Klappgröt

 Last year one of my colleagues told me about a funny book on the "brown food" people used to make in the 1970s and even sent me a link to it. The book is sadly no longer available, but the link allowed for looking at some of the pages and recipes. Severl of them were from a clear plastic box of recipe cards, which looked very familiar to me. Indeed my mum has one of these boxes, half-filled with recipe cards. I got it out and worked through all of them with the vague hope that I'd find one of the recipes from the book. I didn't, clearly there were different makes of these recipe card boxes available back in the early 80s when we first moved to Sweden.

However, of all the 100+ cards, there were two that really stood out for me and I decided to take them home and try them out. I can't remember my mum ever using these cards, so I'm quite pleased that she'd saved them.

The first card was from category #22 "delicious desserts" and is card #48. The dessert is called Klappgröt and it was the name that attracted me to it. "Gröt" means porrige and from what I've been able to find out, "klapp" is an older culinary term for beating or whipping. The second thing that attracted me was that it is made with lingonberries and semolina. Of all the different types of porrige, semolina porrige is the one I like best and thanks to my mum's foraging, I have a steady supply of premium quality lingonberries.

Ingredients

4 dl berries, e. g. lingonberries, cranberries, gooseberries or  red currants

1 litre water

85 – 125 g granulated sugar

75 g semolina

1 tbsp potato flour

4 tbsp water

Method

1. Clean and wash the berries. Place them in a large saucepan and mash with a fork.
2. Add the water and bring to the boil. Let simmer for a few minutes.
3. Strain the juice and put back into the saucepan.
4. Stir in the sugar, then the semolina and bring to the boil again.
5. Leave to simmer until the semolina is cooked, about 20 minutes.
6. In a small bowl, stir the potato flour together with the additional water, then add to the porrige and stir well to combine.
7. Allow to just come to the boil and then take off the heat and allow to cool down a little.
8. Transfer to a large bowl and whip the porrige with an electric whisk until it goes pale and very fluffy and has cooled down completely.
9. Pour into portions and either serve straight away or refrigerate and serve chilled.
   

 I used my trusty Assistent machine for the whipping, since it took at least 10 minutes (I forgot to time it). Some of the other recipes I found suggest using a hand-held electric whisk and placing the bowl into a water bath of cold water to speed up the cooling down. Either way, the magic will happen and the porrige will reach a mousse-like consistency which turned out to be very yummy both at room temperature and chilled. I think I liked the chilled version better.

Lingonberries, like cranberries are quite tart and the 125 g sugar just about reduced that tartness, but the dessert didn't feel very sweet at all.

I'm keen to try this with bilberries, that should work too and would also work in combination with the lingonberry to get a two-coloured klappgröt. I also think a sprinkling of chopped hazelnuts, desiccated coconut or biscuit crumbs and a little whipped cream would make it into quite a fancy dessert too.

The recipe says the above is 4 portions. I'd say it's more like 8 portions, unless you eat it as a main meal. Once it's whipped up it doubles in volume.

Finally the card also mentions as an extra tip that klappgröt can also be made with rhubarb. In which case 5 dl diced rhubarb is required, the method is the same, but there would be no need to strain. Having made rhubarb curd a few years ago, I would say that straining is required here too, at least for my rhubarb, as it goes a bit fibrous. But another flavour to try out once the rhubarb gets going in a few weeks.

I poured some of the porrige into a jelly mould to see if it would set enough to be demoulded like a jelly. As it turned out - no. Unfortunately I had a busy evening when I made this, so I didn't get a chance to take photos, but hopefully will do that next time.

Stamped cookies revival

 

As I was rummaging around the cupboards I spotted my cookie press and realised it's been forever since I used it. And since Lundulph went to visit his parents for the day, I decide it would be a great time to make a batch, especially since I'd just watched this video, where the cookie dough appeared to have just the right consistency. 

Ingredients

makes about 130

 

480 g plain flour

60 g potato flour

¾ tsp salt

2 tbsp vanilla sugar

226 g unsalted butter at room temperature

200 g granulated sugar

2 large eggs at room temperature

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 ℃, no fan.
   
2. Sift together the dry ingredients and stir to distribute evenly.
3. Whisk the butter in a food processor, then add the sugar and beat until it goes pale and fluffy.
4. Add one egg at a time while the mashine is still beating, allowing them to get fully incorporated.
5. Slowly add the flour and mix until it just combines to a dough. 
6. Load up a cookie press and stamp directly onto baking sheets.
7. Bake one sheet at a time for 10 - 11 minutes to keep them from colouring.
8. Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool, then store in an airtight jar.
   

