Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup

I picked sweet corn at a farm not too far from where I live yesterday. I paid 25 NOK/kg, about $ 4/kg. It might sound horribly expensive to some of you, but stuff, especially food, is really expensive in Norway.

Yesterday we boiled some corn on the cob and served them with butter and salt as an evening snack. We had the same for lunch today. I am trying to eat them all before they go bad as last year I had a rather bad experience with freezing fresh sweet corn.

Tonight I made chicken and sweet corn soup. I didn't have any dairy products at home, so I had to come up with a soup without milk or cream... It turned out great, I just threw together some ingredients that I had in the fridge.

Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup
Serves 3-4

vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, grated
1 bay leaf
1 tsp Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce
1 ½-2 tbsp Heinz ketchup
1 chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
1½-2 cubes chicken stock
1 litre water
kernels from 2 corn on the cob
1-2 tsp garam masala
salt & pepper
some flat leaf parsley

1. Heat about 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a large sauce pan. Add in the onion, garlic and bay leaf and sauté for a couple of minutes. Stir in the chili sauce, ketchup and crushed stock cubes. Add in the pieces of chicken breast, water, corn kernels and half the garam masala.

2. Bring soup to the boil, turn down to medium heat and allow the soup to simmer for 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked. Add salt and pepper, and more garam masala, to taste. Chop some parsley and add it to the soup, right before you serve it.

Serve the soup in individual bowls, drizzle over some olive oil and sprinkle some more parsley.

Lunch at Wagamama

My main reason for going to Copenhagen was to go eat at my favourite restaurant Wagamama. Wagamama only has one restaurant in the whole of Scandinavia, at the Tivoli amusement park in Copenhagen. I haven't decided if it's a good thing or a bad thing that there's only one Wagamama in Scandinavia. On the one hand it's good because you can't go there too often and risk getting tired of the delicious Japanese food, but on the other hand it's really not very good as you go there way too seldom, plus, even though I love Copenhagen, it would be good if I didn't have to go there to visit a Wagamama restaurant.

Since going to Wagamama for the first time sometime in 2004 I have only ever had one other dish than the one featured above (Ebi kare Lomen). Ebi Kare Lomen is my absolute favourite though. It's ramen noodles in a spicy coconut and lemongrass soup topped with prawns or grilled chicken, beansprouts and cucumber, garnished with coriander and lime

Susanne had this dish, which I think is noodles in a spicy chicken soup topped with a marinated grilled and sliced chicken breast, fresh chillies, sliced red onions, bean sprouts, coriander, spring onions and a wedge of lime.

Zucchini soup with bacon

Not too long ago my volleyball team went on a tournament for the weekend. It was great fun, but I don't think we did all too well. To tell you the truth I didn't care about the results, that's why I don't know them.

For the duration of the tournament all the teams stayed at Norsjø Hotel, in beautiful Norsjø, Norway. Norsjø Hotel might not be the best hotel in the world, but the food is delicious! For dinner on Saturday we were served a three-course meal, I love three-course meals and can't for the life of me understand how anyone could eat more than a three-course meal. I guess the portions are much smaller when you eat a, say, seven-course meal.

Anyway, let's get back on track. The menu for the three-course meal was

Starter
Zucchini soup with bacon

Main course
Braised beef tenderloin served with potatoes and vegetables

Dessert
Home-made coffee ice cream with chocolate brownie

I absolutely loved the Zucchini soup, the rest of the meal was all-right. I have had better food, but I'm not complaining.

I have been searching for a recipe for Zucchini soup ever since I had it that weekend and with a little help from my friend Susanne, who had told me before of a delicious Zucchini soup that she used to make, I set out to make a soup similar to the one I had had at the hotel.

This soup was really nice, really tasty and easy to make. And it was fairly similar to the one at the hotel. Try it yourself, I don't think you'll be disappointed!

