Pasta with spinach and peanut sauce

Published on by Hanna3 Comments

I thrive on inspiration from other blogs. Isn’t it great what the internet can provide us with?

Last week I found this recipe on a Swedish food blog I follow; Kryddburken [The Spice Jar] – a wonderful pasta recipe with a fabulous sauce made with spinach, peanuts, lemon, garlic and parmesan. It was utterly simple and tasted lovely. I think this will stick to my weekday repertoire.

I adapted the recipe a little (omitted pine nuts and halved it). You find my version below.

Pasta with spinach and peanut sauce, serves 2

Adapted from this recipe.

200 g pasta of your choice

100 g spinach, roughly chopped

50 g salted peanuts

200 ml half and half (half cream, half milk)

1/2 lemon, the juice

75 ml grated parmesan

1 small garlic clove, pressed

1 tsp chilli sauce

butter and oil for frying

salt and black pepper

Cook the pasta accordingly. Chop the nuts with a knife or in a food processor. Add the butter and oil to a frying pan on high heat. Add the spinach and nuts. Cook until the spinach has wilted and the water has dried away. Add the half and half, garlic and lemon juice and let the sauce thicken while stirring. Season.

Remove from the heat after about 5 minutes and stir in the parmesan. Serve with the pasta.

Scandi tip #17: Swedish Easter eggs

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Easter eggs as you know them in the UK, a chocolate egg with not much inside is quite nice, but very different from what I am used to from home.

In Sweden we give (and receive) cardboard Easter eggs with beautiful prints, filled with lots of mixed sweets including chewy dragé eggs that to me is a must!

When I was little my mother even painted Easter Eggs for the whole family and we use them every year. I have one really big pink one with my name on it, and another purple one that my granny made. Dad still wants his sweets in his childhood egg which is so huge it would take about 5 kg of sweets to fill it up, so normally we put some tissue paper in the bottom and fill up the rest so he doesn’t get more sweets than us.

On Saturday my friend Gaby mentioned (while looking at English Easter eggs) that her Swedish au pair used to give the children the paper version with all the sweets inside and I realised it is quite different to the British tradition.

I think this is partly because chocolate is so popular here. I mean, at home people eat a lot of chocolate too, and I prefer Marabou to Cadbury’s, but here people eat even more. But then again, we eat huge quantities of pick ‘n mix in Sweden and you don’t here, and that is probably because Sweden is better at producing nice chewy sweets. We even have different Haribo sweets in Sweden (although the brand is Danish) because what is on sale here just wouldn’t sell well in Sweden. Funny that.

I don’t actually know where/if you can buy the cardboard eggs here, but if you see them you should try our tradition too. One can’t have too many sweets, right?!

Barrafina, Soho

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I feel incredibly lucky working where I do. The company is great but this time I was actually refering to where the offices are located; just by the embankment. That means I can wander into Soho, Covent Garden and even Mayfair on my lunch breaks. Not bad, huh?

I am also lucky in the sense that I work with a fellow foodie, Caroline. Once in a while we go out for a proper lunch together, we have a long list of eateries we want to go through.

Last week we went to Barrafina, Caroline’s choice, but I loved it too. It is a small tapas bar (with emphasis on bar) consisting of one curved bar with 23 seats. When we got there at half past twelve they were all taken to our disappointment, but the waiter asked if we wanted to sit outside where they had a few tables on the side walk. Of course we wanted to sit in the glorious sun and enjoy our meal. And as  there were heaters all along the wall we were definitely not cold.

We got a menu in the form of a placemat on the table as well as a small black board with the specials. We chose (with difficulty as everything seemed delicious) a few dishes from each menu. We also settled for sparkling water and we probably had a bottle each, it just kept on coming and our waiter really looked after us.

We received the cured ham we ordered, Lomo, first of all, and shortly afterwards the lovely Pan con Tomate arrived; toasted sourdough with tomato pulp.

Next to arrive was the razor clams with olive oil, garlic and parsley. Lovely!

After that the pancetta wrapped cuttle fish with ink arrived and it was absolutely beautiful. I think this was both our favourite.

Next was the Morcilla Iberica, a blood sausage served with piquillo peppers and fried quail’s egs. The sausage was nice enough on its own, but paired with the egg it was really good.

One of the items from the special’s board was this kale with garlic, chilli and olive oil. Wonderful although so very simple.