 Looking quickly through my old stamped cookie recipes, the ingredients are mostly the same but in fairly different proportions. However, this dough turned out very well and worked splendidly with the cookie press. Some ended up a bit wonky, but that is entirely my fault. I wanted to stamp as many cookies as possible with one fill of the cookie press, so I filled it to the brim. This resulted in small air pockets which meant less dough came out from some of the cookie holes here and there. I ended up discarding a lot of cookies and ended up having to refill a more times than I was hoping to get away with. A better approach is to fill and leave about a centimetre or two of space left, then the pressing pad will pushes the dough down and even things out somewhat and result in nicer and more symmetrical cookies. 

Also very interesting was the potato flour. According to the video, it is the special ingredient that prevents the cookies from spreading in the oven and thus keeping their definition. I will need to double-check with Dr Cutie about that, but I do know that German sponge cake recipes tend to include some potato starch to make the crumb more delicate.

I tasted the cookies as soon as they'd cooled down enough to handle and thought they weren't nice at all, but tasted a bit of flour and not sweet at all. I thought I could ice them, but I got distracted by other things and by the time Lundulph came home late in the evening, they were still just like when I baked them. So we had a couple and it turned out the flavour had improved! I'm not sure what happened and eating them now a couple of days later, I think they are still very good. So clearly they do need to rest and not be gobbled up straight away. Or our tongues adjusted. Either way, I do like this recipe.

Butter bean curry

Recipe number five also turned out very nice and got me to buy and try a new product - coconut aminos, which seems to be an alternative to soy sauce. 

Ingredients

1 large onion

4 cloves of garlic

5 cm piece of ginger

1 small green finger chilli

75 g cherry tomatoes

6 sundried tomatoes in olive oil

2 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp ground black pepper

¼ tsp ground turmeric

1½ tsp ground cumin

1½ tsp ground coriander

½ tsp garam masala

½ tsp red chilli powder

a pinch of ground cardamom

1 tsp salt

1 tsp soy sauce or coconut aminos

270 ml coconut milk

50 ml vegetable stock

2 x 400 g cans of butter beans

2 handfuls of spinach

2 tbsp fresh coriander

basmati rice or naan bread

Method

1. Peel and dice the onion. Peel the garlic and press. Peel the ginge and grate. Wash and finely dice the green chilli.
2. Wash and dice the cherry tomatoes, drain and dice the sundried tomatoes.
   
3. Heat up the olive oil on medium and add the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli and sauté for 5–7 minutes.
4. Add all the spices and stir through for a minute.
5. Add the tomatoes, salt and soy sauce and cook for 5 minutes until the cherry tomatoes go soft.
6. Add the coconut milk and stock, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
7. Add the butter beans along with their liquid and the spinach. Stir through for a couple of minutes until the beans are heated through and the spinach has wilted.
8. Serve with rice or naan and sprinkle some coriander leaves over.

 This turned out very nice and we ate a bit more thant we should have. I didn't have basmati rise, so I used shortgrain brown rice, which worked equally well.

 

I was surprised about including the liquid from the butter beans. Actually, there was no mention in the recipe to drain them, so I assumed the liquid was to be used as well. I think it contributed well to the overall consistency of this dish.

 

I wasn't impressed with the coconut aminos. It looked like thin, light soy sauce, but it didn't taste nice at all and wasn't as salty as soy sauce, so I won't bother with it next time and just use soy sauce.

 

This concludes our streak of vegetarian dishes. Lundulph was very pleased and I need to try to incorporate these into my everyday repertoire. 
 
 

 

Warm salad

Recipe number four is this one, a warm vegetable salad. It looked very pretty on the photo and I had great hopes for it, as it seemed to include a very good balance of healthy things.

Ingredients

3 red onions

60 g cavalo nero

zest and juice of a lemon

6 garlic cloves

a handful of fresh tarragon leaves

4½ tbsp olive oil

chilli flakes (optional)

4 large eggs

500 g courgettes

2 x 400 g butter beans

salt and pepper 

4 soft wholemeal lavash breads

Method

1. Peel and wash the onions. Dice one of the onions finely and slice the other two and keep separate.
2. Remove the thick stems from the cavalo nero and save for soups. Wash the leafy parts, shake off well and shred.
3. Wash and zest the lemon, then squeeze out the juice. Peel the garlic and wash and cut the tarragon leaves finely.
   
