Category: Sauce

Short-cuts

Published on by Hanna5 Comments

I really like eating out at gourmet places where they have food I just can’t cook myself, and I dislike readymeals and want to cook everything from scratch as a principal. Sometimes though, I take shortcuts, and it is really nice to do so once in a while on a cold and dark November evening when you are just not in the mood to cook.

For this meal I used a readymade glaze (Newman’s own) and made some myself (reggae reggae sauce, worchestershire sauce, Heinz chilli sauce, English mustard, brown sugar, salt and black pepper) for the ribs. I used a Cajun spice blend for the potato wedges and I bought coleslaw and garlic bread readymade in M&S. And worst of all, I served a dipmix + creme fraiche with it. A Swedish dipmix called Holiday, that I really like with things like this, or crisps.

This is hardly called cooking, the oven does it for you, so this is what I did: Turn the oven on 200C. Put the rack of baby back ribs in a dish and brush the glaze on to it. Put it bone-side up and cook for 30 minutes. Wash potatoes but keep the skin on, cut into wedges and coat with olive oil and cajun spices, put underneath the meat in the oven. After 30 minutes, take out the ribs and turn the rack, brush on some more glaze. Put back in for 30 minutes. When 10 minutes is remaining, put the garlic bread in. Serve with coleslaw and dip/sauce. Done.

Venison steak with perfect roast potatoes and port sauce

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Christopher’s birthday last year was on a Saturday, and the poor thing had to work all day, until 8pm. I felt very sorry for him, so I tried to make the most of it when he came home. After a trip to Borough Market I cooked up a feast consisting of Jerusalem artichoke soup with fried scallops, cream-baked pheasant with Hasselback potatoes and a nice cake with sponge, lemoncurd and elderflower cream.

Mmm, bacon...
One and a half hours later. Yum!

Of course I had to try and top that this year, and I actually managed to do it. I don’t know why, but I appear to be in good cooking form around his birthday. This year he had the whole weekend off, and with a lunch and party planned for his birthday (Sunday), I cooked us a nice dinner on Saturday instead. As a starter we had yesterday’s post on mushroom toast, and as a maincourse we had a looovely venison steak with thyme and bacon (I found the recipe in a Swedish newspaper), perfect roast potatoes with cepes goose fat (you make cepes confit and use the goose fat that is left over – yum!) and a port sauce. Very good, if I may say so myself! We were both quiet during the meal apart from a few sighs of happiness. Chris said that the roast potatoes were the best he ever had. I curtsey. 🙂

Purrfect potatoes!

We used the leftovers in lunch sandwiches the next day. Best sandwiches ever!

Venison steak with perfect roast potatoes and port sauce, serves 4

800 g – 1 kg venison steak

whole peppercorns

fresh thyme

2 bayleaves

10 slices streaky bacon

some olive oil

Maris Piper potatoes

goose fat

salt

white pepper

a knob of butter

sauce flour

200 ml cream

200 ml milk

2 tbsp port

1-2 tsp rowanberry jelly (or other jelly)

coloring agent

a splash concentrated game stock

the meat juices

salt

white pepper

Smash the peppercorns in a pestle and mortar and mix with fresh thyme leaves. Pat this into the meat and add salt.  Cover the top of the steak with bacon slices, tuck the ends un underneath the meat. Place two bayleaves underneath the bacon. Pour some olive oil into a roasting dish and place the meat on it. Put a steak thermometer into the thickest part of the steak. Put the tray in 150C for 1,5 hours. The inside temperature of the meat should be 70C when you remove the steak from the oven. Cover the meat with tin foil and let it rest for 15-20 minutes before you slice it. 

Meanwhile peel the potatoes and cut them in half if they’re large, boil them for a few minutes in salty water. Drain. Put quite a lot of goose fat onto another roasting treay, put it in the oven to melt. Add the potatoes and make sure they are coated with the fat. Sprinkle over some salt and pepper. Put the tray in the oven, below the venison.  When the venison is cooked, move the potatoes up in the oven and raise the temperature to 200C and let them brown while the meat is resting.

Pour the meat juices through a sieve. Melt a knob of butter in a saucepan on low heat, add flour, whisk around and add, cream and milk. Add some of the meat juice. Bring to a boil while whisking and add port, jelly, stock, salt, white pepper and colouring agent. Taste and maybe add some more meat juice.

Serve with vegetables, i.e. broccoli.

