Butter & Beans

Classically Swedish

2008-12-01T14:20:00.001+01:00

The snow has melted away, and the temperatures have risen. The evenings still get a bit chilly, though, and that calls for hearty and warming food. Again, one tires of porridge, so I thought I'd make some meatballs.

Daniel posted a recipe a while back, and that's basically the one I used, if any. I added about two tablespoons of chicken liver paté to the mixture, remembering a commenter recommending it, and they turned out really juicy and, if that's even possible, meatier than normal. I ate the meatballs with mashed potatoes and our homemade lingonberry jam, and drank a glass of cold milk. It just doesn't get any more Swedish than that!

Mini Cinnamon Doughnuts

2008-11-23T22:22:00.001+01:00

Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling tired, lonely and not at all like working. Then I saw the tiniest hint of a snowflake outside my window and jumped out of bed wanting to scream with joy, and the rest of my day was made. I really love snow. I may be 22 years old on paper, but as soon as it starts to snow I just want to take my shoes off and run around the block barefoot and half-naked, just as I did when I was six. Seeing the snow fall makes me feel truly happy, which I know is weird. But then again, I did grow up way up north...

Snow and winter calls for warm and comforting food. And what better "food" is there than cinnamon doughnuts?

Mini Cinnamon Dougnuts, adapted from Sju sorters kakor

Ingredients
1 egg
100 ml sugar
100 ml milk
2 TB butter
500 ml flour
1,5 tsp baking powder

Oil for frying

Sugar and cinnamon

Instructions
Whisk egg and sugar until white and fluffy. Add the milk.
Melt the butter and stir into batter, then add most of the flour and baking powder.
Knead the dough until smooth and pliable, then roll the dough out half a centimeter thick and start cutting little circlets out -- I used a shots glass.

Heat the oil in a saucepan until 180 C/350 F, or just wait until it looks ready like I do, and risk getting unfried doughnuts. Make sure not to fry too many at a time, or the pan will cool off too quickly. Fry until golden on both sides, then let drip off on a piece of kitchen towel paper then cover in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.
Repeat until done.
Enjoy with coffee.

Fish!

2008-10-26T22:32:00.002+01:00

I hardly ever cook when I'm on my own. It just seems so pointless somehow, not being able to talk to anyone while eating, not sharing your day over the meal. But man cannot live on porridge and porridge alone, so today I did some Proper Cooking (tm) -- pan-fried plaice with oven-roasted potatoes, carrots and parsnips! (Yes, Ilva at Lucillian Delights sort of inspired me...) It's dead simple, and incredibly delicious!

Ingredients, serves 2

300 g plaice
Coarsely ground rye flour
Salt
Pepper
Butter

400 g potatoes
3 big carrots
3 small parsnips
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 200 C/ 390 F.

Prepare the vegetables:
Scrub the potatoes, peel carrots and parsnips. Quarter the veg, and douse in a good amount of olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Place in an oven-proof dish, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until soft and edible.

Prepare the fish:
Pat the fish dry with a paper towel, and coat with the rye flour. Salt and pepper on both sides. Place a generous knob of butter in a hot skillet, and fry on both sides until golden brown. Serve as is, or with dill-flavoured sour cream, or some more butter.

I don't have any pictures to show you of the food (my man moved to Bavaria, and took the camera with him. Bastard.), so here's a picture of a dog on a sofa instead.

Deep Fried Cauliflower

2008-10-17T20:36:00.004+02:00

Munich went from early autumn warmth to late autumn chill overnight, as it does. The Bavarians can't be bothered with four seasons, two are plenty--one where you sit outside in beer gardens at night and drink beer, and one where you huddle up with Glühwein (mulled wine) or go skiing in the alps. They may be right, but for those of us who grew up in Stockholm, where any particular weather tends to linger long enough for you to get to know it by first name, it can be disconcerting to be able to see your breath just a day after you were out walking in a t-shirt and shorts.

When the cold season comes marching in, the thoughts of a foodie naturally turn to heartier fare: oven roast, potato gratin, anything with lots of cream and butter... As any ringed seal could tell you, the best way to fortify yourself before a cold winter is a decent fat layer, and so we enter Butter & Beans' territory. Of course, you'll also be needing your vitamins and minerals when the sun doesn't shine, so vegetables are essential.

The combination of vegetable and fat is a time honoured tradition in most countries. We've recently visited France for a potato gratin, and today we're taking a look in the general direction of India, although the recipe is courtesy of a resident of the Indians' former colonial masters, namely Jamie Oliver. The recipe, deep fried cauliflower with spices, is from his Jamie at Home series/book.

Like most people, I long ago realized the almost magic ability of deep frying to bring out the full delicious potential of food, and ever since, I've longed to be able to clog my arteries with my own creations. I've owned a few deep fryers since, but somehow the results were never really good. Then one day, this spring, I decided to try my hand at deep frying "by hand", with just a pot, some oil, and a little piece of bread as a temperature indicator.

And you know what? It finally clicked. I think it might partly be that my old fryers didn't really have the heat capacity to keep the oil hot enough, but mostly I think it's that I finally really focused on the process; looked at the oil, smelled it, placed my cauliflower in it by hand, looked at it as it changed colour, and extracted it piecewise with a slotted spoon. So, if like me, you've been somewhat challenged in this area of your cooking, try it once with just the pot!

Well, let's put our recipes where our mouth's are, shall we?

Deep fried cauliflower
Inspired by Jamie Oliver.