4. Put the diced onion, the shredded cavalo nero, the lemon zest and juice along with 1½ tbsp of olive oil, chilli flakes and a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Mix and massage well, then cover and set aside to marinate.
5. Trim, wash and slice the courgettes thinly, 2 – 3 mm, and drain the beans.
   
6. Boil the eggs to get the yolk to a waxy consistence. Rinse under cold water, peel and set aside.
7. Meanwhile, heat up 1 tbsp of the olive oil on medium-low and fry the sliced onions for 5 minutes until they go soft and transluscent. Transfer to the bowl with cavalo nero and stir in.
8. Heat up the remaining oil to medium-high and fry the courgettes for 10 minutes, while stirring, until they go soft.
9. Press in the garlic and add the beans and stir-fry for a couple of more minutes to get the beans warmed through.
10. Transfer the courgettes and beans to the cavalo nero, add the tarragon and stir to combine everything.
11. Warm up the lavash breads and pile the warm salad on top of them, finishing with two egg halves, then wrap and serve.
    

When it was freshly made, it was OK, but the lemon dominated everything else and it just felt like something was missing. So for our lunch the following day, I decided to put the salad on top of a lavash bread and make a wrap. This turned out to be a good idea as the bread seemed to be that missing something. It is possible that overnight the butter beans might have soaked up some of the lemon and created a more balanced salad.

Lundulph wasn't too extatic about this, and suggsted a reduction of the lemon juice. I suspect that it wouldn't work, as that is the active ingredient in the marinade and cavalo nero would be way too hard to eat uncooked otherwise. So overall, I think this one is a work in progress and I'll run it by my Mum to see if she can help pin down what might be missing.

Caponata chickpea traybake

 The third recipe I picked out, again a veggie one, is this one as it seemed like a nice variation on what I've been doing for the last few years - namely roasting some vegetables to go with foil baked salmon or crispy tofu. I skipped the celery sticks, because I don't like them, even if Lundulph is OK with these things when they are cooked. Instead I added peppers and mushrooms

Ingredients

2 red onions

4 garlic cloves

3 aubergines

2 bell peppers 

500 g button mushrooms

500 g cherry tomatoes

2 x 400 g tins of chickpeas

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp capers

50 g raisins

50 ml cider vinegar

a handful fresh mint leaves

25 g toasted almond flakes

4 wholemeal pittas

salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel, wash and cut the onions into wedges. Peel the garlic.
   
2. Trim, wash and dice the aubergine into 2 cm chunks.
3. Trim, wash and cut the bell peppers into chunks. 
4. Peel the button mushrooms and save the stalks for another use. Cut the mushrooms into chunks, if too large.
   
5. Wash the tomatoes and drain the chickpeas.
6. Preheat the oven to 220 ℃/200 ℃ fan.
7. Put the onions, aubergines, bell peppers, tomatoes in a large baking tray and press in the garlic.
8. Drizzle over the oil and season, then stir to get the vegetables coated. Spread evenly in the baking tray and roast in the oven for 30 minutes.
9. Remove from the oven and add the chickpeas, capers and raisins and carefully stir through to mix. Turn down the oven to 200 ℃/180 ℃ fan and return the baking tray to the oven for 10 - 15 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and put the pittas in to warm up in the residual heat.
11. Sprinkle the vinegar and stir carefully not to break the vegetables. Leave to rest for 10 minutes.
12. Wash and slice the mint leaves finely and toast the almond flakes in a dry frying pan.
13. Sprinkle the mint and almonds over the vegetables and serve up.

I had serious reservations about the raisins. When I've added sweet dried fruit to a savoury dish, it has always been a bad idea, but this was just 50 g for loads of vegetables, so I thought it wouldn't be too bad. And a good thing too, they were barely noticeable. The mint was quite strong when we ate the dish freshly cooked, but after stiring things together and having for lunch the next day, it was very nice. I didn't even bother reheating it and it was still nice. Lundulph insists on hot food, so he reheated his lunch and liked it as well.

This is a really nice dish, and would probably also work with meat or fish as well as on its own. I'd like to increase the amount of capers, because I quite like the taste, but Lundulph doesn't, so I probably won't. I think the fresh mint can be replaced with basil or tarragon or other fresh herbs and the almonds can also be replaced with other nuts or seeds. 

The original recipe was for 4 portions, but as I boosted it with extra vegetables, it resulted in at least 6 portions.
 

Risotto with harissa aubergine

 The second recipe I tested was this one. I'm normally not too big a fan of risotto because often I feel it's "just rice". However, Lundulph has a mild obsession with aubergine and this recipe did sound nice, especially since there was no mention of copious amounts of parmesan. I also made the executive decision to spruce up the "just rice" bit and reduced the amount of rice significantly.

