Tjälknöl

This is a dish from Northern Sweden, and translates roughly to "frost lump".

It is a piece of meat, most often moose, but other meats are OK too. It is roasted at a very low temperature, under 100 degrees C for a very long time and from frozen! It is then left in a salt solution for several hours and is sliced very thinly and served cold with potato gratin or such.

Doctor Cutie made this for us when we went to visit them last Christmas and it was wonderful!

So when my Mum was clearing out the freezer and spotted a nice size of inner thigh from moose, that's what I said I'd do.

And so the frozen piece of meat went into the oven which I set to 80 degrees C, at the bottom shelf at around 20:30 on Friday night.

Some 3 hours later, when my parents came home from a concert, Mum helped me push a meat thermometer through it and set the oven to keep cooking until the centre had reached 70 degrees C. It had reached 35 degrees C, so based on my very random calculations, the final temperature would be reached around 4 am. And I wasn't sure the cooker would stop as I'd told it to do - there was no info about this feature in the manual.

But having a built in worry alarm, I woke up just after 4 am and wandered off to the kitchen for a check-up. The inner temperature was now at 55 degrees C. OK, cool, so another couple of hours to go. I turned up the heat to 100 degrees C, to be on the safe side. We were planning to eat it for lunch after all.

Actually I got up at 7 and started on the Danish pastries, and the thing was still not ready. My Mum got up and I quickly turned down the heat to 80 degrees C again. It was another hour and a half, when the cooker bleeped and switched off.

Then it looked like this

Thus, I quickly boiled up the brine:

Ingredients

1 l water

1 dl salt

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1 bay leaf

1 tsp crushed black pepper

2 tbsp crushed juniper berries

Method

1. Bring all the ingredients to the boil.
2. Place the piece of meat in a lidded container or a heat tolerant plastic bag, like a roasting bag.
3. Pour over the brine and close the lid or tie the bag.
4. Let stand for 4 - 5 h.
5. Remove from the brine, pat dry and slice thinly.
6. Serve with potato gratin or a warm potato salad. The meat should be cold.

Specialised contraption to ensure the whole piece of meat is covered during the soaking period.

What it looks like inside.

But unfortunately, I should have had more faith in the cooking instructions and not fiddled with the temperatures. I also thought that 1 dl of salt was way over the top and only used half, so very little had penetrated through. So less fear salt-wise too.

What we ended up with was something with a very spongy texture and that tasted of over-cooked liver. I didn't like it at all. Must ask Doctor Cutie how she did hers, because the one she made was fantastic. The only positive thing was that it was very easy to cut, but that really isn't the main point of food, is it?

Now the piece of moose was around 1.5 kg and the brine was just about enough to cover it. For a bigger piece, the brine needs to be scaled up.

Puff Pastry Experiment

After watching most episodes of the second Great British Bake-off (except the last one, don't tell me who won, please) and with some regret that I couldn't have tried for it even, I felt I needed to tackle the issue with puff pastry and declared my intentions to my Mum.

Her reaction was, why bother, when you can get ready made from the shop?

I disagree, I want to be able to know how to make my own, what if civilization as we know it collapses? What if the war comes? Or any natural disaster for that matter and there is no puff pastry in the shop? You've got to know how to make it. So there!

And so, I scoured my old haunts of blogs for recipes. See, when I went to my baking master classes, we made puff pastry with yeast and I wasn't really sure about that. So I made two batches - one with yeast and one without.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had a bit of a delay on my planning and so had to freeze both batches in the end and make the Danish pastries the following week-end.

Now, I can't even find the recipes I used. But one thing was certain - as said by a French patissier on the Great British Bake-off - it's equal parts dough and butter. So that was the guiding light.

The dough without yeast didn't seem to come together very well from the start, I kneaded and kneaded and the results were a very poor excuse of gluten development. But I got tired after a while and moved onto the next step - chilling etc.

The second batch was with yeast and it developed much better. Very strange - all ingredients came out of the same packets, really the only difference was the yeast. Good gluten, good everything. Oh well. Maybe my attitude improved inbetween or something.

I had a good banging away at the butter with the rolling pin. My Dad even came rushing to the kitchen to ask if I was intending to demolish the house. That bit was fun, though.

So roll and fold, roll and fold and pretty soon no-yeast dough was too thin and broke in several places, though I was very careful not to get things too warm and the butter oozing out. But I had a feeling the damage had already been done here.

The second batch was much easier to roll, easier to control etc, but still it felt like there was too much butter for the dough.

The next week-end Lundulph came to visit and so I was going to make Danish pastries for breakfast. I let both batches thaw thoroughly in the fridge overnight, then I got them mixed up and left the non-yeast one rise, while the yeast one went straight in the oven. So the result was massively greasy, not well risen at all (by any means), but with quite clear layers and fully edible, although not too great amounts.

So on the whole, progress, but still a massively long way to go. Maybe I should try rough puff next time.

I did play around quite a bit with the shapes, that was great fun, though my Mum was very concerned that I left too much space between each. The croissant-y shapes are filled with crumbled up feta cheese mixed with eggs. The twirls have a dab of créme patissière and a well drained peach on top.

Left-over Puff Pastry

After making two batches of cakes, I had loads of puff pastry left over. What to do, what to do...

Of course - cut it in strips and wrap around cocktail sausages.



That's pretty much it. And bake them on 200 degrees C.



I didn't even brush them with egg wash.

Friends Of The Mazarines

If you remember back in March, I found an old magazine with recipes.

Well, I've tried two more of the recipes, again the really quick ones using rolled out puff pastry.

Visually perhaps not entirely successful, but very tasty nevertheless.

On the right of the picture we have Kejsarkronor, which translates to Imperial Crowns. On the left, there are Kokosformar or Coconut cups.

At the back, there are chocolate cigars, but made with coconut fat. No difference in taste as far as I could tell, but oh so very difficult to incorporate, it has a much higher melting point than butter.

So, to the cousings of the mazarines.

Ingredients

340 g puff pastry, thawed but cold for each of the fillings below.

Filling for Kejsarkronor

300 g marzipan, coarsely grated

150 g granulated sugar

150 g egg whites (about 5)

For glazing

1 dl smooth apricot jam + 0.5 tsp water

Filling for Coconut Cups

250 g dessicated coconut

250 g granulated sugar

4 eggs

1 dl ready-made vanilla custard

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C (fan assisted: 175).
2. Take two pieces of the puff pastry and press together. Then on a floured surface, roll out as thinly as possible. Let it rest for a few minutes, so it doesn't shrink.
3. Cut out as many large circles as possible and place into aluminium foil cups, pressing down to remove any air trapped underneath. Cut-outs of the dough can be squeezed together and rolled out anew. Let the dough rest for a few minutes more in the cups.
4. For Kejsarkronor: blend the marzipan and sugar, then add the whites a little at a time, then let stand to swell for 30 minutes (up to overnight is OK).
5. For Coconut cups: Stir together all the ingredients and let rest and swell for 1 h.
6. Fill up the cups with your choice of filling and to the brim, even with a bit of a top on.
7. For Kejsarkronor: Cut out 1 cm wide strips, two for each cup and place in a cross over the filling and tuck in at the edges.
8. Bake in the middle of the oven. 20 minutes for Kejsarkronor, 15 minutes for Coconut Cups, until they get a nice golden brown colouring.
9. For Kejsarkronor: Bring the apricot jam with the water to the boil, then brush the Kejsarkronor once they are out of the oven, to give them a nice shine.

I made these back in May for my birthday. Lundulph certainly liked them. There were a lot of them too and they were pretty big, so it took some time to finish them. They held pretty well in a box in the fridge. The Kejsarkronor collapsed a bit sadly. Maybe I didn't fill them up enough.

Catching up

Well, doesn't time just fly? I have been swamped with work pretty much the whole of Summer and hadn't realised that I last posted in mid-March!

And being busy at work means of course that I haven't been cooking much, certainly not much new stuff.

Then the old computer died, literally and the agony of finding a new one. Which I've grown to hate lately, it gives me more trouble than my old one even.