1 cauliflower head
200 g self-raising flour, or 200 g flour + 10 g baking powder
1 bottle of beer
1-2 tsp salt
1-2 Tbsp spices, suggestions: turmeric, chili, pepper, caraway
oil for deep frying
lemon to serve

Pour oil into a large saucepot and put on high heat. Trim the leaves off your cauliflower, cut off the largest parts of the stem, then break down into small florets. Sprinkle the cauliflower with some flour, and set aside. Grind the spices with a mortar and pestle, combine with salt and flour in a bowl. Whisk in beer until the batter reaches the consistency of thick cream, then mix in the cauliflower pieces.
Check if the oil is hot with a thermometer (180 °C / 350 °F), or simply place a piece of bread or raw potato in the oil. When it surfaces and goes golden quickly, the oil is hot enough.
Place little batches of the cauliflower, piece by piece, into the oil--drop them away from you! Fry for about 3-4 minutes, or until the batter's gone really golden and nice. Remove with a slotted spoon, let drip off a little on kitchen towels, then sprinkle with salt, and serve with some lemon to squeeze over.

If you want to, you can also dip some parsley branches in the batter and fry them for 30 seconds. A nice little garnish.

Oh, and don't take pictures of them with a flash, or they'll look nasty, like the fries that have been lying around all day in a 24/7 kebab place, and not crunchy and delicious, like these will be.

Our Daily Bread

2008-10-02T10:33:00.006+02:00

I found the recipe for this particular loaf of bread late last autumn, when I had a pot of Chili con Carne on the stove and decided I wanted bread to go with it. It is a kind of faux French country style bread, where the sourdough is replaced with regular yeast, making it quicker and a tad easier to put together. Although this bread may not as flavourful as when baked with sourdough, it still tastes great, and since it's ready to be eaten in just a few hours, it's perfect for those days when you just don't have time to bake all day long.

We had the bread alongside a wonderful soup I'm sure Daniel will be telling you all about soon, but it's also really great toasted and eaten with some butter.

Faux French Country Style Bread, from dn.se (a Swedish newspaper's online edition)
Makes two enourmous loaves.

900 ml lukewarm water
50 g fresh yeast (half the amount is more than enough if your yeast is so fresh it's almost wet -- I could hardly get the dough to stop rising!)
2 tsp salt
1,5 litres wheat flour
700 ml rye flour

Place yeast and salt in a huge bowl. Dissolve in a small amount of the water, stirring until done. Add the remaining water, and stir a little bit more.
Add the flour and knead well (if you have a machine to knead the dough, be careful as rye requires a bit more sensitivity than wheat), until dough is shiny and doesn't stick too much to the bowl.
Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for 1,5 hours, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 250 C/480 F, with either your baking stone or oven tray inside.
Knead the dough one last time, then divide it into two parts, and shape in whatever fashion you see fit -- mine turned out quite round. Flour your hands if necessary.
Place the loaves on a floured baking sheet (if you're using your bread stone, and want the loaves to slip onto it easily) or silpat, and let rise one last time while the oven is heating up.

Cut a deep cross into the loaves before placing them in the oven. When inside, spray them with a bit of water.
After 20-25 minutes, turn the heat down to 175 C/350 F and spray them once again.
Bake for another 20-25 minutes, or until the crust has a nice colour, and when gently tapped on the bottom, the loaves sound dull and kind of hollow.

Let cool off for few minutes before cutting them.

By the way, if you live in a cold or drafty building, or if your yeast is a bit on the old side, you can always use my fool-proof dough-rising trick:

Yup, that's me, my dough and my laptop all in perfect harmony. Works quite well, actually.

For all of your bread needs, check out YeastSpotting over at Wild Yeast!

Potato Gratin or Gratin Dauphinois

2008-10-01T22:33:00.002+02:00

Autumn happened early this year, we've had a couple of months of gray skies, rain, temperatures around 10-15 °C and general misery. It's not been all bad, though. There's been some mushroom hunting, a Swedish crayfish party (kräftskiva), and some really good stews in equally good company. Not to mention the beer tastings.

Okay, all in all, it's been alright. But it has been autumn, and with the colder weather comes a longing for hearty, filling comfort food, and what comforts better than a potato gratin?

Potato gratin is a dish with a bad reputation among the health freaks, so we opted to call it a gratin dauphinois. That's French, and as everyone knows, mediterranean cooking is very healthy indeed. We have a serious attitude about healthy food here at Butter & Beans, what with our family histories of heart disease and all.

Potato Gratin Dauphinois

800 g floury potatoes
3 cloves of garlic
300 ml whipping cream
50 g butter
150 g cheese that melts nicely (cheddar, gruyère, emmentaler)
salt, black pepper

Slice your potatoes to a thickness of about 1 cm. Finely chop the garlic.

Place them in a large pot, or even better a large oven proof cooking vessel which can also be used on the stove.

Season with a generous amount of salt and black pepper, and mix well.

Now get your cream. This Swedish whipping cream is only 40 % fat...

... so make sure you get it all in there. Don't worry, this will be our secret. Your personal trainer does not need to know.

Add a few knobs of butter (this too will be between just you and me), and place on a plate. Bring to the boil, then quickly lower the temperature, and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are just about done, and the cream has thickened. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200 °C / 390 °F. During the last couple of minutes, melt most of the cheese into the mixture.

If you didn't have an oven and stove proof dish, now is the time to transfer everything to an oven dish. Then, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top, and bake until a nice golden crust has formed.

This is a delicious side dish for a pot roast, or steak. It also goes great with lamb (add some rosemary!), which is especially nice during the autumn.

Like I said earlier, we take healthy food seriously here, so we gathered up a panel of some of the finest cardiologists in a nation, and asked them what they thought of our gratin. The results? This:

STO<->MUC

2008-09-21T01:12:00.004+02:00

No recipe today, sorry. It's a quarter past one in the morning, and I only just arrived in my small room in Munich. Tomorrow, I'll pack up all my belongings, and then I'm moving to another small room only a few blocks away. Then, I go back to Sweden to work some more. Not exactly the Oktoberfest vacation most people associate with Munich this time of year, but c'est la vie, eh?

