vatten, salta. Koka upp. Häll av vattnet. Fördela i en form. Klicka över smör (ca 2 msk) och strö över persilja. Baka tills mjuka och gyllene, 200 grader ca 30 minuter.

Smält smöret och låt svalna lite. Blanda vinäger, limesaft och äggulor i en kastrull.

Stek forellfiléerna med skinnsidan neråt i olja/smör tills kanterna ser genomstekta ut, vänd och stek andra sidan. Vänd igen, pressa över lite limejuice och strö å lite persillade och vitpeppar. Turn off the heat.

Put the sauce pan in a double boiler or on a very small flame. Whisk while adding the butter little by little until it is all incorporated. Be careful not to get the sauce too hot, and don’t stop beating as the sauce might split. Season with salt and pepper. 

Rick Stein’s pan-fried rabbit with tarragon sauce

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Back to our dinner last Saturday… Christopher cooked the main course and it was a Rick Stein recipe for pan-fried rabbit in tarragon sauce. Delicious!

Even though I grew up in the countryside and have seen both headless chickens and freshly killed game, I didn’t particular like the look of a dead, skinned rabbit, so I won’t show you any photos of that. Christopher bought a whole rabbit at the butchers and then cut it into pieces the way it was described in the recipe. The head and the legs were roasted in the oven to then make the base for a lovely stock, that was the main ingredient with the sauce, and the meat were cut into smaller pieces and pan-fried.

We had Hasselback potatoes with sesame seeds, wilted spinach and baked parsnips with the mat and sauce and it worked very well together.

The rabbit weighed about 1,5 kilos and that was just about enough for the six of us because we had so many other courses, but I would recommend that sized rabbit for four people.

Pan-fried rabbit with tarragon sauce, serves 4

1 x 1.5 kg rabbit

150 g carrots, coarsely chopped

2 medium onions, coarsely chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

150 ml dry white wine

500 ml chicken stock

10 g sprig of tarragon

Bouquet garni made from 1 celery stick, 2 bay leaves and some parsley stalks

20 g clarified butter

15 g chilled butter, cut into small pieces

salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 230C. To joint the rabbit, first remove the head, and then cut off the back legs from either side of the tail. Cut off the tail, and then the front legs. Trim away the bony ends of each leg, and the belly flap and ribcage from the body, then cut the remaining saddle across into 4 evenly sized pieces.

Put the trimmings from the rabbit into a lightly oiled roasting tin and roast for 25 minutes. Sprinkle over the carrot, onion and garlic and roast for a further 15 minutes. Then remove the tin from the oven and place over a medium-high heat. Add the white wine and bring to the boil, rubbing the base of the tin with a wooden spoon to release all the caramelized juices. Simmer for a couple of a minutes, then transfer to a everything to a saucepan and add the chicken stock. Strip the leaves from the sprigs of tarragon, coarsely chop and set aside. Add the stalks to the pan with the bouquet garni, bring to the boil, then reduce to a very gentle simmer and cook for 1 1/4 hours (covered). Strain through a sieve into a clean pan, bring back to the boil and boil rapidly until reduced by about half. Set aside.

Season the pieces of rabbit with salt and pepper. Heat the clarified butter in a large frying pan, add the rabbit and fry for 5 minutes until the pieces are evenly browned all over. Cover, lower the heat and continue to fry gently for a further 20 minutes until cooked through.

Lift the rabbit onto a large warmed serving platter, cover and keep warm. Pour away any excess fat from the pan, add the rabbit stock and boil until reduced to a well-flavoured sauce. Whisk in the chilled butter, a few pieces at a time, together with the tarragon leaves and some salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the sauce back over the rabbit and serve.

 

Lobster stock

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I’m trying to get better at not wasting food. I am actually pretty good, but there is always room for improvement.