Herb sauce with fish

Published on by Hanna4 Comments

I believe this recipe is from a place where my parents used to buy char. The sauce is fantastic with fish, and in particular char. When I was visiting my parents my mother fried char fillets with the skin on in butter and served it with scallops, fried spring onions, boiled carrots and potatoes. And this sauce. Everything was lovely on its own, but the sauce took this dish to a whole new level. We ate and we ate and had to wait a few hours until we had room for dessert. 🙂

The recipe serves four, but if you are like me and like your sauce, especially with fish, then it is a good idea to make a bit more. It is so wonderful it just disappears.

Herb sauce, serves 4

50 g butter

250 ml creme fraiche

200 ml milk

50 ml dry white wine

1 tsp dijon mustard

concentrated fish stock

3 egg yolks

20 g mixed fresh herbs

1/5 lime, the zest

salt & pepper

Mix all the ingredients apart from the yolks and herbs in a saucepan. Stir until it has boiled for a few minutes. Then add the sauce to the yolks bit by bit until they have soaked up everything. Heat the sauce up so it thickens but it must not boil. Throw in the herbs and serve.

Burgers with potato wedges, parsnips and feta creme

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Beef mince is great weekday food. It is cheap, healthy and very versatile. I often make these burgers served with feta creme and potato wedges instead of in a bun.

Burgers with potato wedges, parsnips and feta creme, serves 2 + a lunch box

Burgers:

500 g beef mince

1 egg

3 tbsp milk 

ca 100 ml breadcrumbs

1,5 tsp sambal oelek

a splash of lemon juice

1 tsp onion granules or 1/2 onion, finely chopped

salt and white pepper

Potatoes and root vegetables:

5 potatoes

3 parsnips

a few carrots

olive oil

rosmary

salt, white pepper

Feta creme:

1/2 packet proper feta

200 ml creme fraiche

a splash of lemon juice

salt, white pepper

Peel the parnsips and perhaps the carrots (I used chantenays so it wasn’t necessary), cut into wedges. Wash the potatoes and cut into wedges as well, put it all in a roasting dish, drizzle over some olive oil and season. Toss and roast in 200C for about 45 minutes. 

Mix all the ingredients for the burgers apart from the mince. Leave it for a few minutes so the breadcrumbs can swell, then mix in the meat. Incorporate thoroughly and shape into burgers. Put them on a plate until needed. When the potatoes have 20 minutes left to cook, fry the burgers in a frying pan in a knob of butter and some oilve oil.

Crumble the feta in a bowl and mush it up with a fork, mix in the creme fraiche, squeeze in some lemon and season with salt and pepper.

I also served some broadbeans with this, sautéed for a few minutes in olive oil with some finely chopped onions, lemon juice and a few chilli flakes.

Swedish meatballs

Published on by Hanna11 Comments

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.

Souvlaki with tzatziki and pitta

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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 tzatziki
Yum!

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.

Eggs Benedict

Published on by Hanna4 Comments

This morning I have learned three new things! How to poach eggs (can’t believe I haven’t done that before), clarify butter and whisk hollandaise away from the heat. It all turned out rather well, thanks to the great guidance from the book Breakfast at the Wolseley, that I got for my birthday. The Wolseley is a great restaurant, which I haven’t yet written about, even though it is one of my favourite places in the whole world. I promise to tell you about it soon!

The Wolseley is the kind of restaurant where you could eat every meal in. Their breakfasts are superb, they’re fully booked for lunch and dinner, and you can pop in for afternoon tea or a light bite at any time of the day.

The book is also amazing, so of course I had to try their recipe for my favourite breakfast – Eggs Benedict. It is not the easiest, quickest breakfast you can make, but it is worth the extra effort. Eggs Benedict are for those days without an agenda, the lazy Sunday mornings that suddenly continues into the afternoon without you realising how much time has passed.

Eggs Benedict, serves 2

4 eggs, for poaching

4  English muffins

4 slices of ham

chopped chives and cayenne pepper (which I didn’t have any, black pepper worked fine too)

Hollandaise sauce:

4 tbsp white-wine vinegar

2 shallots, coarsely chopped

10 peppercorns

175 g butter, cut into cubes

3 egg yolks

juice of 1/2 lemon

salt

Start by making the sauce: put the vinegar, shallots and peppercorns in a pan and boil until it is reduced by two-thirds. Strain the reduction into a glass bowl.