Still, I do need to do some posting and catch up on the few new things I've done and mistakes I've made.

Looking at the weekly stats of the blog, I've come to realise that it still stays steadily on about 25, which kind of implies that it's mostly bots that visit it. Oh well, it's good to be able to access my recipes whenever I am online, if nothing else.

Teriyaki Chicken with Noodle Rösti

Last week-end Lundulph came to visit and in addition to the surprise Valentine's Day dinner that I'd booked at a nice French Restaurant, I thought we could do with a fancy lunch. I sadly still don't know how to plate food.



My Mum had bought a food magazine on easy recipes and flicking through it, this recipe caught my eye.

Ingredients

6 boned chicken thighs with the skin removed
2 chicken breasts
2 dl teriyaki sauce
2 large cloves of garlic
2 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp lime juice
400 g dried thin rice noodles
2 l water
1 chopped red chili of desired heat level
1.5 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
1 dl chopped fresh coriander
1 dl sesame seeds
butter for frying, about 1 dl
2 dl teriyaki sauce for serving

Method

1. Cut the chicken into similar sized chunks and place in a bowl.


2. Add the teriyaki sauce, press in the garlic and add the sesame oil and lime juice.


3. Stir in well, cover and let stand in the fridge for at least 1 h.


4. When marinating time is nearly up, pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees C.


5. Bring 2 l of water to the boil, then add the noodles and simmer for 2 - 3 minutes.


6. Drain most of the water, then add the chili, ginger, coriander and sesame seeds and stir in as well as possible.


7. Heat up a frying pan on medium, then brown the chicken and place in an oven safe dish and finish cooking in the oven for about 20 minutes.


8. In the mean time, heat up some butter in the pan, then take out about 1 dl worth of noodles and place in the frying pan in a pile. Then flatten with a spatula and let it go a bit crispy. Turn over and fry on the other side, then take out and place on kitchen paper to remove some of the fat.


9. Repeat with the remainder of the noodles, adding butter as needed.


10. Serve immediately.

This turned out to be a very good recipe. My Mum was worried that the spices weren't correctly balanced and tried to persuade me not to put in the full amount of sesame oil. Luckily I didn't listen to her this time, because it was yummy just the way it was.

We had enough for 5 people and there was a little left over, so 6 portions all in all.

The noodle rösti were an even better surprise - I call them rösti because that's what they ended looking like. Fabulously tasty, even my Dad had some, despite declaring from the outstart that he wouldn't eat anything silly like that.

My Sister on the other hand is now a teriyaki sauce convert and has declared to be the new ketchup and favourite dipping sauce.

I struggled with my timings and the chicken was ready well before the noodles and I had to keep it in the oven longer than needed and the breast pieces were a bit on the dry side.

We had a salad with this meal - romaine lettuce, radishes, cucumber and avocado, which worked rather well. Though I think a mixed baby leaf salad would be better.

As for our Valentine's Day dinner, we went to Brasserie Le Rouge. It was pricey, but very good and very nice atmosphere and very suitable for Valentine's Day. We didn't get a chance to celebrate it this year, so this was our opportunity to catch up.

Cheaty Pizza

Due to my escapade in the world of mazarins the other day, I ended up with an alarming surplus of thawed puff pastry.



Well, I wouldn't have if I had followed my original plan and made a second batch to take to work, but the usual combo of laziness and far too much to do at work and generally not feeling like it, meant that I skipped that second batch.

So, what to do, because despite everything, I cannot bring myself to throw things away. But a nagging hankering for pizza and the newly discovered fact that pressing two sheets of puff pastry together and rolling out thinly results in something thin, yet crispy forced my steps towards the local deli for pizza supplies.

And what I ended up with was so tasty, I had to make it a second time.

Ingredients
2 sheets of puff pastry (~170 g)
250 g ready tomato sauce for pasta
200 g sliced cheese
200 g sliced canned mushrooms
125 g thinly sliced chorizo
15 olives

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C (regular heat, not fan assisted).


2. Press the sheets of puff pastry together, then roll out on a well floured surface. It should be a couple of mm thick. Let rest for a few minutes, then place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.


3. Spread the tomato sauce evenly over the base, taking care to leave about a cm or two around the edge free.


4. Line the cheese slices on top, followed by the mushrooms and chorizo.


5. Place the olives on top and place in the middle of the oven and bake for about 20 minutes.

The pasta sauce I used was the Dolmio extra spicy Bolognese, not that there was any discernible difference between it and their regular stuff. And it felt a bit too runny for my liking, better do a proper thick sauce and freeze for emergencies next time. I was worried that the dough would go soggy before I'd finished stacking everything on top and putting it in the oven, so to be on the safe side, I put first tomato sauce and then cheese on one half of the pizza, then started with the cheese and then tomato sauce on top of that on the other half. I couldn't tell any difference - it was crispy straight from the oven and then in wasn't when re-heated.

I also wanted to use pepperoni, like usual, but the deli was limited and had only chorizo, so that's what it had to be and frankly it worked just as well.

The great thing was that the pizza was thin and crispy and impossible to eat with your hands, but it was good for my Dad, since he's not too keen on food that requires strength of teeth and a lot of chewing, meaning regular pizzas have not been an option for years.

The cheese and chorizo were both fairly salty, so if making the sauce, make sure not to put any salt in it.

I think capers would have been nice in there somewhere and possibly some chilli for extra kick.

This pizza definitely worked best fresh out of the oven, but is also edible, albeit a bit soggy, after a good whizz in the microwave. In fact, for the second round I invited my Sister Bip over and she liked the pizza so much, she had seconds and also wanted to take the left-over home. However, I'd already set it aside for my lunch box, so I didn't let her have it.

The second round I also timed - 50 minutes from taking out the ingredients from the fridge to serving it on the table and it was enough for 4 people. So Bip should be able to make one herself, it's dead easy.

Kongresser

Just before Christmas, my Mum dug out a food magazine - "Allt om mat" - which translates to all about food and I believe is comparable to "Good Food" in the UK. It was the November edition of 1992 and had a lot of Christmas related articles in it.



But that's not what caught my attention. Well, the date did, obviously, but mostly the front page picture of a mazarin and some other similar pieces of pastry.

The article was about the Swedish tradition of kaffebröd (literally: coffee breads) and in particular the mazarin and its cousins.

Now, as you know, Lundulph is very partial to things containing marzipan and the mazarin is actually filled with it. The shell is made of short crust pastry and it's glazed with icing on top. So I thought, he'd like the mazarin cousins as well and flicking through the pages, I decided on what seemed the easiest of them all - kongresser.



This does indeed mean congresses and there was no information as to why they are called this.

It also felt very cheaty to do them - using ready made puff pastry. So here goes, without further ado. This recipe makes 20 - 25. It also requires aluminium foil cup cakes, as they are sturdier and will force the pastry to keep its shape.

Ingredients
340 g puff pastry, thoroughly thawed, but cold
400 g hazelnuts or walnuts
300 g granary sugar
5 medium eggs

Method

1. Put together two sheets of puff pastry and squeeze together. Then on a floured surface roll out as thinly as possible, about a couple of mm thick.


2. Let the dough rest a couple of minutes, so it doesn't shrink. Then with a round cutter, cut out as many circles as possible.


3. Any off-cuts can be piled together and rolled out again.


4. Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C (fan assisted to 175).


5. Fit the circles in the aluminium cup cakes. Press in if necessary.
   


6. Whizz the nuts in a blender for a minute or so, there should be a good mix of coarse and fine pieces.


7. In a bowl, mix the nuts with the sugar and stir in the eggs.
   


8. Distribute the mixture in the cup cakes, filling up as much as possible.


9. Bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes, until they stop swelling.

The rolled puff pastry doesn't swell up like unrolled one does, but still goes a bit crispy. The filling has a good crunch to it thanks to the nuts, but at the same time it is a bit sticky in the middle.

The original recipe says hazelnuts, but we seem to have an excess of walnuts at the moment, so I used them instead. Plus my Sister Bip can't eat hazelnuts either, so this way she could have some too.