Zucchini soup (with bacon)

Serves 4
Adapted from sopprecpet.se

600-800 g green Zucchini, chopped into small cubes
3 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, grated
½ tsp dried rosemary (I used thyme)
1 tsp tomato puree
8 dl vegetable stock
ground white pepper, to taste
salt, to taste

fried bacon
garlic bread

1. Heat the olive oil in a large enough pan to hold the finished soup. Tip in the onion and fry until soft and translucent. Add in the Zucchini and allow to soften some. Add in the grated garlic, rosemary, tomato puree and vegetable stock.

2. Bring to the boil and allow to cook for about 15-20 minutes.

3. With a hand blender or in a mixer, mix the soup until smooth, or to desired consistency.

4. Bring back to the boil and boil for another 10 minutes. Add in more stock/water if you want to, at this stage.

5. In the meantime, fry some cut up rashes of bacon until crisp to sprinkle on top of the soup. Obviously, for a vegetarian dish, leave out the bacon. Prepare the garlic bread. I cut up some ready-to-bake baguettes and spread some garlic butter on top, placed the bread on an oven tray and baked it in the oven for 10 min on high heat.

Serve the soup in bowls, sprinkle some bacon on top, drizzle over some olive oil and eat with some garlic bread on the side.

Curry-scented beef soup

I am not a big fan out what Swedes and Norwegians call "husmanskost". I can't seem to remember the English translation, but I guess it's somewhere along the lines of "traditional home cooked food". A little googling by my friend Titta came up with the term "homely fare".

However, let me rephrase, I am not a very big fan of Swedish and Norwegian "homely fare". The way I see it, I like Thai food, and Indian food, and Chinese food, and Mexican food and, yeah other kinds of food and I assume the foods I like from these countries are their "homely fare".

Anyways, what I am getting at is that I am not a big fan of Swedish and Norwegian "homely fare", but my bf is, unfortunately, a huge fan. He longs for boiled potatoes, and other things he is used to from his childhood. I on the other hand can't stand boiled potatoes, except for new potatoes cooked with large twigs of dill and served with sour cream and chopped chives on a warm summer day.

So, I don't cook boiled potatoes and other Scandinavian homely fares, I make Thai curries, Chinese stir-fries and Mexican enchiladas. But from time to time I cook traditional foods, and yesterday was one of those times. I didn't want to make it all traditional though, so found a recipe combining the traditional Swedish beef-soup with the flavours of Indian curry powder. Yum!


Curry-scented beef soup
Serves 4
Adapted from tasteline.com

400 g beef
2 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated
1 tart apple, cut into small pieces
1 tbsp butter
3 tsp curry powder
1 l water
3 tbsp reduced veal stock (in Swedish: kalvfond)
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 can (400 g) crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp lemon juice
salt & pepper

1. Start by browning the meat, onions, garlic and apple in the butter in a sauce pan. Sprinkle in the curry powder, stir to mix and allow to fry for a couple of minutes.

2. Add in the water, tomato paste, reduced veal stock and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and bring to the boil. Allow to simmer for about 10 minutes.

3. Serve with a dollop of cream fraiche on top and a slice of garlic bread on the side.

Golden spicy fish soup served with homemade naan

I've had this recipe for "Spicy fish soup with chapati" for a little over a week now, meaning to cook it but always finding myself cooking something else for dinner instead.

But last night, Friday night, I finally went to the supermarket to buy some fish, went home, and got cooking!

I must admit I don't really have any fond memories, or any memories at all, as a matter of fact, of fish soup growing up. I'm not complaining though, fish soup can be tricky to make and I'm a bit of a picky eater. Plus, I don't even think I have a proper mental picture of what a good fish soup should look like... Come to think of it, that's pretty sad.