We enjoyed the whole meal but a few dishes (the cuttle fish and the kale) were better than others. Everything was really fresh and well cooked. I will definitely come here again, and please stop by if you happen to be near here.

Barrafina
54 Frith Street,
London,
W1D 4SL

Chicken drumsticks with sweet chilli marinade

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I always tend to by chicken drumsticks when they’re on offer, as I like the darker chicken meat and these are perfect to snack on, bring to a picnic etc.

The recipe for this fabulous marinade is from a great Swedish food blog called Smaskens. Annika who runs it is one of my role models in cooking and all the recipes I have tried from her have been wonderful. This was no exception.

I ate the drumsticks in two ways. First served with couscous with lemon and spinach and a simple cold sauce with creme fraiche and sweet chilli. Second just lukewarm with corn on the cob. Both were delicious, and if you marinade the chicken for as long as I did, 48 hours, the meat is so tender and succulent you don’t need a sauce with it.

Chicken drumsticks with sweet chilli marinade

After Annika’s recipe.

1,8 kg chicken drumsticks

50 ml Chinese soy sauce

100 ml sweet chilli sauce

100 ml olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, grated/pressed

2 tsp sambal oelek

1 tsp salt

black pepper

Mix the ingredients for the marinade and pour it into a large ziplock bag (double-bag if needed) and add the chicken. Marinade for at least an hour, preferably longer. I kept mine in the fridge for 48 hours, turning it around a few times to the marinade to distribute evenly.

Place the chicken on a wire rack with a roasting tray underneath. Cook in 200C oven for about 30 minutes, turning after 15 minutes so the cook evenly.

Weekday wonders: cheesy mini burgers with tzatsiki in pitta

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Found this post and realised it wasn’t published when it was suppose to be, some time in January. It is a great weekday supper though, so here we go:

It is Monday and back to work. For me, the best way to stay at good spirits on a Monday is definitely to eat something nice in the evening, but still something quite speedy so I have time to watch something good on TV or catch up with my friends.

These quick little burgers are tasty and filling, and is lovely paired with homemade tzatsiki, some baby spinach and toasted pittas. If you’re really hungry, why not put some potato wedges in the oven as well?!

To season the mince I used a spicy sea salt from Halen Môn which I crushed in my pestle and mortar before adding it to the mince mix, but feel free to use any spices you like, just make sure you season the mince enough. Just shape the mince to little burgers, fry them in butter and oil in a hot frying pan while the tzatsiki is developing its flavours and you pop the pittas in the toaster.

Beef mini burgers, serves 2

300 g beef mince

1 1gg

50 ml breadcrumbs

2 tbsp water or cream

3 tsp Halen Môn spicy salt or another spice blend + salt

cheddar cheese in slices

Mix egg, breadcrumbs, spices, salt and water/cream in a bowl and let the mixture swell for a few minutes before adding the mince. Incorporate thoroughlly. Shape the mince to small burgers and fry them in a mixture of butter and oil in a frying pan. First on high heat then on medium heat. Place half a slice of cheese on each burger while they are in the pan, so the cheese melts. 

Serve with the following:

Tzatsiki

Pittas, toasted

Baby spinach or other lettuce

Manicomio and Partridges, Chelsea

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One part of London I have always loved is Chelsea. It is so nice to walk along Kings road looking in shops, stopping for a coffee somewhere and just wander around.

I met Gaby here on Saturday for a late lunch. We walked straight to Manicomio, where I have been several times before. It is an Italian café with great produce, simple but well executed dishes and you can sit outside on the Duke of York square people watching. A perfect Saturday past time in my opinion.

Gaby had a simple but beautiful tuna salad with plenty of the perfectly cooked tuna, lettuce leaves and a oil based dressing.

I was so hungry that a salad wouldn’t cut it and went for a warm ciabatta with Italian salami and taleggio. It was simple but good produce and I loved every bite.

We then had a little wander around the food market on the square that is open every Saturday. We saw everything from fudge to Peruvian food and sushi.

It is the food shop Partridges who organises this market and we went inside the shop to have a look around as well. We have both been here serveral times before but because we went together, two complete food geeks, we could really take our time this once and we stayed in there for quite a while, looking at everything.

Among other things I was very surprised to see some Swedish products, both the thin biscuits above, from the same company that makes the best ginger thins, Annas as well as cookies from Gille (which I can easily live without though) and proper nice crispbread from Wasa.