I made this batch last Friday. Today is Tuesday and they still taste rather nice. I can't wait to try out the other mazarin cousins.

(If you search on google images for mazarin, you'll get a lot of portraits of a man in a red dress, this would be Cardinal Mazarin, who apparently was fond of the mazarin cakes and they are named after him).

Mum's Birthday

After so many years, I'm now finally back in Sweden and can celebrate my Mum's birthday and instead of giving her yet another thing to clog up the house, I decided to let her have a day off from housework and cook dinner and make the cake. Though of course it was a croquembouche, since the first attempt failed miserably.

For the main course, I made fishcakes with cheese sauce from the Hairy Bikers. It was the cheese sauce that was most intriguing, but since Lundulph doesn't approve of cheese, I was saving this recipe for an occasion where he wasn't around.



To be on the safe side, I also made a double amount of the recipe.

Ingredients
1 kg mashed potatoes
1 kg hake fillet
salt and freshly ground pepper
5 dl full milk
2 bay leaves
2 medium sized eggs
3 tbsp finely cut parsley
ground white pepper
4 tbsp plain flour
4 medium sized eggs
3 dl bread crumbs
vegetable oil for shallow frying
additional milk to bring liquid up to 1 litre
100 g butter
4 tbsp plain flour
350 g grated cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Peel and boil the potatoes, then mash or push through a ricer and set aside to cool down completely.


2. Cut the hake fillet into chunks so as to fit into a saucepan, season with salt and pepper and lay it in a saucepan in a single layer. Pour the milk on top, add the two bay leaves, cover and place on the hob on low to medium heat and poach for about 25 minutes, until the fish has gone opaque and goes flaky.


3. Pour off the liquid through a strainer and top up with milk until it is 1 litre, then set aside for use in the cheese sauce.


4. Remove skin and such, then shred the fish and add to the mashed potatoes.


5. Add the two eggs, parsley, salt and white pepper and mix together well.


6. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and when it starts to bubble, add the flour an stir vigorously for a couple of minutes, then start adding the liquid a little at a time, stirring constantly.


7. When all the liquid is incorporated and the sauce begins to thicken a bit, add the cheese and stir in until it has melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.


8. From the fish-potato mixture, form patties and roll in flour.


9. Heat up the oil in a large pan on medium hot, in the mean time, whisk the four eggs lightly and prepare the breadcrumbs on a plate.


10. Dip each patty in the eggs, then roll in the bread crumbs and fry for a couple of minutes on each side, enough to make them golden brown and heat them through.


11. Serve with the cheese sauce.

I don't know if I've reached a new stage in my life where I'm prepared to accept fish as food (other than salmon and tuna as up to now) or if I'd just made my mind up to do this recipe and thus was in a mental state to actually eat these fish cakes, but when I picked up the hake yesterday morning, I didn't feel nausea from the smell when I unwrapped it. My Dad came round to see what I was up to and wrinkled his nose, I take after him, obviously.

I then pulled out a couple of disposable gloves and proceeded in poaching and then shredding the fish. It still smelt strongly of fish, but also rather pleasant. And those gloves were great, I must get some for my kitchen in the UK. I also used them to mix everything, it was so much better that way. And also the shaping was easy, as very little stuck to the gloves. From the above amounts, I got 20 fish cakes, planning on 2 per person, though they did turn out to be a bit too big for that, for me at least. And the cheese sauce was fantastic, using the poaching liquid added a nice dimension to it and the end result was not at all fishy, which both I and my Mum found rather surprising.

As usual, I was a bit light on salt. And I think the fish cakes might benefit from dill and chives as well, to spruce them up even further. My Mum did mutter on several occasions yesterday that I shouldn't follow a recipe literally, but I stood firm, and the result was great. Now next time, I can start varying things.

Interlaced with the fish cakes, I made the croquembouche. I used the same recipe as before, but double batch and I made the buns in the evening before. The oven was playing up, I guess this is something one has to live with. And so many of the buns collapsed when I turned the trays around. But for the last tray, I turned down the temperature to 175 degrees C and that made the difference that I could leave them in without turning round. This resulted in the buns staying puffed and round, making them so much easier to fill. So actually the collapse is undesirable. I also sprinkled pearl sugar on them at the start and tried a few with Daim sprinkles, which sadly melted, so won't do that again. But the ones with nib sugar seemed fine. Though after storing in a box overnight, the sugar had sadly melted.



For the filling of the choux, I decided to do something with Nutella, to compensate for the fact that I once again missed World Nutella Day on 5th February. A quick google search resulted in the following that was sufficiently simple enough to do.

Ingredients
2 dl Nutella
1.25 dl whipping cream
2.5 dl whipped cream

Method

1. Melt the Nutella with the 1.25 dl whipping cream in a bain marie, while stirring together until it is a smooth mixture.


2. Remove from the heat and allow to cool down completely.


3. Whip the 2.5 dl to stiff peaks, then carefully stir into the Nutella mixture and place in the fridge for an hour to firm up.

This turned out to be something absolutely divine! Would work nicely on cakes too, though not as glazing, it's not firm enough, I don't think. And whenever I get my hands on an ice cream machine, that'll certainly be a mixture I intend to try out in frozen form.

Then after a brief rest, my Mum came over and we made a cone, this time from a newspaper and with a vase supporting it on the inside and covered with aluminium foil on the outside. Mum then melted sugar and made a beautiful caramel, she has the knack for it. She kept stirring when needed and heated and cooled as needed, while I concentrated on building the pyramid. Frankly, this contraption definitely requires two people.



I didn't grease up the aluminium foil, so a lot of the choux buns stuck to it and we decided to leave the mould in, rather than do it the proper way and remove it. Maybe the third time is the charm and I'll manage to make a true croquembouche.

It was tasty though and I used up a lot more buns than I had intended, around 80 I think. It would have been enough for 20 people at least too, because after a full meal, fitting in more than 3 of these delicious little things would have been a struggle.

Today, some of the caramel had melted as it tends to after a few hours, but thanks to the mould cone still being in place, everything still holds together. We'll be eating it for a few more days to come I'm sure.

Gotländsk Saffranspannkaka

On the day of Epiphany, I and my Mum met up with my good friend Nana, her husband and their two year old daughter for brunch at the fabulous Petite France, claiming to best café in Stockholm. We were lucky in that it was the first day of opening since the holidays and also we miraculously made it some 30 seconds before the rest of the world wandered in.

Thus Nana went off to secure us a good seat, while I and the others ordered sandwiches, pastries and coffee. Everything was fantastic.

And so, after a couple of hours that contained seconds, Nana invited us back to their place for a light lunch.

To finish it off, she offered us a slice of Gotländsk Saffranspannkaka, which would translate as saffron pancake from Gotland. This was so wonderfully tasty, that we asked for the recipe, which turns out to be very simple. We also found it among one of my Mum's food magazines from the 90s. Given that it has saffron in it, I suspect it is traditionally served around Christmas.

Ingredients

1 kg ready made rice pudding
3 dl single cream
4 medium eggs
1 g ground saffron
75 g blanched and flaked almonds
2.5 dl golden syrup

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C.


2. Stir together the ingredients, making sure each is well incorporated before adding another. Make sure to add one egg at a time.


3. While adding the syrup, keep tasting and adjust the amount as it depends on how sweet the ready made rice pudding is.


4. Pour the mixture into a shallow baking tin or pyrex dish. and place in the middle of the oven.


5. Bake until it sets and becomes golden brown on the surface about 30 - 40 minutes.


6. Serve warm or cold with a little jam on top. Whipped cream may also be nice.

I used the Swedish golden syrup and it isn't as sweet as the English one, so my dessert wasn't very sweet, I would have liked it a bit sweeter.

Traditionally in Gotland it is served with jam made from dewberries. We didn't have that, so used my Mum's bilberry jam instead, which also isn't very sweet. Nana served with drottningsylt, which translates to queen's jam and is made on equal amounts of bilberries and raspberries.