Clarify the butter by melting it in another pan over low heat. Skim the surface until only clear liquid remains. Remove from the heat and let it cool, then carefully pour the butter into a clean bowl, leaving the residue in the pan.

Place a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water. Add the yolks and vinegar reduction and beat with a wire-whisk until it smooth, thick and pale.

Remove from the heat and whisk vigorously adding the butter little by little. Season with salt and lemon juice.

Poach the eggs by simmer water in a large pan, pour in 1-2 spoonfuls of vinegar, this will make the egg form a tight shape in the water. Crack the eggs into cups or mugs and lower them into the water, if you’re only poaching 1-2 at the time, you can swirl the water around to help shape the eggs. Put the lid onto the pan, and leave for three minutes. Then lift the eggs out with a perforated spoon and into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking.

Toast the muffins while the eggs are poaching, spread with butter, place the ham on top and put them on plates. Make a little imprint in the middle of the muffin, for the egg to lie, drain the eggs and put them onto the imprints, spoon the hollandaise over the eggs and sprinkle cayenne pepper and chopped chives over the it (black pepper will do too).

Fish soup with aioli

Published on by Hanna2 Comments

On Saturday I made fish soup for the first time, totally improvised but with my mother’s version in mind (although not knwing the recipe for it). I think I came quite close, and this is exactly how I like my fish soup. Although I should have used better stock! Only had stock cubes at hand and that’s just not good enough. But it was still pretty good, and with the homemade aioli it was even great! 🙂

Fish soup with aioli, 2 portions

For the aioli:

2 eggyolks

2 tsp dijon mustard

a pinch of salt

some white pepper

250 ml coldpressed rapeseed oil

1,5 small cloves of garlic, pressed

For the soup:

3 carrots

1 potato

1 layer of a fennel

150 ml cream

75 ml white wine

500 ml water + stock

1 clove garlic, pressed

1 trout fillet

1 whiting fillet

100 g peeled prawns

some chopped parsley

Start with the aioli: Mix the yolks with the mustard and salt and pepper in a steady bowl. Use an electric whisk to mix the oil, little by little, into the eggs. Using a good rapeseed oil will make the mayonnaise all yellow and pretty, but only give it a slight taste. You can also use a sunflower oil or something similar, but not a strong olive oil, it will give the mayonnaise the wrong flavour. Usually when making mayonnaise you add a little bit of white wine vinagar in the beginning as well, but I happened to all out of vinegar and since I add both the mustard and garlic, it is actually not needed, but when making regular mayo I think a little vinegar would make it even better. Press in the garlic after you have mixed all the oil with the yolks. I thought 1,5 small cloves was absolutely perfect for my taste, but taste your way to your best result. Cover the aioli with clingfilm and put it in the fridge while making the soup.

For the soup, peel the carrots and potatoes and chop them into similar sized pieces, cut one layer of the fennel into matching pieces, put it in a pan and cover with water, throw in some salt and boil until the vegetables are cooked. Then puree them, add cream and wine and water + stock until preferred texture and taste, press in some garlic, season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Then cut the fish into pieces, 1 x 1 inch, place in the soup and cook for a few minutes. Next throw in the prawns so they heat up, lastly sprinkle the parsley on top. Serve immeadiately with a large dollop of aioli in each bowl, some nice crusty bread and a nice chilled wine. Enjoy!

Guacamole

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This is my own version, which I looove. I have to have it with fajitas, tacos or Dorito’s. It might not be an authentic recipe, but it is so good that I don’t really care about that. 🙂

Guacamole, 1-2 portions

1 ripe avocado

2 tbsp creme fraiche or soured cream

1 lime

Worchestershire sauce

Tabasco

salt

white pepper

Cut the avocado in half, scoop out the flesh and mush it up with a fork in a bowl. Then add the creme fraiche and mix it in, squeeze the lime juice in, a few drops of tabasco, slightly more Worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper. That’s it – done.

Hummus

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I like to make my own hummus, it’s not as smooth and creamy as the store-bought ones but much tastier! I use lots of lemon and parsley in mine.

Hummus

1 can (400 grams) chickpeas

olive oil

1 lemon, juice from

1 clove of garlic, pressed

1 bunch of parsley, chopped

Drain the chickpeas and mix together with olive oil, you need more than you think but choose yourself how you want the texture to be. Then add the lemon juice, parsley and garlic and season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy with toasted pitta or with any other bread!

Hummus in its takeaway box!