Ingredients

3 aubergines

100 g harissa paste

2 onions

1 tbsp butter

250 g arborio rice

1 litre vegetable stock

300 g mixed frozen vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, French beans and petit pois)

vegetable oil

Method

1. Wash and trim the aubergines, then cut in half lengthwise and then cut each half into long thin slices, about half a centimetre thick.
2. Place the aubergnes in a bowl, add the harissa paste and stir to coat them well, then cover and set aside.
3. Peel, wash and dice the onions.
4. Heat up the butter in a deep saucepan and gently fry the onions on medium-low heat until they go transluscent.
5. Add the rice and stir around to get it coated, about 2 minutes.
6. Start adding the vegetable stock, a ladle at a time and stiring to prevent anything from sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. Add the next ladle once the previous one has been absorbed.
7. Once the stock has been added, add the frozen vegetables and stir in. Cover and let simmer until the vegetables have been cooked as well.
8. Meanwhile, heat up a little oil in a frying pan and fry the aubergine slices on medium-high heat until they go soft.
9. Serve the risotto with a few slices of aubergine on top.

 This turned out quite delicious, though I used 180 g harissa paste, which turned out to be over the top and the aubergines were very spicy. However, the risotto neutralised that somewhat and the combination was very nice. This is what I think risotto should be - with veggies incorporated.

Lundulph liked it a lot too, perhaps because of the spicy aubergines. But it could use some sort of protein to go with it, I think, not just on its own.

Old clothes

My pile of free magazines from the supermarket is growing steadily. I always mean to go through it and it almost never happens. But the other day, I managed to do just this and found a treasure trove of interesting vegetarian recipes and I have been working through them over the past couple of weeks.

I decided to start with this one, mushroom ropa vieja and any Swedes reading this might well know why. Ropa vieja is a dish made in the Spanish speaking regions and the name means old clothes. It also seems to be a take on using up leftovers in a creative way. Everyone has those. This particular version is supposedly Cuban. The name of the dish was one of the jokes used in the Swedish comedy "Sällskapsresan" ("Package Tour") and a great example of things that don't translate well. And as I always do, I made some tweaks.

Ingredients

2 dl brown shortgrain rice
500 g parboiled chanterelles
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
2 red bell peppers
18 cherry tomatoes
2 bay leaves
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp tomato purée
200 ml vegetable stock
1 tsp granulated sugar
400 g tin of white kidney beans with their liquid
salt and black pepper

Method

1. Put the oven on at 100 °C and place two large bowls in to heat up. 
2. Boil the rice.
   
3. Peel the onion and the garlic. Dice the onion.
4. Wash and slice the peppers. Wash and dice the tomatoes finely.
   
5. Heat up the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and press in the garlic. Fry gently on medium-low heat for about 5 minutes until they go soft.
6. Add the bay leaves, cumin, oregano and tomato purée, stir through and fry for a further 2 minutes.
7. Divide the onion mixture in two and remove half of it into a bowl.
8. Add the peppers, tomatoes, stock and sugar to the frying pan and let simmer gently for 15 minutes until the mixture thickens.
9. Add the mushrooms, cover and simmer for a further 5 minutes until everything is hot. Then transfe to one of the bowls in the oven.
10. Return the second half of the onion mixture to the frying pan and add the kidney beans along with their liquid.
11. Stir and simmer for 10 minutes until thickened and season to taste.
12. Serve the mushroom stew with the beans and the rice.

The original recipe calls for 300 g oyster mushrooms that are to be shredded and sprinkled with salt and left to drain for 15 minutes, then squeezed before being added to the stew. I had parboiled mushrooms, so I used them instead and quite a lot more than you'd end up with from the oyster mushrooms. So we ended up with a bit more of that stew, but it was so tasty, that I recommend my amounts.

In the original recipe, it should be black beans, however I wanted to try the white kidney beans and they worked very well. But if I make this again, I will try to use black beans.

I should also add that I used 2 bell peppers instead of one, because I had two that needed to be used up and also because I'd increased the mushrooms.

The original recipe also suggested using a ready cooked mixture of basmati and wild rice. I'm not a fan of ready cooked rice, nor basmati, but a mix of brown shortgrain rice and wild rice will proably be quite tasty and esthetically pleasing too.

Lundulph scoffed his portion quite quickly and we had a minor argument about who would get what for lunch the following day. The beans were quite amazing too and reminded me somewhat of a Bulgarian bean stew, so I would aim to double the amount next time I make this dish.