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.

Wilderness flavored cottage pie

I have been away for quite some time now... I just haven't been cooking very inspirational food, and/or not had a camera around to capture my foods.

The wilderness flavored cottage pie is a dish I remember my mother cooking all through my childhood. And I loved it each time. I must admit, I don't like meats such as veal or moose quite frankly I think meats like that tastes like the forest, yuck! But thankfully this dish, even though it's called "wilderness flavored..." doesn't contain either veal nor moose. The wilderness flavor in this dish comes from juniper berries. I don't know if juniper berries are hard to come by in other parts of the world, but here in Norway they're in all the supermarkets.

Wilderness flavored cottage pie
Serves 4 people

400 g ground meat
1 tbsp butter
1 can whole button mushrooms
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp flour
½ dl water
½ dl liquid from the button mushroooms
2 tbsp cremé fraiche
1 tsp juniper berries, crushed
salt & pepper

mashed potatoes

1. Heat a frying pan and melt the butter. Fry the ground meat, onions and button mushrooms until done. Sprinkle with flour and add liquids, cremé fraiche, juniper berries, and salt & pepper. Allow to cook for 5 minutes.

2. Take an oven proof dish and spoon the mashed potatoes along the sides. Put the meat in the middle.

3. Place in a 225° C hot oven and bake for 15 minutes.

Serve with black currant jelly and a light green salad.

PÅ SVENSKA
Köttfärs med viltsmak i potatismoskrans

Frutti de mare

My boyfriend said he wanted frutti de mare for dinner tonight. Great! I said and cooked frutti de mare á la Angélica.

Frutti de mare
Serves 2

pasta for 2 people
2 salmon cutlets
10 tiger prawns
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
2,5 dl (1 cup) tomato sauce
salt, pepper, red chili flakes

1. Cook the pasta according to the intructions on the packet.

2. Remove skin and bones from the salmon cutlets. Peel and de-vein the prawns. Cut salmon into bite size pieces, and cut the prawns in half. Season with salt, pepper and red chili flakes.

2. Fry the salmon pieces until done in a frying pan. Remove. Fry the prawns until pink. Remove.

3. Heat some oil in a sauce pan. Sauté the garlic for a minute. Add the tomato sauce and heat. Tip in the salmon and prawns. Cook for a few minutes.

4. Drain pasta and return to pan. Pour the tomato sauce over the pasta and toss to mix.

5. Serve in deep plates, sprinkle some fresh basil or parsely, grated parmesan cheese and drizzle with some EVOO.

Lunch: Salmon sandwich

Ever since I was a little girl I've never been very good at what we in Sweden call "fika". For those of you who are not familiar with the word "fika", let me explain it. Fika is what other people call coffee break with a few cakes or cookies, and can be enjoyed all through the day.

Growing up, on Saturdays, almost without fail, we had 11 o'clock fika at my house. This meant mum and dad drinking coffee, me and my brother drinking a glass of strawberry lemonade, and we all enjoyed a cinnamon bun and a few cookies each, most likely a Ballerina cookie and a Digestive biscuit.

My mom was, and still is, the queen of homemade cinnamon buns. I remember once, my friend Lena came home with me after school for a play date and mum served us cinnamon buns for our after school-fika. Lena didn't eat just one bun, she ate a whopping 6 buns, and when her parents came to pick her up mum gave her a bag of buns to go.

I have never tried making cinnamon buns, but maybe one day I will. However, they will never beat mum's homemade buns. They're the best. If I close my eyes I can still see the mountains of buns stacked on mum's kitchen counter, and I can smell them, the sweet smell of soft, warm, straight from the oven- cinnamon buns...

Sometimes fika also included a sandwich.

Sometimes we went on shopping trips to the local mall or to Gothenburg on Saturdays, and then dad always had a coffee craving at some point. Mum, dad and my brother always had a piece of cake or a cookie, but I almost always had an open-faced prawn sandwish. I don't know why I never felt in the mood for a piece of cake or a cookie, but I never did. So I always had a prawn sandwich made with a peice of white bread, lettuce, mayo, hardboiled eggs, prawns and a wedge of lemon and a slice of cucumber.

So, when I made today's lunch I was reminded of my childhood's fikas.

Salmon sandwich
Serves 1

1 slice of bread
butter
1 leaf of lettuce
potato salad
1, 2 or 3 slices of smoked salmon
chopped red onion
squeeze of lemon juice
black pepper

Just put the ingredients on top of the piece of bread in the order they appear above.

