Recipe - Merguez Sausages with Couscous

As readers of this blog might remember, I recently made a batch of home made sausages for the first time. If you haven't read this post, or need a refresher, have a look here.

Having sausages on their own is one thing but cooking them and having them a suitable accompaniment is a completely different thing.

Recipe - Swedish Apple Cake / Recept - Svensk Äppelkaka

Another trip down memory lane...

There's been quite a few recipes recently where I've revisited old flavour memories (if there's such a term) from my childhood and years in Sweden. They've all been savoury recipes so far, this will be my first sweet recipe from Sweden.

Recipe - Hunters Pie

The normal flow when I cook something that ends up on the blog is that I cook it, take photos of it and not until then is it time to eat it. As you can see, that flow was somewhat different this time. The smell that this dish spread in the kitchen just made it impossible to stop and take pictures before eating.

Recipe - Cheatscake

The title of this post is a bit of a play on words, nothing worse than that. ;)

Recently I was asked if I was interested to head up to London to take part in a product launch that Philadelphia was arranging. Sadly, as quite often is the case, the event was during daytime and due to work commitments I was not able to attend.

Recipe - Meatballs and Spaghetti en papillote

Most people just goes for something quick and easy to throw together when it comes to dinner on a weekday. As you might have figured out now, I'm not most people. Or very normal for that matter.

The night I cooked this I started with two tubs, pork and beef, mince that needed using up and it all ended with a fairly involved dish. Don't let that turn you off though, it is well worth the effort - even if I say so myself.

Cooking en papillote is quite easy and can be varied to you hearts content. Personally I would probably mostly associate it with cooking fish. However, as I am showing you here it doesn't just have to be fish. I've also cooked chicken en papillote for example.

The meatballs I made are made the way I'd call typically Swedish. That means that they are made with a 50/50 blend of pork and beef mince. Other variations are of course also welcome. Heck, if you don't have the time, just use pre-made meatballs and a jar of shop bought tomato sauce.

Yes, I did just say that - you can use some pre-made stuff if you feel like it. Go for it, at least you assemble the dish in a slightly more interesting way than a nuked ready meal of meatballs and spaghetti. It could be a good start down the slippery road of cooking from scratch.

After that bombshell, let's have a look at the recipe.

Ingredients (made far too many meatballs but freeze the leftovers)
Meatballs
500g pork mince
500g beef mince
Salt
Pepper
1 egg, beaten
Breadcrumbs

Tomato sauce
500g Passata
1 onion, diced
Salt
Pepper
Smoked paprika
Worcestershire Sauce
Brown sugar, optional

Olive oil

Spaghetti, cooked according to the instructions on the packaging

Parmesan cheese, grated

Fresh basil, torn

Method
Meatballs
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Shape meatballs about 3cm or so in diameter. Heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. Fry the meatballs in batches, without crowding the pan, until nicely browned on all sides.

Tomato sauce
Heat oil in a pan on medium heat. Let the onion sizzle away until it starts to soften but not gaining any colour.  Add in the passata, stir well and season to taste. Add sugar if you think it is a bit too tart .Let this simmer away until it has gained the thickness you desire.

Assembly
Stir in the spaghetti and torn basil with the tomato sauce. Place spaghetti and sauce on pieces of parchment paper, top with meatballs and grated parmesan. Make a small bag out of the parchment paper and tie together with butcher's twine or use silicone rubberbands to close it together.

Place the parcels in a oven preheated to 180c. Let cook for about 15 - 20 minutes or until the parmesan have melted sufficiently.

Place the bags on heated plates and open at the table.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Pork Mince Chili Soup

This is a soup that I recommend on a cold winter night, it is sure to heat you up and give you a warm and cosy feeling.

At times I start doing things in a new way in the kitchen. One of these things is that I've changed the order of how I apply my spices in stews, soups and curries. I used to fry the meat and veg and then add in the spices. These days I do it a bit differently, I start by heating the pan and then adding in the oil. Once the oil is warm as well I add in the spices and fry them off for a while, almost making a spice past. Only then do I add in the meat and veg. It might just be imagination but for me that gives me a deeper flavour to the dish. Why not give it a go in your kitchen next time?