Nana also mentioned that if the above feels too rich, half of the 3 dl of single cream can be swapped out for milk.

I think it would look nicer to bake in portion sized ramekins, if serving at a fancier dinner, because it is very hard to cut out pieces from the baking dish and transfer to plates. I also think a splash of maple syrup may enhance the flavours too.

What I find really clever with this dish is that the almonds become invisible in the mixture, so when you look at the slice, it looks like rice pudding with saffron, yet when you put it in your mouth, you get creaminess and crunch.

I must try to fine tune this recipe, I suspect Lundulph will like it.

Croquembouche

For my parents' 40th wedding anniversary the other day, I'd decided to make a croquembouche. What I've managed to find out is that this fantastic creation is traditional in French weddings, so it would be very suitable for a ruby wedding. I did toy with the idea of a dress rehearsal, but decided against it, after all, I'd have to blog about it in advance and also living at my parents' place at the moment, that would really spoil the surprise.

To get an idea what a croquembouche is, google images gives a good clue.

But I did kick off preparations in the evening before by making half a batch of the recipe in my Cordon Bleu book, where I first discovered the croquembouche. The recipe said to make 100 choux buns, but counting the buns used in the picture, they seem to have used about 66, so I thought half a batch would suffice.

And it did, I got 60 buns out of it. The recipe is slightly different to what I did a couple of years ago for the Daring Bakers. However, I swapped out the water for milk.

Ingredients

2.4 dl milk
120 g unsalted butter
0.5 tsp salt
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2.4 dl flour
5 large eggs

Method

1. Bring the milk and butter to the boil on medium-low heat.


2. In the mean time, sift together salt, sugar and flour.


3. In a separate bowl, break 4 of the eggs and whisk lightly.


4. In a glass, break the fifth egg, add a pinch of salt and whisk together. This will be used for the glaze.


5. When the liquid is boiling, remove from the heat and whisk in the flour mixture. I found a wooden spoon worked better than the electric whisk.


6. When the dough has come together, put on the hob again, stirring to get it to dry out a bit and become smooth.


7. Remove from the heat once more and slowly add the whisked up four eggs, a little at the time and making sure they are completely incorporated before adding more. 4 or 5 installments should do.


8. Place some baking paper onto a couple of baking sheets and pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C (I used the fan function, so baked at 185 degrees C).


9. Pipe with a straight wide nozzle onto the baking paper, blobs about the size of walnuts. Leave quite a bit of space in between, because they will swell do double size.


10. Glaze with the fifth egg and a brush, then dip a fork in the remaining egg wash and flatten the choux buns.


11. Bake for 20 minutes, until the buns are golden brown and have puffed up. Swap or turn the baking trays if they are baking unevenly and don't worry if they seem to collapse from this treatment.


12. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack, then use or store in an airtight box (they will go a bit soft then).

For the cream filling, I couldn't be bothered to do the suggested mousseline cream, so used one of my Mum's pudding powder packets. This is basically corn flour with some flavourings and one packet resulted in almost 1 litre of pudding. I opted for the vanilla flavoured one and it was to be stirred into 100 ml of cold milk, while another 600 ml milk and 1.5 dl sugar were brought to the boil. After that the dissolved powder was to be whisked into the boiling milk and the whole lot be allowed to heat up until it bubbled again and began to thicken. After this, I kept stirring it to cool it down a little bit, then added the remainder of the egg wash as well and whisked it in. To prevent skin forming, I covered the surface with cling film and allowed it to cool down completely.

On the day of the celebrations, I made a hole in at the bottom of each choux bun and by this time they had all gone soft. I then whisked up the pudding cream to loosen it up and remove any lumps and using a fine straight nozzle, I piped it into the hole of each choux. Most did have a hole in the middle and it was great to see how they filled up. A few didn't, but I tried to get in at least a little of the cream.

Then I moved onto the caramel - I melted 5 dl of granulated sugar with 1 dl of water. This was fine. I then should have added 1 dl of glucose, but I didn't have that so used light syrup instead. This is the Swedish artificially made syrup which is pretty close to glucose. But using the light one, this tinted everything a bit so I wasn't too sure when it had reached the caramel temperature.

For the mould, I decided to go for the option of constructing the croquembouche on the inside of it as I'd seen recommended on youtube and twisted together a plastic place mat into a funnel and lined it with aluminium foil. The book recommends lining a cone on the outside with foil and then building the pyramid on the outside.

I removed the melted sugar off the heat and started dipping the choux and gluing them together inside the funnel. This step worked pretty well and I didn't burn myself on the melted sugar. I'd used 35 buns when the funnel was full, so I thought that'll do and put it in the fridge to firm up a bit.

With the remaining 25 buns, I dipped the tops into the melted sugar and dipped in either pearl sugar, daim bits or edible pink hearts which I'd purchased especially along with edible gold dust to decorate the croquembouche.



I couldn't resist eating one at this point and this is also when I realised that after all these years of cooking, I still can't make caramel. Ho hum, let's hope the thing in the fridge firms up anyway.

So we had dinner, Dad opened a nice wine and there was much merriment and then time came to the dessert. The sparkling wine was opened, I took out the croquembouche mould out of the fridge and saw that it had collapsed inside already. Oh, dear! Further unravelling of the funnel resulted in this:



But as Lundulph said on the phone, the good thing is that even if the croquembouche doesn't work out, it'll still be a very tasty mess. And it was. Despite eating a decent dinner beforehand, we still managed to put away most of the little choux. I think there were about 15 left.

The pudding cream was far too much as well, I had about 4 dl left, which I transferred to some nice glasses and sprinkled some daim bits on. My Dad likes pudding, so I'm pretty sure they'll be gone by the time I go back to Sweden.

I showed the photo in the book to everyone. My Mum suggested we try the croquembouche again for her birthday in a few weeks. She'll help then and I'll make sure to get both glucose and a sugar thermometer.

Besides I got to use two of my Mum's paper doilies, they've been at the bottom of the cupboard since the mid-eighties at the very least. The price tag indicated a ridiculously low price from a shop that hasn't existed for a very long time.

I'll Have A Blue Christmas...

...without Lundulph.

Sadly due to the severe weather that has been raging all over Europe, Lundulph was unable to join me in Stockholm for the Christmas holidays, instead we're each celebrating with our respective families.

Thus the lack of a new Christmas Bird with all the trimmings.

We aim to try and catch up over New Year next week, but it won't be quite the same and so this year's well-laid plans are pushed on to next year.

Pork Bourguignon

To celebrate my Gran's 90th birthday, I decided to make Boeuf Bourguignon, after recently having watched the Julie & Julia movie.



As I started to put together a shopping list, Mum volunteered a large piece of meat, which I accepted, along with a novelty wine from Italy that she'd bought because the bottle was in the shape of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. As it turned out, the piece of meat was pork and the wine was a Sicilian wine "typical for the region". Yeah, definitely for cooking.



I also went a bit lazy and didn't get shallots, but opted for regular onions and used canned button mushrooms instead of fresh ones.

Further changes were that I had to transfer things between a casserole dish that could go on the hob and a gyuvetch (crockery pot) that goes in the oven. This palaver due to not having a pot that does both. I also prepared the dish up to the slow cooking point last night and finished it this morning.



Ingredients

1.2 kg blade pork/spare rib roast
170 g smoked and diced bacon
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 medium sized carrots
1 largeish onion
1 tsp salt
0.25 tsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp flour
750 ml red wine
2 - 3 dl beef stock
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 cloves of garlic
0.5 tsp dried thyme
1 crumbled bay leaf

1 can of whole button mushrooms (400 g) along with the liquid
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 largeish onions
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil
salt and pepper to taste
a bouquet garni made of 4 sprigs parsley, 0.5 bay leaf and 0.25 tsp dried thyme tied in a double layer of cheese cloth
225 g of parboiled girolles
sprigs of parsley for decoration



Method

1. Pre-heat the oven along with the gyuvetch, so that it doesn't crack from a sudden temperature change. This is done slowly and in increments up to 230 degrees C.