After a year in Munich, and then a couple of months in Sweden, I've reflected a bit about the two cities I call home. Munich and Stockholm have so many differences, yet there are some key similarities, too. For lack of a better word, I'd like to say that both cities have a distinctly career-y feeling. Lots of business people running around talking in their mobiles, expensive apartments, loads of IT firms, salad bars and €4 cups of caffe latte. Both cities have a decent night life, yet neither is a never-sleeping vibrant party metropolis like Berlin or Amsterdam.

But I think the thing that most unites Stockholm and Munich is that despite their size (both in the range of a million inhabitants), they're not exactly super-urban. Both have large green areas, and also a distinctly greener feel than many cities. The first thing I saw when I got off the subway where I live was a hedgehog. And honestly, where else but Munich would you find a herd of sheep in the city park?

So... itchy...

... oh noes!

Again, I'm sorry there's no recipe here. I was going to write one up, but I had a layover in Shithole Schiphol airport, so I'm going to bed instead.

Pasta with Shrimp Saffron Sauce

2008-09-11T16:11:00.005+02:00

On my todo list for my stay in Sweden, "eat fish and shellfish" is way up on the very top. I love seafood, and it's impossible to find decent quality fish at reasonable prices in Munich. So, I'm trying to binge on it while I'm here in Stockholm, as evidenced by the marine blog posts of late.

This pasta sauce was one of those divine inspiration moments that came while we were browsing our supermarket trying to come up with a dinner plan. We realized that we had a bag of frozen shrimp at home, and fresh pasta was on sale. A match made in heaven, when combined with a creamy creme fraiche sauce and seasoned with saffron and some chili. The idea for the ad hoc shrimp stock (I couldn't help but use that rhyme) comes from one of my mother's staple recipes, a great shrimp curry sauce called Tages räkcurry.

Pasta with Shrimp Saffron Sauce
Serves 3.

The simple shrimp stock from this recipe is also great in fish/shellfish soups or sauces to serve with fish. It's a waste to ever throw shrimp shells away, when it's so easy to create a great stock for future purposes. Like any stock, it also keeps well when frozen in ice cube trays.

Ingredients
250 g fresh tagliatelle or linguine
700 g of unshelled shrimp
250 ml creme fraiche
0.5 Tbsp flour or 1 tsp starch
1 red onion
1 clove of garlic
1 fresh chili pepper
0.5 g saffron
olive oil for frying
salt, pepper, lemon juice for seasoning

Instructions
Shell the shrimps, and save the shells in a pot. Set shrimp aside. Almost cover the shrimp shells with water, then bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes, strain the shells off, pour the stock back into the pot and reduce to about 350 ml.

Start heating up your pasta water, and don't forget to cook your pasta in time (what time is "in time" of course depends on if you're using fresh pasta as recommended).

While the stock is reducing, finely chop the onion and garlic clove. Trim all the white stuff and seeds from the chili, then chop it finely. Heat a pan to medium low heat, add a splash of olive oil, then slowly fry the onion, garlic and chili for 5-10 minutes until soft. Add flour, give it a stir and then add half of the stock and the saffron. Stir in creme fraiche and bring to a boil. Let simmer for a few minutes, then check the consistency and add more stock or creme fraiche if necessary. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Add the shrimp and serve over your pasta.

Pan-fried Herring on Crisp Bread

2008-09-03T20:42:00.007+02:00

Herring has been an important staple of Swedish cooking for a very long time. The Swedish working class used to subsist almost exclusively on salted herring and potatoes, with the occasional pickled herring when it was party time. Due to its importance, herring holds a special place in the food culture of Sweden. This recipe is one of the most beloved, but luckily also one of the simplest. If you're ever in Stockholm, you can buy these sandwiches at the square by Slussen. The only tricky part about the recipe is finding the right type of herring. Or perhaps, finding herring at all, depending on where you live.

You see, herring comes in many styles, depending on its origin. The version used here is the smaller and leaner Baltic herring (the subspecies Clupea harengus membras), fished in the Baltic sea off the east cost of Sweden. This type of herring is known as strömming in Swedish, while the larger and fatter herring used for pickling is called sill.

Pan-fried herring on crisp bread
If you prefer, you could serve these with mashed potatoes and a sour cream dip, but do try them with crisp bread at least once. If you have a hard time finding decent crisp bread, try IKEA, who usually carry crisp bread from Leksand. Avoid Wasa if alternatives exist.

1 kg of fresh herring fillets
a large bunch of parsley
bread crumbs

Remove the back fins from the fillets, if present, wipe them dry with kitchen towels, then match them up in pairs of roughly equal size.

Chop the parsley, and place a generous amount between each pair of fillets. As you can see, frozen parsley is fine too.

Pour bread crumbs on a plate and coat each fillet pair with a generous amount of crumbs.

Get your local nationalist butter...

...and place a big knob of it in a hot skillet.

Then fry the fillets for a few minutes on each side, until golden brown.

Now get your best crisp bread. This particular brand is produced in a community of treehuggers in Järna, south of Stockholm. They also sell their own flour, beans and lentils, all of which is great produce.

Spread some butter on the bread, place a couple of fried fillets on it, and you're done! Serve with a cool beer or a glass of cold milk.

Humble Breakfast Rolls

2008-08-28T13:50:00.008+02:00

Hello...?

Anybody there?

...

Didn't think so. I'm barely here myself, so I can't really hope for any of our dear readers to drop by either. But now I'm back, and hopefully my lovely co-blogger Daniel is too, in spite of working all the time.

Like I told you before, we've moved. Or rather, I moved, and Daniel came along to work during his summer vacation. He's going back to Munich in less than a month (eek!) while I'll be staying here in Stockholm to study. Hopefully, this will make our little blog even more important to take care of -- if I can't see him in person every day, at least I can read about what he's eating!