Peanut Butter Brownies

I seem to be baking an aweful lot these days. The day before yesterday I had a go at making macarons, I will post that recipe after the weekend, the other day I made peanut butter cookies, and today I made brownies. I have never made proper brownies before, although I have made the Swedish version - sticky cake, a sticky chocolate cake, plenty of times. Maybe I will post a recipe for sticky cake after the weekend too... we'll see.

Anyway, since I have never made proper brownies before I didn't have a recipe. I looked through numerous recipes, and finally found THE ONE. Martha Stewart's Chocolate-Chip Brownies. However, as always I didn't have all the ingredients, namely the chocolate-chips. But I had a jar of peanut butter, I was planing on using some of it for a new batch of Ashley's Peanut butter cookies... I think you understand where this story is heading... I substituted the chocolate-chips for peanut butter.

Peanut butter brownies
(Adapted from Martha Stewart)
Makes 16

113 g butter
2,3 dl (1 cup) flour, leveled
½ dl cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt (only if you use unsalted butter)
2-3 tbsp peanut butter
220 g chocolate, chopped
3 dl sugar
3 large eggs


Pre-heat your oven to 180° C. Line a 22 x 22 cm large baking pan with parchment paper. Grease the paper with some butter.

Melt butter and chopped chocolate in a bain-marie (also known as a water bath). When melted, mix in the peanut butter. Add in the sugar, mix to combine. Add in the eggs, be sure to stir continuously so that the eggs don't turn into scrambled eggs.

In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients.

Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. Be careful not to overmix. Stir just enough to combine.

Pour the brownie mixture in the baking pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes. To check if the brownie is done, insert a toothpick into the cake. If the toothpick comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, it's done.

Cool in the pan for 30 minutes.

Using paper overhang , lift brownies out of the pan. Allow to cool completely on a rack, still in paper. When cool, cut the cake into 16 pieces. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Or freeze for up to 3 months.

Peanut butter cookies

Browsing through the many food blogs I read online, the recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies over at Big Flavors From A Tiny Kitchen by Ashley, caught my eye. Seeing how I am a sucker for pb (peanut butter) I thought to myself "Yum!".

However, I actually tend not to store any pb at home as I will finish the entire jar in only a couple of days. But not too long ago I bought a 500 g bag of Lebanese peanuts (can't quite remember why I bought them but I remember I only used a small amount and then put the rest of the nuts in the cupboard). So I had a whole bunch of peanuts in my cupboard and from them I decided to make my own peanut butter. I am not going to go into the process of making pb at home. It's basically like making Tahini = dead easy and so much tastier and healthier than the pb you buy.

So, the moral to the story is that I used the peanut butter I made in the peanut butter cookies, using a recipe from Ashley at Big Flavors From A Tiny Kitchen.

Peanut butter cookies
½ cup/64 g butter
½ cup peanut butter
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 ¼ cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 190° C. Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars in a bowl. Stir in egg and vanilla, followed by the dry ingredients.

Shape into 2,5 cm balls. To get the correct size; use a teaspoon measuring cup to scoop out the cookie dough, place the 1 tsp + a little more of dough in the palm of your hand and roll into a ball.
Roll in sugar. Place the balls 5 cm apart on a baking tray lined with parchment paper/silicone mat. Press down on the balls with a fork. Bake for 10-12 minutes on the middle shelf.

Allow to cool on a rack.

Enjoy with a glass of milk, a cup of coffee, or store in an airtight jar.

Malaysian Meat Curry Puffs

Malaysian meat curry puffs
(adapted from Spicie Foodie)
makes about 13 puffs
These can of course be made vegetarian-friendly.

Filling
5 tbsp oil
1 medium onion
1 tbsp grated ginger
3 ½ tsp meat curry powder
½ tsp chili powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
2 large cooked potatoes, diced
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt

400 g cooked meat, I used meat from a rotisserie chicken
60 ml water

1. Fry the onions and ginger until the onion is golden. Add curry, turmeric and chili and cook until fragrant. Next add potatoes, sugar, pepper and salt and cook for 10 minutes. Add chicken and water and cook until the mixture is almost dry. Set aside to chill.

Dough
500 g flour
150 g butter
200 ml water
½ tsp salt (ONLY if you use unsalted butter)

Mix all ingredients into a smooth pastry. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes in a warm place.
Cut the dough in half. Roll out the pastry, using a cookie cutter (10 cm) cut out circles.
Take 1 tbsp of the filling and place in each cut out circle.

2. Fold in half

3. Using a fork, press the edges together.

4. Place the puffs on an oven tray.

5. Bake the puffs for 30 minutes at 180 c. Serve warm or at room temperature with a spicy dipping sauce.