So I saved the lobster shells from NYE to make stock wihich I then reduced and froze as ice cubes. I also made stock from the wild ducks, which I reduced even more and froze as well, but I was exceedingly clumsy and dropped the tray and lost half of the stock. The same evening I also broke a china bowl. 😦

Lobster stock

the shell from two lobsters

1 large carrot

1/3 fennel

1 onion

some peppercorns

1 tbsp tomato paste

a few sprigs of parsley

1 garlic clove

olive oil

Rinse the shells thoroughly. Cut into smaller pieces. Fry with the vegetables in olive oil to get more flavours out. Cover with water.  Add the spices, herbs and tomato paste. Bring to a boil and continue to cook until about half the water remains. Strain and pour back into the pan. Add some salt and reduce until you have the concentration you would like. Leave to cool. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze. Put the cubes into a freezer bag and keep in the freezer.  

NYE 2010 – the main course

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When I went home to Sweden for Christmas, my parents gave me three wild ducks to take back with me to London. Thank you! And it worked out really well to bring them back in the suitcase. They were frozen and wrapped in plastic and newspapers and hadn’t defrosted one bit by the time I got home. So these treasures became our main course on New Year’s Eve. First I browned them all around and then I put them in the oven together with fresh thyme, juniper berries and port. The meat juices went into a simple sauce together with cream and I served Hasselback potatoes, small carrots and a chicory gratin with it.

Wild duck with port and thyme, serves 4 

3 wild ducks with the breasts on the body (I didn’t use the thighs)

olive oil

butter

100 ml port

fresh thymr

some juniper berries

Brown the ducks on all sides in butter and oil. Add salt and pepper. Pour over the port, add some juniper berries and some sprigs of thyme. Put a meat thermometer in the middle of the thickest part of the bird. Put the frying pan in the oven (make sure you use one without plastic handles) in 200C until the mat has an inner temperature of 62 degrees. Let the meat rest in tin foil while you get on with the sauce.

Carv the meat into slices before serving. I don’t know much (if anything about carving) but it seemed easiest to cut the around the breasts to loosen them from the body and then slice them up.

Creamy sauce, serves 4

the meat juices

300 ml cream

150 ml milk

maizena or other thickening granules

a splash of port

concentrated game stock

salt

white pepper

The meat juices tasted fabulous so you don’t need to add much to make a seriously nice sauce. Pour the meat juices through a sieve and into a sauce pan. Add milk, cream, maizena and bring to a boil. Season to tast with port, salt, pepper and stock.

Chichory gratin

chicory

single cream

salt

pepper

grated gruyére cheese

Wash the chicory. Cut off the stems. Put in a pan and cover with water for 1 hour to remove the bitter taste. Drain. Put back in the pan and cover with cream. Bring to a boil and cook on low heat until soft. Pour this into an oven dish. Add salt, pepper and cheese.  Bake in 200C until golden brown on the top.

NYE 2010 – the starter

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NYE was a great night. I finished work already at noon, went to pick up my lobsters and to do some last minute food shopping. The whole tube ride home from London bridge (I bought the lobsters at Borough Market) I was scared that one of the lobsters would poke it’s claws through the bag or start wiggling the bag and be noisy. Thankfully they both behaved! I then had trouble to fit them one at the time into my 5 l pot, they were huge!

They were so tasty though! I cooked them in salty water for 7-8 minutes and then let them cool down in cold water. I served them gratinated in garlic butter and parsley with nice crusty bread, a lemon wedge and homemade aioli. Simple but delicious!

Gratinated lobster with garlic and parsley, serves 4

2 cooked lobsters

4 tbsp soft salted butter

1 garlic clove, pressed

chopped parsley

4 lemon wedges to serve

Cut the lobsters lengthways in half. (My best tip is to use boning scissors. With those I managed to get the meat from the claws out in one piece too.) Remove the arms and claws. Take away everything but the meat in the shells and rinse. Mix the soft butter with the pressed garlic and spread over the meat in the shells. Scatter parsley on top. Bake for 10 mins in 200C oven. Sprinkle some more parsley on top before serving. Serve with one whole plain claw on the side, a wedge of lemon and crusty bread and aioli.

Aioli

2 egg yolks

2 tsp dijon mustard

1,5 tsp white wine vinegar

some salt

some white pepper

3 tbsp cold pressed rapeseed oil

250 ml regular rapeseed/vegetable oil

1 clove garlic, pressed

Mix the yolks with mustard, salt, pepper and vinegar in a tall bowl. Add the whisk to the stick blender and pour the oils in a gentle stream while whisking. Add the garlic and maybe some more salt.