Maybe my new mental image of good fish soup should be the soup I made last night. It was golden, creamy, spicy, and just delicious. My bf scored it as a 5 out of 6 (fresh fish, I used frozen, would have made it a 6), and I must agree with him, but not because of the fish, but because I didn't like that there were so much lentils in the soup. Next time I'm gonna half the amount of lentils I use. And maybe add in a splash of white wine. The original recipe calls for chapati bread but I make an awesome naan bread, so...!

Golden spicy fish soup served with homemade naan bread
Adapted from Arla.se
Serves 4

300 g firm fish, for example pollock (coaley), cod or salmon
1 leek, finely chopped
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp turmeric
1 ½ tsp ground chili, or to taste
1½ tsp ground cumin, or to taste
2 cubes chicken stock
5 dl water
1 ½ dl red, or green lentils
5 dl cooking cream
½ tsp salt

Naan breadAdapted from bbcgoodfood.com
Serves 4

450 g all-purpose flour
7 g fast action yeast
300-350 ml water
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt

PS! If you are planning on using green lentils, either soak them in water for 1 hour, or add about 10 minutes cooking time.

Cut the fish into bite size pieces. Melt the butter in a saucepan, and sauté the leeks. Stir in the spices, chicken stock cubes, water and lentils. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid and allow to cook for 10 minutes. Turn down the heat, add the fish and the cooking cream. Simmer for 3 minutes or until the fish is done. Add salt to taste.

While the soup is cooking, prepare the naan dough. Heat the grill in your oven to high. In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Make a well in the middle and water and oil. Mix to a rough dough. Leave it as it is for 5 minutes, than knead the dough for 1-2 minutes until smooth and springy. Cover with oiled cling film and leave to sit for 10 minutes. It won't double in size, but don't worry.

Roll the dough out into a circle on a floured surface. Cut the circle into pizza slices, 8 in total. Transfer to a lined baking tray and grill for 3-4 minutes, turning half way.

Serve the soup in individual bowls, sprinkle chopped leeks on top and drizzle with olive oil.

Gaeng Chöt- soup

I gave my boyfriend a task yesterday; to find a soup to have for dinner before going out last night. He found a soup called Gaeng Chöt- a pork meatballs and glass noodle soup from Thailand ( I would say it's more Chinese, but who am I to judge?), over at the Norwegian site "Mat Prat" (Food talk).

It's a really easy soup to make and it tastes surprisingly good. I wasn't all too excited, it doesn't look like much at all... but I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't have any ground pork at home but I had plenty of store bought meatballs in the freezer, so... And I really hate the look of glass noodles, they remind me of jellyfish tentacles, so I used Chinese wheat noodles instead.

To make this dish vegetarian friendly, simply substitute the meatballs for tofu.

Gaeng Chöt
(Adapted from matprat.no)
Serves 2

Meatballs:
300 g ground pork
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Soup:
4 dried Chinese mushrooms- shiitake
50 g glass noodles or other kind
5 dl / 2 cups water
½ dl soy sauce
1 spring onion, chopped
1 carrot, thinly sliced lengthwise
1 tbsp coriander/cilantro leaves

1. Soak the mushrooms in hot water for at least 20 minutes. Soak the noodles, or cook until almost done.

2. Mix the ingredients for the meatballs in a bowl. Make small meatballs.

3. Bring water and soy sauce to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer the meatballs for 5 minutes.

4. Cut the mushrooms in half, add the mushrooms and the noodles to the soup.

5. After a couple of minutes, add in the vegetables, take the pan from the heat. Sprinkle the soup with the coriander soup, and serve.

Canja De Galinha

I know I said in an earlier post that the food I ate on the Azores was terrible, and for the most part of it that was the truth. However, I did have one thing that really struck my fancy. A gorgeous chicken and rice soup.

According to the waiter at the restaurant where we had this soup it was a typical Azorean soup, but according to the Internet, and we all know just how reliable the Internet is, claims this soup originated in Brazil. I will not go further into the history of the soup, all I need to know is how to make it for myself.