During the frantic Birthday Week (16th, 18th and 20th of August were his youngest sister's, mother's and middle sister's birthdays...) we got home late every night, almost falling asleep with our clothes on. But one night -- I think it was half past one in the morning -- I went into the kitchen and prepared a dough to sit in the fridge overnight. I didn't really measure anything, but I mixed about 500 ml water with 25 g fresh yeast, added equal amounts of graham and wheat flour, about 150 ml each of rolled oats and millets, about 100 ml each of sunflower seeds and flax seeds, and about a teaspoon of salt. Since this made the dough way too dry, I also added a good dollop of yoghurt and a splash of milk. I didn't really knead it for too long, since I was tired and lazy. I covered the dough with cling film and let it rise in the fridge until next morning.

After rising, I divided the dough into about 15 parts, rolled them out and placed them on a baking tray. I baked them for about 10 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 250 C / 480 F, until they were lightly browned. I let them cool off for about two seconds until I proceeded to cover them in butter and devour. Yum!

Stay tuned for a real Swedish classic -- coming soon to a blog near you!

Grattis på födelsedagen, Angelica!

2008-08-16T23:10:00.000+02:00

Last Friday was Angelica's birthday. In my family, birthdays are the "go!" signal for some serious gluttony. True to this tradition, me and Angelica decided to make not one, but two cakes for her birthday.

Since a student dorm room isn't the perfect place to host a birthday party with eight adults, an infant and a dog, we commandeered my parents' kitchen for the cooking. It sure was a change to work in a well-equipped kitchen for once.

Long-time readers and people who read the comments at FXCuisine will know that we do things old school here at Butter & Beans: we make our own sour milk products, we cure our own salmons, we make ice cream without machines, and we even whip egg whites by hand.

Well, not this time!

Meet Kenwood Major, my mother's kitchen machine. This baby has been in my mom's service for 33 years, making it 10 years older than I am (and in better shape, too)! Affectionately known as "the hell machine", the loud grinding noise of old KM makes me think of cinnamon buns and other goodies from the kitchen.

As for the cakes, Angelica wanted something Pavlova-inspired and maybe with mangoes. I was all ears, but knowing that my sisters can be a bit... let's say "picky", we thought we'd play it safe and make a sponge cake with berries and cream, too.

Sponge cake

This sponge cake is a great basis for loads of simple cakes. It's not as elastic in texture as most "stand-alone" sponge cakes, which makes it perfect in cakes, and as an added bonus the cakes made with it taste even better the day after they're baked.

4 eggs
200 ml sugar
100 ml potato flour (cornstarch is probably fine too)
100 ml flour
2 tsp baking powder

Set oven to 175 °C (350 °F).

Crack eggs into a bowl, then add sugar in a theatrical manner.

Beat until light and white.

Mix starch, flour and baking powder together. Sift them if you feel like it, but as you can see, we don't bother.

Fold the dry mixture into the wet one, pour into a greased 26 cm (10 inch) pan, and bake for about 30 minutes.

Assembly

This is how we made the cake this time. Of course, you can substitute other jams and/or berries. Add sugar to berries as necessary.

1 sponge cake
200 ml homemade/high quality black currant jam
250 g bilberries or blueberries
250 g raspberries
250 g strawberries
300 ml heavy cream

Whip the cream rather stiff, taking care not to make butter. Cut the sponge cake horizontally in three layers. Place the bottom layer on a large plate. Spread jam evenly, add another cake layer. Spread the bilberries over the cake layer, and place a small amount of the cream on top. Add the last cake layer, cover the top and sides of the cake with the rest of the cream. Decorate the top with the raspberries and strawberries.

Fruit topping

"Pickling" the fruit in sugar and lemon juice makes it release its own juices and you'll get fruit drenched in the most delicious syrup. And all with just a few minutes of work.

3 ripe peaches
1 mango
juice from half a lemon
50 ml sugar

Halve and thinly slice the peaches.

Halve mango, cut grooves lengthwise, then crosswise to make a grid pattern. "Turn it inside out", then cut the pieces loose.

Place the fruit in a bowl. Add the lemon juice and sugar, mix well, and let sit for at least an hour.

Meringue/Dacquoise

Based on this recipe from Whisk: A Food Blog.

When baking this meringue, we thought the amount seemed way too generous for the puny 23 cm circle the recipe called for, so we spread it quite a bit larger. However, it deflated on us, turning into more of a dacquois, so in the end, we just cut it in half and stacked the pieces on top of another to give it the desired height. You have the chance to get it right from the start, so just do the 23 cm version.

6 large egg whites
1.5 tsp potato flour or cornstarch
1 tsp vinegar
seeds from half a vanilla pod or 0.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 ml salt
350 ml sugar
175 g hazelnuts
60 ml boiling water

Heat oven to 175 °C (350 °F). Spread the hazelnuts on an oven tray and brown them for 10-15 minutes in the oven, giving them a shake or two during this time. Remove from the oven, let cool for a few minutes, then grind them in a food processor or other suitable apparatus.

Get a squeaky clean bowl, preferably stainless steel. Crack the eggs one by one over a cup, and separate the yolk from the white with your hands. After each successfully separated egg, pour the white from the cup into the bowl. If a yolk ever breaks, discard that egg, get a new cup and try again. It is absolutely imperative that there is no trace of egg yolk in the whites--it won't rise!

Add starch, vinegar, vanilla and salt to the egg whites and beat them until they form soft tops. Gradually add the sugar while beating, until stiff tops form. Get the boiling water and add it in small batches, to avoid curdling the eggs. The meringue should now be beautifully glossy.

Add the ground nuts, and fold them into the meringue. Place a baking sheet on an oven tray, and spread the mixture in a 23 cm (9 inch) large circle on the baking sheet (it will be very thick). Place in the still hot oven, and bake for 10 minutes at 175 °C, then lower heat to 100 °C (200 °F), and bake for 75-90 minutes.

Assembly

1 meringue
300 ml heavy cream
1 peach/mango mix
mint leaves

Whip the cream and spread over the meringue, top with the fruit and decorate with mint leaves.

Excuses, excuses...