Venison steak with juniper berries and red wine

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I’m staying with my parents in the Swedish countryside. It is lovely with the picturesque snow covered view and my mother makes the house so Christmassy the days leading up to Christmas.

My parents have a freezer full of game most of the time as well, and I love this. On Saturday mum made venison steak with juniper berries and red wine and I showed her how to make English roast potatoes, which my dad loved. Great teamwork and lovely food, but you might have guessed that already? 🙂

Venison steak with juniper berries and red wine, serves 3

500 g thick slices of venison steak (we had fallow deer)

butter and olive oil

a few juniper berries

a lage splash of red wine

Sear the meat in a frying pan with the oil and butter. Season with salt and pepper and the juniper berries. Pour in the wine and put the lid on. 5 minutes later remove the meat and let it rest. Slice it before serving and it will be nice and pink.

Sauce

butter

sauce flour

the meat juices

salt & pepper

concentrated game stock

cream

Make a roux with butter and flour. Add cream and the meat juices. Bring to a boil and add stock, salt and pepper.

Cider chicken with creamy sauce and gratinated butternut squash

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Last Monday the supper was a proper bull’s eye. I love when everything comes together like it was meant to be. We had a bottle of cider open from the night before and needed to use it up. I had defrosted some chicken thighs and had to do something with the butternut squash in the fridge, it needed to be eaten.

Chicken thighs are very tender as it is the darker meat on the chicken, but cooked like this it became even more tender. Lovely. The sauce which I used the cider for as well was just the perfect balance of creamy and comforting, sweet from the chilli sauce, sour from the cider and with a punch from the dijon. And the butternut squash. I could not have predicted how nice this would be. If I could, then I would have made this sooner, that’s for sure. The squash becomes very sweet and mushy when baked in the oven I wanted something fresh to contrast that, and it seemed like garlic, parsley, spring onions and parmesan was just the perfect combo. I will make this again and again and could eat half a butternut squash like this with some bread for lunch. Yu-um is all I can say. 🙂 Try this, ok??

I just served the pumpkin cut into large pieces. Very rustic. 🙂

Start with the butternut squash and then put some potato wedges in the oven, continue with the chicken and lastly the sauce. Most of it will take care of it self in the oven, so even though it seems like lots of ingredients and a few steps, it is very simple.

Cider chicken with creamy sauce and gratinated butternut squash, serves 2

The chicken:

2 chicken thighs with the skin on

olive oil

salt

white pepper

Persillade

dry cider

The sauce:

dry cider

the juice from the chicken

a splash of concentrated stock (vegetable or chicken)

2 tsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp Heinz chilli sauce, or similar

300 ml single cream

persillade

white pepper

salt

The butternut squash:

1/2 butternut squash

olive oil

salt

white pepper

1 clove of garlic, pressed

chopped fresh parsley

2 spring onions, chopped

grated parmesan

The squash: Wash the squash and cut it lengthways in half.  Take away the seeds and membranes. Put in a dish, pour over some oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for about 45 minutes or until soft in 200C. Chop spring onion and parsley and mix with the garlic. Sprnkle this on top of the butternut squash and add plenty of grated parmesan. Bake for another 10 minutes. 

The chicken: Heat up olive oil in a frying pan that you can use in the oven later (no plastic handles that could melt) and sear the chicken all around until nice and golden. Season with salt, pepper and persillade. Pour in 2 cm of the cider and put the frying pan in the oven, 200C for 25-30 minutes. Check that the meat is cooked through. When done, wrap the meat in tin foil and let it rest while you make the sauce.

The sauce: Pour the juices from the frying pan into a sauce pan (or use the same frying pan if the cider hasn’t burned), add some more cider (about 100 ml) and let it reduce a little. Add cream, mustard and chilli sauce, and season add stock, perisllade, salt and pepper after taste. Bring to a boil and let it cook for a few minutes to thicken and for the flavours to develop.

Serve with potato wedges and maybe some steamed broccoli.