This is, as quite often happens on this blog, a dish that you can freestyle quite a bit. Use beef mince, whatever vegetables you got at home, make it yours. This is just an indication as to how you can cook it, the way I did it. I did add quite a bit of different spices but use what you got in the quantities you think will suit you.

If you kick it up a bit you can always have some sourcream on the side for the spicily challenged. Either that or make a wimpy version and serve it with some chillies and hot sauce on the side. Whichever way you think you can get way with.

Time for the recipe? I'd say so.

Ingredients (serves 4)
Olive oil
Ground coriander
Ground cumin
Dried oregano
Smoked paprika
Chilli powder
500g pork mince
1 - 2 onions, sliced
1 - 2 celery sticks, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
2 - 3 garlic cloves, diced
3 tbsp tomato purée
1 can chopped tomatoes
450 ml chicken stock
Salt
Pepper
Fresh coriander

Method
Heat a large saucepan or cassserole pan on a medium heat on the stove. Once hot, pour in the olive oil and let it heat up too. Add the spices and stir well and let this cook for a while, forming a paste. Keep stirring and don't let it burn.

Add in the pork mince and fry this until no longer pink. Now it is time to add in the onion, celery, pepper and garlic. Let this cook together for five minutes or so, stirring now and then.

Add in the tomato purée, chopped tomatoes and the stock. Give it all a good stir and let it come to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and let it simmer under a lid for about 30 to 40 minutes or until the vegetables have softened to your liking.

Ladle into soup bowls, garnish with coriander leafs.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Halloumi Salad

This is not something you see every day on this blog - a vegetarian recipe. I have to admit that it did taste really nice, even if I say so myself. It was good enough for me to have it as dinner one day and then I had the leftovers for lunch the next day. Then swiftly I had lots of meat for dinner on the second day, just to even things out again.

Just to try and trick myself into thinking that I was eating meat I kept referring to the halloumi as moomin meat. One of my twitter friends, Johanna, soon informed me that cottage cheese is known as moomin mince. I'm not sure if the shops label it as that yet though.

Although vegetarian I'd say that this recipe is pretty much in the freestyling way I recommend. Use whatever stuff you got at home that you think could work together. Pickled beetroot could for example work really well with this.

I made a simple vinaigrette with some olive oil and Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar but you can leave that out or use any dressing you think would work with it.

Well, let's not spend too much time mulling over the fact that I assembled a vegetarian dish, let's have a look at the recipe.

Ingredients (serves 4)
Olive oil
Flour
Smoked Paprika
Halloumi (about 225g - 250g)
Black Beluga Lentils
Plum tomatoes, quartered
Red onion, thinly sliced
Edamame beans
Rocket leafs

Method
Mix the flour and smoked paprika on a plate. Take the halloumi cheese out of its packaging and pat it dry with some kitchen towel. Press the halloumi onto the flour and paprika mix, making sure to coat all sides.

Heat a frying pan on a medium heat. Pour in some olive oil and let that heat up. Add in the halloumi and fry on all sides until it colours up nicely. Remove from the heat and dice up the halloumi.

Assemble all components on plates in a nice and orderly fashion.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Half Special / Recept - Halv Special

I'm sure the image above makes a lot of you go 'what the...'. Fear not, it shall all be revealed.

Here in the UK there's the burger van or chippie. In Sweden there's something called gatukök or street kitchen. They are fast food outlets that can be found in almost any city, town or village. Some are still independents and other are parts of chains like Sibylla.

From these you can buy hamburger dishes, sausage dishes, ice creams, magazines, pick-n-mix and much much more. Some are even doing pizzas, kebabs and other dishes that are more or less considered imports.

There are some dishes that most Swedes I know consider as classics. This being one of the most classic of them all. Basically a 'half special' means that you get a hotdog in a bun with mash on top. A 'whole special' would be two hotdogs.

It's up to you if you want grilled or simmered hotdogs. Personally I go for simmered if they're of the slim variety and grilled for the thicker ones. But that's just me.

You can also add toppings like a gherkin and mayo 'salad', diced gherkins or the daddy of them all - the West Coast Salad. As you can see from the photo there's just crispy onions on top of this one. I was going to do a gherkin mayo salad but I found that the gherkin monster had been visiting and had eaten all my gherkins.