2008-08-14T14:11:00.005+02:00

Our two days in Öland were full of tasty food. Here is some lovely smoked shrimp from the local fishmonger.

It's been really quiet here at Butter & Beans for a while, what with the moving and vacationing and all that. I started school again, and Daniel started working, and there really hasn't been any time for cooking or baking, let alone blogging.

But this will all change as soon as I've dragged myself over to IKEA to stock up on some kitchen equipment. I have plenty of ideas I want to share with you all, so just hang on for a little while longer!

Vacationing and moving

2008-08-07T20:01:00.005+02:00

It's been a busy week or two. We flew up to Sweden last tuesday, stopped by Angelica's parents for a day, then had two days with my family on Öland, a large island off the Baltic sea coast in the southern parts of Sweden, and then came up to Stockholm, where we installed ourselves in a student dorm.

Naturally, we haven't had much time to cook and even less to take pictures of food. But it feels rude not to give you anything at all, dear reader. So I dug up a couple of nice shots from Öland, one of the dog, and one of my first own apartment, 2.5 years and six addresses ago.

View Larger Map

This is the location of Böda on northern Öland, where my family has been vacationing for several decades.

Himmelsberga is a very typical Öland village, now preserved as an open air museum.

Öland is a unique place, very beautiful and calm. Depicted here is Ramsnäs, a beach on the west coast of the island.

Tesla, named after legendary Serb inventor/scientist Nikola Tesla, is the last of the once three-dogs-strong pack that my parents keep. Luckily, the rumors are telling me there might be a puppy in the near future, to keep Tesla company. This picture shows Tesla engaging me in one of her favourite activities: you loop a finger around her fang, and she tries to pull you towards something fun, like a ball.

Moving homes is always a stressful activity. I left my parents' home in January 2006 in order to move to this little student room with the beautiful view. Since then I've lived in two locations in Stockholm, and three in Munich. Since this weekend, I'm at my third address in Stockholm, and as of September, I'll move into my fourth apartment in Munich. It's a nomadic life, but at least it means I make sure to travel light, and don't hoard unneccesary stuff. It's also helped me learn to utilize my sparse kitchen equipment to its full capacity, instead of perpetually buying new gadgets.

Bavarian Comfort Food: Käsespätzle

2008-07-26T20:23:00.006+02:00

Wow, it sure has been a while since I posted now. As the semester moved towards its inevitable conclusion, I was increasingly swamped in homework, then cramming, and lastly a little crescendo of exams. I did manage to get through it relatively unscathed, but I did feel a bit like a character from an old cartoon: all confused, and with a flock of little birds flying around my head, chirping something about statistics and stock portfolios.

This tuesday, however, it was finally over, and I could go back to spending all my time either thinking about, cooking, or eating food. Which I happily did, and as the weather took a turn for the worse, what better way to come back down to earth than some hearty comfort food?

Allgäuer Käsespätzle are the local, and much better tasting, version of Mac and Cheese. With the little knobs of slightly firm pasta known as Spätzle, mixed with crazy amounts of cheese and topped with fried onions, Käsespätzle is stringy, gooey, rich, comforting and delicious.

If you live in Bavaria, and are feeling lazy, you can easily buy decent Spätzle in any supermarket, but that's not how we roll here at Butter & Beans, oh no. Back in March, I lived in another student dorm, and when I realized one of my lovely neighbours there was an honest-to-God Allgäuer, I forced her to teach me the fine art of Spätzle making. This recipe is dedicated to her; thank you, Tanja!

Allgäuer Käsespätzle
Serves about two people.

If you ever pass through Bavaria, or know someone from the area, get them to set you up with a Spätzlehobel, and this will all be much easier. However, the recipe below will use the Real Man method, without need for special tools.

When it comes to cheese, if you want this to be real Allgäuer Käsespätzle, go for a mix of Allgäuer Emmentaler and Bergkäse. You could also use Appenzeller, or Le Gruyère, or basically any Swiss style cheese of alpine descent. Use a mix of mild and sharp cheeses to get your perfect taste profile.

Ingredients

250 g flour
5 eggs
2-4 Tbsp water
1-2 tsp salt
150-200 g cheese
1-2 onions, red or yellow
butter

Instructions

Mix flour, salt and eggs in a bowl, and add water little by little until you reach the right consistency. The batter should be rather firm, but still somewhat fluid. The ideal texture is slightly wetter than a bread dough, and quite a lot firmer than a pancake batter. Beat the batter with a wooden spoon until it goes smooth and starts forming air bubbles when beaten. Set it aside to rest for 20-30 minutes.

Meanwhile, grate the cheese, bring water to boil in a large pasta pot, and then slice the onions in thin rings or half-rings. Melt a large knob of butter in a skillet, and fry the onions on a medium flame until they get brown and crispy. Don't do it too quickly, or the onions will go bitter. Let the onions drain on some paper towels.
Heat oven to 175 °C.

When the dough has had its nap and the water is boiling, salt the water rather heavily, as for any pasta. Bring the water to a gentle simmer.
Spread the batter across a cutting board, and enjoy its lovely weird elastic texture.
Now use a knife to scrape small scraps of the batter straight into the simmering water. Work as quickly as you can, but don't worry too much if it takes a while.

When the Spätzle rise to the top, they're done. Remove them in batches with a slotted spoon, and set them in a small ovenproof tray. Between layers of Spätzle, layer in some of your grated cheese, and top it all off with the last of the cheese.
Place the tray in the oven until the cheese has melted nicely, then remove, sprinkle with the onions, and serve with a green salad.

Don't tell your cardiologist I gave you this recipe.

Olof Viktor's Sourdough Bread

2008-07-25T15:04:00.009+02:00

I really love bread. There is nothing as satisfying as kneading a dough, feeling it change character and consistency, shaping it, watching it rise, and finally placing in the oven to bake. And when it's ready, and you take it out of the oven and smell it, your mouth waters. Once you've taken your first bite, you sigh, and enter heaven.