I tried the chocolate and vanilla biscuits and they were really nice. Funnily enough the whole package disappeared down my tummy in just a few days.

Other things I had to buy was some proper tagliatelle, French yoghurts (citron and vanilla), some champagne truffels as a gift and truffle oil for myself.

What I need to go back for are the absolutely adorable Easter eggs from Charbonnel & Walker. They had some chocolate animals too that I don’t thing I can resist. Are they cute or what?!

Tsunami, West End

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I have been going on and on and on and on about Tsunami close to where I live, in Clapham, but there is actual a Tsunami restaurant in central London as well, on Charlotte Street. I ventured here on Monday with my friends Laura and Jess after Laura had seen a great 50% off food offer at Top Table.

We started with a lovely bottle of white (from Languedoc) and it was so nice sitting there chatting and sipping wine we ended up with another.

But we had some (I mean a lot) of food as well. I wanted the lovely deepfried prawns with their gorgeous dipping sauce and Laura chose the mixed sashimi salad which contained salad leaves, lovely melt in the mouth seared salmon and tuna with wasabi dressing.

All three of us then had sushi for mains, but a few different kinds. Both Laura and Jess tried the Tsunami special roll (the large ones on the pictures) but I went for my usual order of ebi fry rolls and spicy tuna rolls (top picture).

Laura and Jess also had dessert, but I was too full to join in. However I forgot to take pictures of the two fabulous desserts. (I blame the wine.)

Both Laura’s icecream and Jess’s chocolate fondant arrived with plenty of exotic fruits and looked spectacular.

With the discount our bill came to around £90 for the three of us, including 2 bottles of wine, which was very reasonable. Thanks for that, Top Table.

Tsunami
93 Charlotte Street  
London W1T 4PY

Instead of dessert…

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My best instead of dessert tip involves alcohol. Not bad, huh? 🙂

If you ever get the post dinner low bloodsugar and fancy something sweet but don’t have any dessert at hand, then just open a bottle and pour some of its content into a glass with ice.

Amarula on the rocks, is even better than Bailey’s on the rocks, and just hits the spot.

Amarula cream is a creamy (duh) liqueur made from the Marula berries that grows on trees in South Africa. A colleague who grew up there told me that when the fruit ripens it produces alcohol and when it falls down the tree the animals eat it and get all drunk. If you don’t believe me (her) check this video out!

Cream of corn soup topped with crispy chorizo, grated cheddar and spring onions

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The soup season will soon give way for the salad season, but before it is completely over I would like to serve you this delicious soup.

It is a pretty straightforward cream of corn soup, but topped with lovely crispy chorizo, grated cheddar and salad onions. It is the ultimate soup topping for this particular soup and for some reason I picture a cowboy making this in his battered metal saucepan over an open fire. I don’t know why this image pops up but it might have to do with the slight texmex-vibe the combination gives off. To make this connection even more visible, try serving it with tortilla wedges fried crispy in butter. Delicious!

Cream of corn soup topped with crispy chorizo, grated cheddar and spring onions, serves 2

1 can (400 g) tinne sweet corn

200 ml water

1 tsp concentrated vegetable stock

75 ml cream

salt, white pepper

a dash of sherry vinegar

Topping:

1/4 chorizo, roughly chopped up

2 salad onions, chopped

2 tbsp grated cheddar

To serve:

1 wheat tortilla, cut into six triangles/wedges

1 tbsp butter for frying

Rinse the sweetcorn and drain. Place in a saucepan and add the water and stock. Bring to the boil and let it simmer for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Fry the tortilla pieces golden brown in the butter. Drain on kitchen towel. Fry the chorizo pieces in the same frying pan. Drain on separate kitchen towel.

Mix the corn with the water until smooth. Pour it back into the pan. Add the cream and vinegar. Bring to the boil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour into bowls and top with grated cheese, chorizo and spring onions. Serve with the fried bread.

Scandi tip #16: The Moomin Shop

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Did you ever read about Moomin by Finnish Tove Jansson when you were little? I certainly did and I still find the Moomin family very cute. We watched the cartoon on telly as kids as well, and I think the characters are just adorable. Especilly Little My who is angry all the time.

A little while ago a new shop opened in the Covent Garden Market, full of adorable Moomin merchandise. I can’t wait to check it out. For more info, see what Time Out has to say.