There's another version of this where instead of the sausage being served in a bun you get it all rolled up in what is called 'thin bread' in Sweden. That is basically our version of the tortilla. I might be wrong here but I think it originates from up north and was made by the Sami people. For an idea of how a 'thin bread roll' looks - have a look here.

If you visit Sweden, make sure that you try our version of fast food from a gatukök. It might not be highbrow or very advanced but it is part of the culture and something different to savour.

Before I head over to the recipe I must admit that I cheated a bit and didn't make my own sausages. It is on the list though. The ones I used was of really high quality though and the flavour of them really brought memories back. It was an almost exact replica of what I had stored in my 'food flavour memory'. The ones I used were frankfurters from unearthed. And no, I'm not sponsored to say that. ;-) I just saw them in the shop and bought a pack, something I'm very happy about.

Let's head over to the recipe now, there's really not much to this.

Ingredients
Water
Bay leaf
Salt
Pepper corns
Good quality hotdogs/frankfurters
Hotdog buns
Mash (make it a bit firmer than you'd probably normally do)
Crispy onions (optional)
Mustard (optional)
Ketchup (optional)

Method
Pour water into a pan that it large enough to easily hold the sausages. Add the bay leaf, salt and pepper corns and bring it all to a boil. Turn off the heat, pop in the sausages and put the lid on.

While the sausages heat through you can make your mash. Make sure to season it well and make it quite firm.

To assemble, just pop a hotdog (or two if you're making a whole special) into a bun. Spread with mustard and ketchup if you so wish. On top of this we add the mash, I used a ice-cream scoop to try and make it look a bit prettier, and the other toppings of your choice.

Enjoy!

Review - "Butchery to Pimp Your Home Cooking" course

This is a knife, M'kay?

A couple of weeks ago I saw a tweet mentioning a butchering course. This course was being advertised as being run by Nathan Mills, @naththebutcher.

Given the fact that I've wanted to learn better knife skills for quite some time as well as wanting to get a better understanding of how to cut up and treat my meats I quickly signed up.

The day for the course soon came around and I left Gods own county for London and all its lights and distractions. Having arrived at Bermondsey tube station I headed for Nathan's place. I have to be honest and say that finding the place in the dark wasn't the easiest thing. We did talk about this though and I believe some photographs will be added to their site in order to aid you in finding itt.

Once I found the place I was very warmly welcomed by Nathan and Ruth. I had a quick tour of the facilities that was very new, clean and impressive. They have the look around them that makes you expect Vinny Jones to come in with some poor sod of a gangster that is being 'disposed' of.

After some chat I was treated to some thinly sliced roast beef, bread and condiments as a quick snack as we were waiting for the other course delegates. This time there was only two other delegates, the maximum amount of delegates are five.

Once everyone was gathered and had tried some of the beef we were handed our coats, aprons, gloves, cloths and knives. It was getting serious.

We started with the chicken. First we were given instructions on how to truss the chicken and were all giving this a go. Chicken trussed, we cut off the twine in order to start butchering the bird. For each 'sub-part' of the bird Nathan gave us a talkthrough, then he demonstrated whilst talking us through it again. Then it was our turn to try it, with Nathan offering us assistance when needed. This methodology was used throughout the evening and at least for me it worked really well. Once we had the chicken breasts off the bird we were given ziploc bags. The breasts were put into the bags and apple juice were poured onto them together with sliced chilies and some herbs. Marinating, ready to be cooked.

Sawing the pig.

Next we went on to the shoulder of pork. First though, Nathan got half a pig out for us and showed us how they butcher down a pig. All the time giving us the names of the parts, tips about good cuts that are unknown and generally good tips and pointers about pork. Feeling suitably humble about my lack of skills with the knife it was now time to turn my attention to my shoulder of pork. We boned it, generally tidied it up and applied some herbs and spices in order to make porchetta out of it. If we didn't make it all the way, I do think we were close to the world record for the amount of garlic in three porchettas. This is when we got to the knots...

Leave no garlic behind.