2. In the mean time, trim off the fat from the pork as much as possible and cut into 5 cm chunks. Then dry each piece with a paper towel.


3. Peel the carrots and onion and slice them.


4. Then heat up the vegetable oil in a deep frying pan on medium and sauté the bacon for 3 - 4 minutes, then remove from the pan and place in the guyvetch in the oven.


5. Turn up the heat until it starts smoking, then brown the pork pieces all around. Do this in several batches, making sure they aren't crowded in the pan. Remove each batch to the guyvetch.


6. Turn down the heat a little, then add the carrots and onion and brown them for a few minutes until the onions go soft and translucent. Stir so nothing sticks and burns. Finally take the guyvetch out of the oven and transfer the carrots and onion there as well.


7. Then season and sprinkle the flour all over, stir around to get the meat coated and place the guyvetch in the oven for 4 - 5 minutes uncovered. Then take out, stir again and return for a further 4 - 5 minutes. This will brown the flour a bit.


8. Turn down the oven to 165 degrees C, take out the guyvetch and transfer it's contents back to the deep frying pan. Replace the guyvetch in the oven to keep it warm for later.


9. Pour the wine over the meat and top up with beef stock, so that the liquid barely covers it.


10. Add the tomato paste, peel and press in the garlic, sprinkle the thyme and crumble the bay leaf. Stir well and bring to a simmer on the hob.


11. Return everything to the gyuvetch, cover and let simmer in the oven for 2 h. Check that the meat is done by piercing it with a fork.


12. While the casserole is baking, drain the canned mushrooms, but save the liquid.


13. Heat up the butter and oil to the point when the bubbles begin to subside, then add the mushrooms and sauté them for a couple of minutes until they get lightly browned. Again do this in batches so they don't over-crowd. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.


14. Peel and cut the onions into 2 - 3 cm chunks. Then add to the fat from the mushrooms and sauté for about 10 minutes, while stirring carefully so they don't disintegrate.


15. Add about 1.2 dl of the mushroom liquid and the bouquet garni, cover and let simmer for 35 - 40 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated.


16. Discard the bouquet garni and set aside until needed.


17. When the 2 h are up, check the meat, if it's tender, add the sautéed mushrooms and onions. Also add any left-over mushroom liquid and the parboiled girolles and stir through to make the ingredients mix, then give the stew another 15 - 20 minutes, or if not serving straight away, turn down to about 80 degrees to keep warm.


18. Serve with boiled or mashed potatoes and decorate with sprigs of parsley.

It does sound like a lot of effort, but that's mainly due to having to switch between casserole dishes.

But thinking about my random results for guyvetch stew, I think drying the meat before browning it and also coating with flour and baking to brown it might make a difference and I must remember that next time. Along with pre-frying the vegetables as well.

In hindsight, I should have got shallots, they look so much more attractive than chunks of regular onion. Sautéing the mushrooms and onions like that was interesting as well and according to Julia Child, they can be served as is.

I did manage to burn the onions a bit during the sauté, but not too bad.



Since my Mum mentioned that she doesn't do mashed potatoes, I opted for that, rather than just boiling them. Besides, Delia's perfect mashed potatoes are just too tasty.

We had a great dinner, the stew smelt and tasted wonderful, the meat was tender, the sauce was of perfect thickness and everyone had seconds. Lundulph could sadly not participate in the birthday celebrations, his flight got cancelled due to the severe weather that's hit the UK over the past couple of days, so I'll have to do this dish for him especially sometime soon. And then with shallots and fresh button mushrooms.

A note on the meat. A quick search on wikipedia reveals that pork is cut differently in the UK and Sweden. The piece I used was called "karré" and there is no direct cut that corresponds to it. Google translates it as loin, but that's not entirely correct, the loin is towards the back of the animal, whereas the "karré" seems to correspond to the shoulder, which was termed as the spare rib steak and blade.

Of course being a birthday celebration, we finished off with a lovely cake, made by my Mum.



Though we skipped the candles, and as my Gran said, 90 candles would have blown it up.

Yoghurt Bread

On my latest flying visit home, it was time to resuscitate Monty, my sourdough starter. However, from the last time I did that, I had loads of starter already, I'd even frozen some of it and still the jar where it lives was two-thirds full.



So I decided to do something drastic and not feed the starter in preparation of making bread. Instead I measured up 360 g, leaving a little for next time. Then I added 260 g of strong white flour and 140 g of granary flour (in effect what was left in the packets) and ran it in the Kitchen Assistent. This resulted in something very crumbly, since the starter itself was pretty stiff for some reason.

I didn't really fancy adding water, so had a look in the fridge for something else and spotted half a tub of creamy yoghurt. That was about 225 g, which I added to the dough and it came together pretty well.

I mixed it for 5 minutes, then gave it 30 minutes of autolysing, then another 5 minutes of mixing before adding 15 g salt.

I then let it rise for 2.5 h with folds at 50 and 100 minutes. During this time I didn't notice it rising much. It also seemed a fairly soft dough, but felt more like cold modelling clay or putty rather than elastic dough.

I shaped it into one big loaf, placed it in the loaf tin and put it in a very cold room (about 15 degrees C) and went out for the evening. When we got home, I had a peek at it and it hadn't changed noticeably, so I returned it to the kitchen where it was a little warmer (about 18 degrees C). When I got up the next morning, it had doubled in size and looked very nice.

I pre-heated the oven to 230 degrees and slashed the loaf. This is the first time it slashed well, without sticking and dragging along with the razor blade. Then quickly into the oven before it changed its mind and collapsed. I baked it for 50 minutes, turning down the heat to 200 after 25 minutes.



I got great oven spring and when it had cooled, I sliced it to discover a brilliant crumb texture and a strong sour smell. It tasted very nice too, strongly sour, despite the yogurt really not being sour at all, but perhaps keeping it out of the fridge while the dough was developing increased the sourness. I hope Lundulph likes it too, but certainly this was a very interesting dough, easy to handle and rather tasty too. When I've baked previously, my breads haven't really been very sour at all. This also is a new way of resolving starter surplus. I think next time I do this, I'll add anise or perhaps lingonberry jam to enhance the flavours.

Руло Стефани

The title above reads Rulo Stephanie and is what Bulgarians call meatloaf.



After catching the end of a Nigella Express episode a couple of weeks ago, where she made meatloaf, Lundulph expressed a hankering for it and I thought I'd make one for him when he came to visit this week-end.

The Nigella vesion only had eggs in it, but was covered with bacon, which I found intriguing and after discussing with my Mum, we decided to have a crack at adding bacon to our regular recipe.

So this one is a collaboration between me and my Mum, which was great fun. I also found out that the vine leaves were her invention to begin with, inspired by a gyuvetch made by a friend many, many years ago.

The mince we had for the meatloaf was home made, thus extremely lean, as my Mum removes every trace of fat and sinews before grinding the meat, so bacon would definitely be needed to stop it going dry.

And having spotted a photo of woven streaky bacon on a turkey, I thought I'd try that as well and make things extra festive.

Sadly my Mum never really bothers with amounts for ingredients there days, so the below may be well off the mark.

Ingredients

Mince mixture
1.5 kg minced meat
300 g bread
water for soaking
4 medium onions
5 eggs
salt, pepper, dried savoury and fresh parsley

Filling mixture
3 medium onions
1 can of mushrooms (400 g)
3 large carrots
3 tbsp vegetable oil
7 hard boiled eggs
salt and pepper


about 30 preserved vine leaves

560 g smoked thinly sliced streaky bacon


Garlic and paprika potatoes
7 jacket potatoes
4 - 5 tbsp garlic granules
2 tbsp paprika
salt
margarine

Béchamel sauce
5 tbsp vegetable oil
4 tbsp flour
6 dl full milk
2 dl whipping cream
juices from the meatloaf

Method

1. Start by making the mince mixture on the evening before, so that flavours have time to develop. First soak the bread for a few minutes, then squeeze out and mix in with the other ingredients. If it feels too wet, add some breadcrumbs.