Home-made bread always tastes great, but some taste better than others. That trusted old recipe you've used so many times you never bother measuring anything anymore because you know it by heart, is always tasty, but sometimes you just want more. And more is what you'll get if you buy the book Bröd (means "Bread", and is available in English), written by Swedish pastry chef Jan Hedh. The recipes are quite time-consuming, and probably what you would use in a professional bakery, but you will get great bread every time.

I highly recommend buying a bread/pizza stone, since the bread will be so much better when baked on one -- you won't get closer to wood-fired oven baked bread than this (if you don't have a wood-fired oven, of course). I made the mistake of leaving my bread stone back in Sweden, and I've missed it every single day.

The first recipe I tried from Bröd is a white sourdough bread. It takes at least two days to make, but it really, really, really is worth it.

Oh, the crust!

Oh, the texture!

Oh, the taste!

It is quite amazing how a simple wheat bread with a wheat sourdough can come out tasting so much, but this bread really is chock full of flavour. Simple, yet complex, and oh, so delicious! I'm also quite proud that I managed to make it look so good, but that's beside the point.

Olof Viktor's Sourdough Bread, from Bröd by Jan Hedh, page 43

The instructions assume you have a kitchen appliance with kneading hooks, but you can knead it with your hands (I did). This will take a bit longer, and your arms will get really tired, but see it as a form of exercise.

Day 1

Prefermented dough

2 grams fresh yeast
150 grams water
200 grams high-gluten wheat flour
2 grams salt

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water, and add to the flour you've put in a large bowl. Knead on low speed for 10 minutes.
2. Add salt, increase speed and knead for another 5 minutes.
3. Place dough in a lightly oiled container and put it in the fridge for 24 hours, or leave it out for 3 hours.

Day 1 or 2

Final dough

15 grams fresh yeast
500 grams water
1000 grams high-gluten wheat flour
350 grams wheat sourdough
20 grams sea salt

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water and pour over the flour, preferment and sourdough, and knead for 13 minutes. Add the salt, increase the speed and knead for another 7 minutes.
2. Place dough in a lightly oiled container and let rest for 60-90 minutes.
3. Sift a thick layer of flour onto a baking tray. Gently divide the dough into four parts, without pressing the air out of them, and place on the tray.
4. Gently fold the dough -- and again, be careful not to press out the air -- and place with the "seam" down, facing the tray.
5. Place the baking tray in the fridge, and let rise over night, or for about 14-16 hours.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 250 C / 480 F, with either baking stone or a baking tray inside.
7. Bake the bread, two at a time, with the seam facing upwards. Spray them generously with water, or place some ice cubes/a cup of water on a tray in the bottom of the oven.
8. Lower the heat to 200 C / 390 F after 5 minutes. After another 10 minutes, let the steam out by opening the oven door. Repeat twice.
9. Bake for a total of 40-50 minutes, then place the bread on a cooling rack.
10. Spray the bread with some more water, for a crackly crust.

Repeat with the remaining bread.

Check out YeastSpotting over at Wild Yeast, for all of your bread needs.

Comfort In A Bowl

2008-07-20T21:44:00.016+02:00

...and just like that, the weather turned on us. A week or so ago, me and Daniel went to Unterföhringer See for an evening swim, and the sun shone beautifully, with hardly even a breeze in the air. While enjoying the sunset and waiting for the bus to take us back home, a storm blew in from nowhere. In about two minutes flat, the weather went from serene, quiet and warm to howling-mad raining, with thunder and lightning as company. By the time we got home we were both soaking wet from running in the rain, trying to avoid getting hit over the head by pieces of old trees having got caught by the storm.

Thank God for the wine and Midsomer Murders episode we had waiting for us at home.

Although the weather calmed down a bit, it has stayed pretty much the same for a week or so, and everyone's missing the sun. With this kind of weather you don't really want to eat salads or fresh pastas, but rather something more comforting and warming. And what can be better than soup?

Daniel's mum gave me a wonderful cookbook this past Christmas, called Soppor, bröd och röror (Soup, bread and spreads), written by the two sisters Lisa Eisenman Frisk and Monica Eisenman. The book is divided into three parts (guess which ones), and every recipe comes with a suggested soup, bread and spread. Daniel suggested we make the lentil soup, and I'm not one to turn down lentils, so I jumped at the opportunity. The recipe was very simple and straightforward, and it turned out just lovely.

As you can probably guess from the picture, I made pita bread to go with the soup, and Daniel made a lovely hummus that I can't stop thinking about -- it was sooo good! -- but today is all about the soup. If you serve the it with bread and some sort of spread you can easily feed four hungry persons, but the soup alone will feed only two. Unless you're not that hungry.

Oriental Lentil Soup, from Soppor, bröd och röror by Lisa Eisenman Frisk and Monica Eisenman

1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 Tbsp oil, for frying
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika
150 ml red lentils
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
400 g / 14 oz can of chopped tomatoes
2 Tbsp tomato puree
1 medium carrot
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
2 stalks of celery
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped parsley

Instructions

Peel, chop and fry the onion and garlic in a saucepan for a couple minutes, until soft. Stir in the spices.
Rinse the lentils and put in saucepan. Add the stock, chopped tomatoes and tomato puree. Let simmer for about 10 minutes.
Peel and dice the carrot, peppers and celery, stir into the soup and let simmer for another 10 minutes, or until the lentils are soft. If needed, add more stock. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the parsley just before serving.

-----

We both really loved this soup, and the pita and hummus paired perfectly and made the meal more substantial. The heat from the chilies that I missed in the soup, Daniel put in the hummus instead. Next time I'll definitely add some more heat to the soup, but unless you're a chili nut, you don't have to.