Either Nathan got the patience of a saint or he got his knife out and made some serious damage to dead animals when we had left. He had to teach the three of us how to make the butchers knot. Without wasting too much time on the subject let's just say that we were probably not the quickest to learn or the most nimble of the finger. In the end thought we had managed to roll and tie up our porchettas and it was time to head over to the leg of lamb.

Making knots, or not.

Just like with the pig, Nathan got half a lamb out and proceeded to butcher it down as he was telling us what he was doing and why. That done, we proceeded to get our legs of lamb butterflied and smothered in a pesto-like marinade that Nathan prepared for us.

Busy at work.

Lamb put away and the place tidied we sat down for a very nice meal of slow cooked beef, sauce, bread, salad and some good wine. It seems like all of us fitted together quite well because the conversation flowed during the meal, just as it had all evening.

All the meat we prepared, including the chicken carcass, were packaged up as the evening progressed and as we left we were carrying some serious amounts of meat with us. We were joking about being being put through a 'stop and search' and trying to convince the police that we were not carrying around a butchered whore or two.

So, what's my conclusion of this course then and would I go for another course with Nathan again?

I thoroughly enjoyed the course and picked up lots during the evening. Nathan had a very easy way of teaching us and the entire evening was peppered with small tips and good advice. At times you did notice that we were the first class and there's room for some improvement but that is just to be expected. I went away feeling more confident in my abilities to work with a knife and that's what I came there for. The added bonus of a shedload of nice meat to cook and a nice evening in very good company was a most excellent bonus.

As for going again, hell yeah. I'm quite tempted to go for one of the courses where you get to butcher a pig or lamb but I think I'd need to get myself another freezer to fit all that meat in.

For more information on the courses, to book a course and all that - have a look at Edible Experiences here.

[Disclaimer 1: All photos are kindly supplied by Nathan and Ruth. I was so busy that I didn't have time to take any photos.]

[Disclaimer 2: Booking this course was my own decision, I paid the full price out of my own pocket and I have no affiliation with either Nathan or Edible Experiences. All views and opinions above are my own.]

Recipe - Sailors Stew ; Recept - Sjömansgryta

Once again we're looking at a very classic Swedish recipe. This recipe has roots way back in time and was something simple that poor people cooked. The name indicates that it might have been cooked on ships in the past as well, something that would work well since it stews on its own.

My twitter friend Linda pointed out that this reminds quite a bit about scouse as well. I guess that most countries have versions of dishes like this.

If I were to literally translate the Swedish name of this dish we'd end up with 'seaman stew'. I choose not to use that name. ;-)

You can of course pimp it and add lots of extras but I kept it simple for once and that is the recipe you'll get below. One thing to think about is that the beer you choose (I used Spitfire Ale - thanks for the Christmas present Mark and Kate ;) ) have a impact on the 'gravy' in the end. The darker the beer, the darker the gravy turns out in the end.

I used feather cut steak but if you can't find that just use whatever steak you got. Make sure to whack it good with a meat mallet if it's too thick though. You don't want it to be more than 3 - 4 mm thick in this recipe.

The classic accompaniment to this is sliced pickled gherkins. Trust me, you want that on your plate with this.

Before we head over to the recipe, just a quick question to you readers - I've posted some what I consider classic Swedish recipes recently. Is this something you find interesting so I should continue or is there something else you'd prefer me to post about? Please use the comment form in this post to let me know what you think.

Now over to the recipe, this really isn't rocket surgery cooking.

Ingredients (serves 4)
300g or so worth of feather cut steak
800g or so worth of potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1 cm thick slices
1 tbsp butter
2 onions (or more to taste), sliced
A sprig or two of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
300ml beer
Salt
Pepper

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180c.

Heat up a casserole pan (with lid) on a medium heat on the stove and melt the butter. Once the butter is nice and ready, add in the onions and fry for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the pan and add in the steaks instead.

Fry the steaks until sealed on both sides. Pop the onions back into the pan and add in the thyme, salt and pepper. Top with the potatoes and pour in the ale.

Lid on and into the oven for about an hour or until the potatoes are soft but not a total mush. Serve with the aforementioned sliced pickled gherkins.

Enjoy!