2. Next prepare the filling. Peel and chop the onions. Peel and dice the carrots finely, drain and dice the mushrooms.


3. Heat up the fat and fry onions, carrots and mushrooms for a few minutes.


4. Peel and dice the eggs, then mix in with the other vegetables, season to taste and let cool.


5. To make the meatloaf, first line two or three loaf tins with the vine leaves.
   
   


6. Then on a piece of baking parchment, weave the bacon strips.
   
   


7. Spread half of the mince (if using two loaf tins) over the bacon and then beyond onto the baking paper at one end. Pat it into a rectangle and fairly thinly, so that it can be rolled.
   
   


8. Spread some of the filling in a thin layer, leaving 2 - 3 cm free on each of the two short sides of the mince rectangle.
   
   


9. With the help of the baking paper, start rolling the part that's outside the bacon. Make sure the paper doesn't get trapped inside the roll. The idea is to have the bacon part cover the meat loaf on the outside only.


10. Tuck in at the edges, then transfer to the loaf tin making sure the seam side is down.
    
    


11. Cover with more vine leaves and bake in a pre-heated oven at 165 degrees C for about an hour and a half. It depends on how thick the loaf is.


12. After the first 30 minutes, add a little water to each loaf tin.


13. While the meatloaves are baking, peel and cut the potatoes into wedges, then parboil by covering them in cold water and just bring to the boil, then turn off the heat and let them cool for a few minutes.


14. Grease up a deep oven tray and transfer the potatoes to it. Sprinkle garlic granules, paprika and salt and stir around to spread the spices.


15. Distribute some margarine over the potatoes and bake in the oven at 225 degrees until they are soft inside and crisp up on the surface and have a nice golden colour. It works well to have the potatoes at the top of the oven and the meatloaves at the bottom, they should both have the required baking temperatures. It's a good idea to stir through the potatoes a couple of times during baking to make sure they all cook through evenly. If they look too dry, add a bit more margarine.


16. For the sauce, heat up the oil, then add the flour and fry for about a minute, stirring vigorously.


17. Start adding the milk a little at a time and still stirring constantly. It'll clump together to begin with, so just keep adding more milk and eventually the cream.


18. When it has the thickness you want, let it simmer for a couple of minutes (still stirring) and then remove from the hob.


19. When the meatloaves are done, carefully drain the liquid from them and add some of it to the sauce. Save some for later servings, as the sauce will go pretty thick when it cools down completely and this is a way to spruce it up a bit.

This was very successful, we served it with steamed and sautéed broccoli. It all combined very well, though we didn't use up all of the mince mixture, but had to remove about 200 g of it in the end. I wanted to freeze it and use to make a few Bulgarian meatballs at a later date, but my Mum mixed it up with some of the leftover filling and made a third mini-meatloaf.

Lundulph thought adding some chilli next time might make it even more interesting and add further depth to the flavour. I was thinking of perhaps adding red pepper or tomato to the filling to increase the contrast and make the roll shape more obvious when serving.

It was certainly great fun to make and to cook together with my Mum.

Brioche Roulée

In order to treat Lundulph and my parents to a special breakfast, I decided to finally try out Lenôtre's recipe for Brioche Roulée.



His dough recipe is a bit different from Richard Bertinet's one, that I've been successful with, so I was a bit nervous, especially due to some of the instructions that didn't quite make sense in my head.

Besides, I've had trouble baking and cooking things in my Mum's kitchen for some reason. It's just not the same as at home, I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's because my Mum is there and historically she's been the one to cook for the family, not me, whereas at home, I'm the one that does the cooking. Who knows. But I was determined to give this a try.

The original recipe is called Brioche Rulée aux Fruits Confits and is translated to Rolled Brioche with Candied Fruit. It would have almond or vanilla cream in it, along with candied fruit and raisins soaked in rum and be decorated with a sugar glaze. Problem nr 1: My Dad doesn't like dried fruit in yeasty breads. Now I had some mousseline cream left over, which I thought I'd use up. As it turned out, I had to throw it away, since it had fermented. I guess 3 weeks in the fridge is just really pushing my luck. That makes Problem nr 2. What were the alternatives? Well, there are 5 jars of jam in the fridge and by far the most popular is bilberry, so I decided to use that instead. Thus also the issue with the fruit was resolved and I decided to add some chopped walnuts for a bit of crunchiness.

I also decided to actually do the brioche properly, i. e. prepare it the night before and let it rest in the fridge, I generally skip that bit. The recommendation was to make in small amounts, rather than big. The roulée was supposed to be made from 400 g dough in a 20 cm cake tin. I didn't weigh my dough, but I knew it would be more than the required amount. This worked out OK, since my Mum's cake tin is 23 cm.

Brioche dough ingredients

9 g fresh yeast
1 tsp warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp full milk
250 g strong white flour
3 eggs
225 g unsalted butter at room temperature

Brioche dough method

1. In a small bowl, crumble the yeast into the water and stir to make a runny paste.
   
   


2. Combine the salt and sugar in the bowl where the dough will be mixed and add 1 tbsp of milk to it and stir to dissolve as much as possible.
   
   


3. Add the flour to the salt/sugar mixture, then add the yeast paste on top and mix to combine.


4. Add 2 of the eggs and continue to mix the dough until it is firm and smooth and evenly blended. If it seems a bit dry, add the remaining tablespoon of milk.


5. Add the remaining egg, then continue to knead for some 10 - 15 minutes (if using a machine, possibly longer if by hand). The dough should become light and soft, but not too sticky.


6. Now divide up the butter into ice cube sized chunks and add to the dough and incorporate well, but don't over-work the dough.


7. Cover the dough with a cloth and set aside in a warm place and let rise to double volume, about 2 h.


8. Punch it down, fold a couple of times, then let rise a second time to double volume, another 2 h or so, then cover the bowl with cling film and place in the fridge overnight.

The bits I was wondering about was the almost ridiculously small amounts of water and milk in order to dissolve the dry-ish ingredients. But having done them, I realise that the point is to make it easier to blend them into the dough, rather than add liquid to it. Brioche dough generally only gets liquid from the eggs, so this is a very neat trick to incorporate yeast, salt and sugar and get them well distributed throughout.

From the instructions I got the impression that the dough would be soft, but not sticky. I didn't end up with anything near that. The eggs I used were on the small side and the overall amounts were a bit too small for the Kitchen Assistent, so I ended up kneading by hand and also adding the extra tbsp of milk in order to get it to come together.

The most disturbing thing was the amount of butter, I think I might have got it wrong, because it was way too much and the final dough that I put in the fridge was more of a very thick batter, than a dough. I just about managed to incorporate it all. I certainly struggled to punch it down and fold it between the two rises.

Roulée ingredients

unsalted butter
1.5 dl granulated sugar
1 dl water
2 dl jam
1 dl chopped walnuts
1 egg

Roulée method

1. Butter a round cake tin.


2. Take the brioche dough out of the fridge and take about a third of it and roll out to a circle, large enough to cover the bottom and walls of the cake tin. Then place it in the tin and spread some of the jam on the bottom of it. It must be a thin layer.


3. Roll the remaining dough into a rectangle, about 60 x 20 cm and spread the remainder of the jam on it. Sprinkle the walnuts over the jam, then roll up to a 50 cm long sausage.


4. Cut the roll into 12 pieces 5 cm thick and arrange in the cake tin, making sure they don't touch each other or the dough at the edge. Cover and let proof until the pieces begin to touch, about an hour.
   
   


5. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C.


6. In the mean time bring the sugar and water to the boil to make a simple syrup. Let simmer for a couple of minutes, then set aside to cool.


7. Just before putting the roulée in the oven, whisk up the egg and brush the surface well. Bake the roulée for about 35 minutes, until golden brown.
   
   


8. Remove from the oven and immediately brush or drizzle the syrup over the roulée until it's all absorbed.


9. Allow to cool a bit, then serve warm.

The night in the fridge did wonderous things for the brioche dough, it was very much like modelling clay than dough, but most definitely not like batter.