Lemon Panna Cotta

2008-07-12T13:51:00.002+02:00

The weather has been really lovely lately, with temperatures around 30-35 C. This has made it a tad difficult to go outdoors without almost having an asthma attack, but I don't care, it's worth it! Even though the weather makes my brain scream "ice cream ice cream ice cream ice cream ice cream!" all day long, I have yet to actually do it. Shared kitchens aren't all that fun, and I wouldn't want someone's food or hot oil ending up in my custard. So there was no ice cream to be had, but I still wanted something cool and refreshing, preferably that didn't require too much work either, and what is easier than panna cotta?

Instead of Daniel's recipe, with only cream, I decided to try one of Tartelette's, with half cream and half milk. I flavoured the panna cotta with lemon zest, but if we had had mint at home I would've used that too, and perhaps lime instead of lemon.

The panna cottas turned out very light in both feeling and flavour, but since I've had no previous experience with powdered gelatin they turned out a little bit too jiggly. Next time I'll just use gelatin leaves.

Lemon Panna Cotta, adapted from Tartelette. Yields 2

Ingredients

125 ml milk
125 ml heavy cream
60 ml sugar
The zest from one lime
1 vanilla bean, split in half, and the seeds scraped out (NOT to throw away, mind you...)
1 teaspoon powdered gelatin bloomed in 1 Tb water (means to pour the water over the gelatin and let it sit while you prepare the panna cotta) (Note: this turned out to be too little gelatin to make the panna cottas set, but I don't know if the amount is wrong or if I just fucked it up.)

Combine all the ingredients, except the gelatin, in a saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and let the cream to steep for 20 minutes. Pass the mixture through a sieve or a chinois, heat the gelatin in the microwave for 8 seconds and quickly stir it in the cream mixture. Divide it evenly among small dishes, glasses, etc...Let set in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

Serve with berries or a coulis.

Swedish Meat Balls (Köttbullar)

2008-07-04T18:25:00.000+02:00

Returning to the theme of Swedish home cooking, today we take a look at Köttbullar, the Swedish meat balls. These tasty little balls (god I love saying that, please don't hate me for it) are mandatory on the Christmas smörgåsbord, and are served as a quick everyday dish in homes all over that oblong country called Sweden. They were always rather well known abroad, but IKEA has brought them to tables in their warehouses all over the world, ensuring that people everywhere have a chance to try them.

The only sad thing about this story is that IKEA's meat balls just aren't that good. They're decent, but they belong in the category of pre-made, frozen and reheated meat balls that my family affectionately calls "bouncing balls" (studsbullar), due to their rubbery texture. The home made version is another dish entirely, and belongs in the category of simple home cooking that brings you back to your childhood, where your mother served you this perfect comfort food.

Mothers, yes. More or less every mother in Sweden has her own meat balls recipe, and the term mammas köttbullar (mom's meat balls) is used to denote anything with that real emotional aspect to it: nobody makes meat balls like your own mother. Me, I'm not a mother, nor am I likely ever to be, but since November 2007, I am an uncle, so I guess my meat balls are morbrors köttbullar (uncle's meat balls) instead. Not that my little nephew Henning has tasted them, but maybe he will one day.

Morbrors köttbullar

The problem with ground meat is that it can easily get a boring, dry texture and swell in your mouth in a nasty sort of way. To avoid this, generations of Swedish mothers have added breadcrumbs soaked in water or milk to moisten the mixture, and eggs to bind it together. I use heavy cream instead, and I advise you to do the same, the difference in taste is bigger than the difference in fat content. Another trick to help keep the meat balls juicy is to use a 50-50 mixture of ground beef and ground pork.

Like most traditional Swedish dishes, meat balls are seasoned very lightly, the recipes calling only for onions, salt and white pepper. I like to add a bit of tabasco to give them a sort of background heat, without actually tasting of chili, but that's optional. Most people put the onion through a fine grater to create onion mush, while I prefer to chop it. Chopping it gives you little pieces of onion ingrained in the meat, which I think gives a better texture, but it does make the balls a bit more brittle.

This recipe is the usual amount that I make for 2 people, but it probably serves 3-4 adults, especially if you add a salad and dessert to the meal.

Ingredients
500 g of ground meat, preferably 250 g each of ground beef and pork
1 onion
2 Tbsp of bread crumbs
3-5 Tbsp of heavy cream
1 large egg
salt
white pepper
(5-7 dashes of tabasco)

Instructions

Put the bread crumbs in a bowl large enough to mix all the ingredients, and cover with the cream. Let sit for 5-10 minutes to let the bread crumbs absorb the cream. Rather finely chop (or finely grate) the onion and add it and the egg, some salt, pepper and the tabasco to the crumbs and mix.

Something along these lines. Not too bad looking with the red onion, but please ignore the dirty pot in the background. It's one of those perks of sharing a kitchen with 11 students.

Mix in the ground meat, massaging the mixture until it goes smooth. If it feels grainy, add a little more cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. This last step can be hard if you're squeamish about tasting raw ground meat, which I am not, but unfortunately, I don't know the amount of salt and pepper necessary; I taste my way to it.

Your mixture should look something like this when amateurely photographed in heavy backlight.

Wash your hands off, and rinse them with cold water. Grab pieces of the mixture and roll them between your hands into meat balls, about 2-3 cm across. Place them on a slightly moist cutting board.

When all the balls have been rolled, heat a generous amount of butter in a skillet (preferably cast iron), and give the balls a nice browning on high heat, then lower to low to medium heat and fry them evenly (just shake the pan, they should roll around nicely) for about 5-10 minutes. You'll probably need two frying pans, or to fry them in batches. When you think they're nearing completion, try one. The ideal is that it should have just a little hint of pink in the middle, and drip juices when you cut into it. Don't overcook them: nobody likes them tough and dry.

Alright, that's it! To serve traditionally, boil some potatoes, and make a sauce by deglazing the skillet with some water and then add some cream or milk, a little bit of starch to thicken, and some soy to give a nice color. Serve the meat balls with the potatoes and sauce, some lingonberry jam and perhaps pickled cucumbers.