I don't normally make soups, but today called for soup. I have an extremely sore throat and what's better for the soul than chicken soup? In fact, I had had my heart set on mushroom soup for the entire day, but then the bf came home and suggested the soup we had on the Azores. I googled the recipe and realized the soup contains chicken giblets and would require up to 2 ½ hours cooking . No thank you, I thought!! But I decided on making my own version, and believe it or not, but it turned out delicious.

So, here's my take on Canja De Galinha


Canja De Galinha
Serves 2

2 chicken thighs bones in, cut into thigh and drumstick
1 red onion, finely chopped
pinch of salt
pinch of thyme
1 bay leaf
1 dried chili
2 ½ cups/ 6 dl water
1 cup cooked rice
1 tsp mint leaves, chopped
pinch of turmeric
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
pepper
olive oil

1. Drizzle olive oil into a hot saucepan. Add the onions and fry until translucent, but make sure they do not brown or burn. Add in the pieces of chicken, stir.

2. Add salt, thyme, bay leaf, dried chili, and water. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat to a simmer and simmer for about 20-30 minutes.

3. Check that the chicken is done, if it is move on to the next step, if not, keep on cooking until the chicken juices run clear.

4. Take out the chicken, remove the meat from the bones. Return the meat to the soup, add the rest of the ingredients, bring to the boil, remove from the heat.

4. Serve in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil and a piece of white bread on the side.

Enjoy!

Thai Red Curry

Thai Red Curry
Serves 4

500 g boneless chicken (I used pork), sliced
1 generous tbsp red curry paste
2 tbsp sugar
5-6 lime leaves, shredded
1 can sliced bamboo shoots
400 ml coconut milk
2 tbsp Thai fish sauce

1. Pour one cup of coconut milk into a wok, bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Add in the curry paste and stir until red oil appears at the surface.

2. Add in the meat, simmer until cooked.

3. Add in the rest of the coconut milk, lime leaves, and bamboo shoots. Also stir in the sugar, and the fish sauce. Bring back to the boil and simmer for a few more minutes.

4. Serve with rice

(As always I didn't use the exact ingredients. This time I used my trusty frozen wok vegetable mix instead of just the bamboo shoots)

- You can make this with other kinds of meat, or with no meat at all, but you will then have to add mushrooms or aubergines or something similar to make it a bit "meaty".

På svenska:
Thai Röd Curry

Harira - traditional Moroccan soup

Food from friends, part 2:

Let me introduce you to one of my other friends- Hanna! I have known Hanna, or known about Hanna more like it, since forever. We grew up in the same town, went to the same school, and our little brothers were best friends... However, we never hit it off, not until high school. We're the best of friends now, she's truly an awesome friend! This is her favourite soup, a Moroccan soup, traditionally eaten by the Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan.
Enjoy!



Harira
Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 celery stick, chopped, can be left out

2 tsp cumin powder, or 1 tbsp cumin seeds, crushed in pestle and mortar. (You can never have too much cumin, according to Hanna)
3 cans chickpeas
1 generous pinch saffron (Saffron gives this soup an amazing flavour, but it can be left out, says Hanna)

400 g tomatoes, de-seeded and coarsely chopped (you can also use 1 can crushed tomatoes)

1 cube vegetable stock
½ bunch coriander/cilantro leaves, about 2 generous tbsp chopped

juice from ½ lemon

Tabasco

salt and pepper

1. Sauté the onions in a little bit of olive oil. Add garlic, cumin and celery and sauté for a few more minutes. Tip in the chickpeas and the juices from the chickpeas, saffron and the vegetable stock cube- stir till it is completely dissolved in the liquid. Pour in 2 ½ dl water and simmer for 15 minutes.

2. Add chopped tomatoes, after one minute add in half of the coriander/cilantro, the lemon juice, Tabasco and season with salt and pepper. Stir for one minute, then remove from the heat.

3. Serve, sprinkle with the rest of the coriander/cilantro and drizzle with some olive oil.