I tried to work as quickly as possible, and used copious amounts of flour when rolling.

I also baked it at 185 degrees and used the hot air fan. This mainly to save a few minutes on waiting for the oven to heat up, rather than anything else.

The result was fabulous, albeit on the greasy side. I also put in too thick a layer of jam at the bottom under the rolls. This is mainly due to the bilberries being whole in the jam, I should have prepared it and blended it beforehand.

On the whole, it was an interesting experience, but I think I'll stick to my original brioche recipe next time, it seems a bit less hassle.

I also suspect other types of jam would work just as nicely.

Everyone liked it and there's only a small piece left over. Dad and Lundulph even had seconds. So I'm happy too.

Halloween Dessert

As for the dessert, I had inspiration from Dick Strawbridge's work during the last stages of Celebrity MasterChef.



He made little cups out of filo pastry, which he filled with sweet things, I can't remember exactly what. I thought the cups were brilliant and so made some for my dessert.

The filo pastry I had was a bit on the dry side and I had to revive it with water from the spray bottle. This worked a treat though and with care I managed to unroll them with very few tears.

Unfortunately I did not have muffin tins and decided to use aluminium cups normally used for mazarines.

So I melted 40 g of unsalted butter on very low heat and cut squares from the filo, two or each cup.

For each cup, I brushed the first filo square with the melted butter and placed it over a cup with the butter side up and away from the cup itself. I then brushed the second filo square and placed on top of the first square, but turned it 45 degrees, thus ending up with an 8 point star. I centered the cup and carefully pushed the filo into it, folding where necessary and making sure the edges formed some sort of a petal and didn't stick out too much. And I also realised that shaping these in a muffin tin would have been so much more difficult.

I preheated the oven to 200 degrees C and baked and went to check my emails and burned the whole bunch.



After some swearing, I cut another batch of filo squares and repeated the process, but I also lowered the heat to 180 degrees C. And kept watching. I think it took bout 5 minutes and I moved them around during the baking, to make sure all got baked evenly.



With a much better result. Quickly out of the oven and left to cool down, on the baking sheet, which perhaps provided a few extra seconds of baking. Once cooled, I removed the aluminium cups very carefully, then placed the filo cups in boxes well padded with kitchen paper and closed the lids tightly to keep crisp. I used them the next day and staleness had just begun to do its work, so I don't think they would have lasted a further day.

I then turned my attention to the pumpkin. Off with it's lid and out with the seeds and stringy bits in the middle. Then I drew a simple face on the front and cut it out. Once that was done, with the help of the melon ball scoop, I carved out about 50 pumpkin balls, which I steamed until they began to go soft.

I then heated up about 175 g medium maple syrup until it started bubbling (on medium heat) and added the pumpkin balls, sprinkled over cinnamon and basted them in the syrup to get them nicely caramelised/infused. Then out onto a baking parchment and allowed to cool down.



I tasted one while it was hot and it was fantastic, once cooled though, the sweetness went away a bit, or I managed to get the one that had soaked up most of the sweetness. I should have stewed them a bit longer in the maple syrup perhaps.

So, to serve, I placed a filo cup on a plate, placed 5 pumpkin balls inside it and added a teaspoon of mascarpone.

It was my intention to drizzle more maple syrup over them, but had another of many brain skips and completely forgot that.

Thus the wow factor that I was aiming for got lost, however it was still pretty tasty.

Moose Wallenbergers

Actually Wallenbergare, this is a type of a burger, named after Marcus Wallenberg, a distinguished member of the Wallenberg family.

Normally it's made of beef mince, but during hunting season, moose mince is also used. I've never done this before, but I had it many years ago at the Stockholm Arlanda airport and it was delicious.

So the main course for the dinner party was to be a moose Wallenberger accompanied by the Dauphinoise potatoes, the mushroom fricassée, Madeira sauce and a blob of lingonberry jam.

I researched quite a few recipes and this one seemed the most interesting, though I decided to add a splash of cognac as suggested in another recipe.

And in case you haven't figured it out yet, I have moose on the brain at the moment.

Ingredients

1.5 kg moose mince
3 eggs
2 dl double cream
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp salt
2 tsp ground pepper
1.5 tbsp Dijon mustard
0.5 tbsp stock concentrate of beef or game
3 tbsp cognac
finely ground breadcrumbs
butter for frying

Method

1. Mix together everything except the breadcrumbs and the butter.


2. Take a small piece and fry and taste. If needed, adjust the seasoning, then leave for a few hours in the fridge, so flavours develop.


3. Make large burgers, about 200 g, but they shouldn't be more than 2 cm thick.
   


4. Turn in the bread crumbs, then fry for 3 - 4 minutes on each side and finish off in the oven at 120 - 130 degrees C.

Now I wasn't entirely sure what the stock concentrate is, but I found some in a bottle in a shop and used it. It tasted pretty much like a stock cube, but in liquid form. I guess a cube can be mashed up into fine powder and mixed in and it should work in a similar way. Or perhaps dissolve in the cream.

As I was speaking with my Mum later in the evening, I realised I'd completely forgotten to add the eggs, so had a rush to add and incorporate them.

During frying, I switched my brain off for a bit and burned the surface on several, as the pan was hotter in the middle than towards the edges and the frying was uneven. I did correct this, by turning the burgers a quarter of a circle every now and then. Sometimes I wonder why I bother reading scientific cookery books, if I'm not going to follow the advice in them.

It turned out the "finish off in the oven" bit is not that simple and I wasn't sure that they would cook properly, so I played it safe and did the finish at 175 degrees and I left them in for quite some time, along with the Dauphinois potatoes, mushroom fricassée and the Madeira sauce to keep everything hot. So the burgers were a bit over-done.

At serving, the burgers also felt a bit dense, I might add some bread next time to make them a bit fluffier. But they were still pretty tasty and were quite easy to shape too, I hadn't expected that.

As for the Madeira sauce, this time I had messmör and incorporated it. Contrary to what I thought would happen, its flavour was barely noticeable next to the Madeira, but it added a very nice richness to the sauce and took off the sharpness of the wine itself. I think créme fraîche would be a better substitute than double cream. I wonder if the messmör would generally always behave like this in gravies, must experiment.

And so how was it overall? Well, I think I had far too many flavours, all pretty strong and screaming for attention and although fairly tasty, I should try and keep things a bit simpler. The guests seemed to like it, though they felt that the portions were way too big.



This is a photo of my portion, which was a bit smaller and perhaps what I should have aimed at in the first place.

Dauphinoise Potatoes

For the carbs part of the dinner party, I decided to make Dauphonoise potatoes. I've had it in restaurants and it's always been wonderfully tasty and I've always thought I really should try making it at home.

Well, despite its simplicity, this dish is fiddly. And I didn't have the proportions, having noted down the definition from Larousse Gastronomique.

Ingredients

6 large jacket potatoes
750 ml single cream
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel and slice the potatoes thinly. Best use a food processor for this.


2. Butter a deep oven-proof dish.


3. Place the cream in a bowl, peel and press in the garlic, then season so that it's a bit on the salty side.


4. Lay one layer of the potato slices to cover the bottom of the dish completely. Then drizzle a bit of the cream mixture.
   


5. Lay another single layer of potatoes and drizzle with cream, then continue until the potatoes are slightly above the edge of the baking dish. If there's any cream left, distribute it over the potatoes. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C.


6. Cover the dish with cling film and place something heavy on top to press down the potatoes. Keep an eye out, because it might overflow. A few minutes of the pressure is enough.


7. Place in the oven and bake for 2.5 h, or until the potatoes are cooked through. If the top layer starts burning, cover with aluminium foil.

The slicer attachment of the Kitchen Assistent machine made a very easy job of this and as it turned out, the potatoes filled the baking dish perfectly, but I didn't keep watch during the pressurising and so I ended up with a big cream puddle under it.



I think I fitted about 8 or 9 layers in total, I didn't count, but they were many. And so, it took a long time to bake even though the potatoes were quite thin. A gorgeous smell of garlic spread through the kitchen and I briefly did toy with the idea of having a nibble, but no, this was for the dinner party.

Mushroom Fricassée by Raymond Blanc

After watching Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets, I noted down way too many recipes (as usual, one might say) and they're all on my to try out list.

As the girolle season is coming to a close, I just had to squeeze in a dish with this gold of the forest.



Chef Blanc's recipe is for 4 portions, so I scaled it up to fit 10. I also only had girolles, that's what grows in the woods behind my parents' house.

Originally reading through the recipe, I didn't see where the tomatoes should be added, so I thought it was some sort of typo and crossed them out from my notes. But they should be there. Also I thought the dish would taste in a particular way. It didn't, but I was very pleasantly surprised. I also couldn't get hold of chervil, so increased the tarragon instead.

Ingredients

1 kg fresh girolles
2 small onions
2 cloves of garlic
40 g unsalted butter
10 g chopped parsley
3 sprigs tarragon
1.25 dl fruity white wine
1 tbsp lemon juice
200 g tomatoes
1.5 tbsp cornflour (optional)
salt and pepper

Method

1. Brush off the girolles and cut into pieces, do not wash.


2. Peel and finely dice the onions, peel and press the garlic.


3. Heat up the butter on medium heat in a large shallow pan until it bubbles.


4. Add the onion and garlic and fry for a few minutes until they go translucent.


5. Increase the heat to high and add the mushrooms and fry until they've released some of their liquid, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.


6. In the mean time, chop the parsley and the leaves of the tarragon.


7. Add the herbs, white wine and lemon juice to the pan and stir through.


8. De-seed the tomatoes and dice finely, then add to the mushroom mix.


9. Let simmer for a further 5 - 6 minutes, season with salt and pepper to taste, then sprinkle over the cornflour and stir in well to thicken the sauce.

The original recipe can be found here. The above is what I actually did.

I served this as a side dish, but it would work wonderfully in an omelet I think.

Salmon Roll Starter

Wanting to keep the Saturday dinner party Autumnal, I decided to so something with Caviar of Kalix. This is a delicacy called löjrom in Swedish and is produced in the region of Kalix in the far North of Sweden.

And searching for interesting recipes, I stumbled across this one. It is a roll made of gravlax and the caviar is placed on the side. Seemed pretty nice and could also be made up to 3 days in advance, so that would be one thing less to do on the day.



The recipe claims to be for 12 people, but it's nearer 15 portions, so the number of slices may need to be adjusted.

Ingredients

3 leaves gelatine
450 g thinly sliced gravad lax
3 dl créme fraîche
300 g strained Greek yoghurt
3 tbsp grated horseradish
3 tbsp chopped chives
4 tbsp chopped dill
salt and pepper
12 slices bread
60 g rocket salad
15 g chives
dill for decoration
250 g Caviar of Kalix

Method

1. Soak the gelatine in some water.


2. Place a long (70 cm) piece of cling film onto the work surface, then lay the slices of salmon so that they cover a rectangle of 20 x 50 cm. Make sure there's a good amount of overlap so everything holds together.


3. In a bowl, whisk together the créme fraîche, yoghurt, horseradish, herbs, salt and pepper.


4. Squeeze out the gelatine and melt it on low heat, then stir into the herb mixture.


5. Spread the herb mixture over the salmon, leaving a cm uncovered along one of the 50 cm edges.


6. Now pick up the cling film from the other side and roll it up like a Swiss roll, so you end up with a 50 cm long sausage. It'll be fairly runny, so try to roll as tightly as possible.


7. Place in the fridge to set.


8. When ready to serve, toast the bread and cut out circles of about the same diameter as the salmon roll.


9. Chop together the rocket and chives


10. Place a toast circle on each plate, then cut up the salmon sausage about 5 cm thick and place on top of the toast. Decorate around it with the rocket mixture and the caviar and add a small sprig of dill on top and serve.

I had massive trouble rolling things up and then it sort of kept going flat, so I ended up rolling baking paper around it in the hopes of giving some stability. It did, but not much.

I also ended up using 400 g of the salmon, so during rolling the filling came through here and there, so the remainder was used for patching up just before serving. The roll didn't set very hard, so could be re-shaped during plating. Or so I thought. I could just about slice the roll, but a lot of the cream mixture just kept coming out and all I could do was just about place it on my pieces of toast. Which I couldn't cut into circles, as I didn't have a cutter, so they became triangular instead.

So, once again I botched up gelatine work, I should have used a lot more. See, the original recipe states ricotta cheese, which perhaps is stiff enough so that 3 leaves of gelatine are enough, but as Lundulph won't eat cheese, I swapped it for strained Greek yoghurt and so I should have adjusted the gelatine. Perhaps I should have used mascarpone instead, which is pretty stiff and is acceptable to Lundulph as he doesn't believe it really is cheese.

When it comes to rolling, a cm should be left free of the mixture along both long sides of the salmon rectangle. One of them should then be folded over the mixture and then the whole lot should be rolled. This way, you won't end up with lots of mixture in the middle of the roll and lots of salmon on the outside and it'll look esthetically more pleasing, like a real roll.

Now I tried some of the caviar on it's own and although it didn't feel too fishy for me, it was still not something I'd eat, but combined with the salmon and the creamy mixture and the toast, this was a perfect flavour match, most likely made in heaven.

As you can see from the photo, my plating leaves a lot to be desired, I ended up with some sort of sad/angry clown face, very far from what the picture in the original recipe looked like.

One of my guests doesn't actually eat fish and so I decided to fry some halloumi cheese for her on a bed of rocket, pea shoots and colourful cherry tomatoes. When I spotted them in the shop, they made me smile.



I realise just now that I completely forgot to dress her salad and it must have been terribly dry to eat, she was so very polite not to complain. I'm ashamed, there is no excuse for such forgetfulness.

Nut-free Macarons

In preparation for an Autumn dinner party, I decided to make macarons to go with the coffee at the end of the meal. And of course get the opportunity to make meringues in my Mum's new oven, obviously.



However two of the guests - my Sister Bip and Doctor Cutie - are allergic to nuts and the like and so I set about finding a substitute for the almonds once again. Mostly the replacement is coconut, which sounds really nice. But that won't do. Doctor Cutie can do coconut, but Bip can't. What else then? Well, seeds.

As it happens both can deal with sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds, so either of these would have to be used. There were some sunflower seeds already in the house, so the choice was easy.

My Mum keeps them in the fridge, so straight out of there, nicely chilled and straight into the processor resulted in something that was pretty close to ground and with the benefit of not going oily, which I worried about.

Following the same recipe as I've done before, I added the icing sugar and the cocoa powder and blitzed for a couple of more minutes, but it didn't go finer than before.

I also made sure not to over-whisk the egg whites, most definitely kept them at soft peaks stage and wasn't too careful when I folded in the seed mixture either, so I ended up with a somewhat runny macaron mix. I let it rest in the bowl for 30 minutes, then piped as prettily as I could (not pretty at all, in other words), then did the tray dropping exercise, they did settle a little bit, but not as much as I'd hoped.

I then let them rest for a further 30 minutes after which time they'd settled down more. At this point I'd also spotted a jar of Daim sprinkles and decided to decorate some of the macarons with them.

And now I switched off my brain and pre-heated the oven to 140 degrees C. Not taking into account that I'd be using the fan to bake the meringues, thus requiring a lower temperature. And so the majority of the macarons went volcano. I had just about 20 left to make one macaron for each guest. Bah! And some of the Daim pieces had melted.

But they were tasty, I made a sample for my Dad and he then asked where I'd hidden the box with the others. He said he wasn't bothered about the cream bit. Needless to say the "spare" ones disappeared off very quickly.

At least I made proper mousseline cream, though it ended up a bit loose, but is good enough. And the macarons were wonderfully crunchy and with a very distinctive chewiness in the middle, so nice that I'm getting there. I think sesame seeds and perhaps honey or maple syrup would be a good combo to try out.