We made these for our midsummer's supper, so here's a picture of the finished meatballs along with some other traditional Swedish midsummer's food: pickled herring with sour cream and boiled eggs, beer and spiced vodka (snaps).

Lemon & Cardamom Scones

2008-07-01T09:15:00.000+02:00

Just like chocolate balls, scones are another thing every young Swede gets to bake in home economics, and is very popular as breakfast bread among my friends. It is, however, almost completely unheard of among everyone I've met so far in Germany. They haven't even heard the name, let alone tasted or baked one, which I find a bit funny since it's so common back home. I just assumed it was popular everywhere, but I guess I was wrong. Pity, though, since scones are so easy to make, and almost impossible to fail with.

I have two defaults when it comes to scones--regular ones and whole-wheat ones. I've made both a million times, and I don't even bother measuring the ingredients anymore because I already know how the dough is supposed to feel and behave. Comforting as it is to be able to produce delicious scones while blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back, I'm beginning to feel like experimenting. This wasn't really a conscious decision, the thought just came to me one morning that I wanted to make scones flavoured with lemon zest and cardamom seeds.

So I did.

They were delicious.

Lemon & Cardamom Scones

550 ml wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
50 g butter, cubed
zest from one lemon
1 tsp cardamom seeds, finely ground
200 ml milk, yoghurt or sour cream

Pre-heat oven to 250 C.
Sift together all dry ingredients.
Add butter and incorporate well using the tips of your fingers or a fork until the mixture is crumbly.
Add the fluid and mix together--the dough will probably be a bit sticky, but that's okay.
Divide dough into 6-8 parts and roll into buns. Place on a baking sheet and prick them lightly with a fork.
Bake for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve with orange marmalade, or lemon curd.

Next time, I think I'll try a nutty scone.
(That should pair nicely with my even nuttier boyfriend, right?)

Cardamom - A Love Affair

2008-06-29T15:55:00.005+02:00

I love cardamom. Always have, always will. The smell of it haunts my childhood memories, as do the so-not-plain cardamom buns my mother always made. My mother has taught me a lot of things, but the one thing I will always remember is this: Always use more cardamom than stated in any bun recipe!

Weird thing to remember, right? Well, what can I say--mothers are always right!

The state of supermarkets here in Munich is really quite horrible, and one item you will never be able to find in one is cardamom seeds. Maybe they're not easily available where you live either, but every little corner shop in Sweden sells them. That said, horrible supermarkets does actually come with a few advantages. For example, food- and farmer's markets can be found all over town, and since the supermarkets are so empty, there are quite a few little shops that specialise on, say, spices. We found a great little shop selling only spices quite close to the city centre, and since we wanted to make cinnamon buns, we soon paid them a visit. After having been interviewed for the local TV station doing short interviews at the shop (What are you looking for? Oh, cardamom, what is it for? Oh, cinnamon buns, is that a typical Swedish Easter dessert? No? Okay, bye then.) we found our precious cardamom, and the world made sense again.

Swedish Buns recipe as old as the hills (this particular one comes from Sju sorters kakor). Yields: depends on how big you make them.

Dough
150 g butter
500 ml milk, preferably full-fat and at room temperature
50 g fresh yeast
1/2 tsp salt
150 ml sugar
1 egg
2-3 tsp cardamom seeds, finely ground
1000 g wheat flour

Crumble yeast into a large bowl.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Add the milk and stir together. When it has reached 37 C, or body temperature, add a small amount to the yeast and stir until yeast has dissolved. Add the rest of the liquid.
Add the salt, sugar, cardamom, egg and about 800 g of the flour and start kneading the dough, either by hand or machine with dough hooks. Add more flour, little at a time, and knead until the dough is smooth, shiny and does no longer stick to the sides of the bowl. Be careful not to add too much flour--you don't want the dough to be dry, but you also don't want it to be sticky. (I usually knead it mostly using my hands instead of a wooden spoon, since it's easier to tell when to stop adding flour.)
Dust with a little bit of flour, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warmish environment for about 40 minutes, or until doubled in size.

In the meantime, make the fillings.

Cardamom and Almond paste
2 tsp cardamom seeds, finely ground
125 g almond paste
50 g butter, at room temperature

Grate the almond paste and mix together with butter and cardamom until smooth and spreadable.

Cinnamon
100 g butter, at room temperature
100 ml sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix everything together until spreadable.

Divide the dough into two parts.

For the cinnamon buns, roll out a rectangle about 30 cm x 40 cm and spread the filling evenly. Roll it together, from bottom to top (i.e. at one of the longer sides), cut into equally large pieces and place on a baking sheet.

For the cardamom/almond buns, roll out the dough until it is rather long, and about 20 cm wide. Spread out the filling evenly. Instead of rolling, fold in in half along the long side and cut out strips, about 3-4 cm wide. Make a 3/4 cut from bottom to top, making sure it does not divide entirely. They should sort of look like a pair of legs, ending with a bit of stomach. Spin out each "leg" in opposite directions, and then tie them into a knot. Place on a baking sheet.

Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for about 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.
Pre-heat the oven to 225 - 250 C / 440 - 480 F.

Whisk together an egg with about a teaspoon of water and a pinch of salt, and lightly brush the buns. Top them off with pearl sugar (only for the cinnamon buns) and perhaps some chopped almonds.

Bake in the middle of the oven for about 10 minutes, or until lightly golden.

If you don't plan on eating the whole batch in one go, freeze them as soon as they've cooled off.

For more bread, sweet and savory, check out YeastSpotting over at Wild Yeast.

Homemade Strawberry Liqueur

2008-06-22T17:52:00.001+02:00

Here's one from our personal archives: strawberry liqueur. Last summer, I worked right in the middle of Stockholm, only a stone's throw away from Hötorget (Hay Square), and its bustling fruit and vegetable market. This market is a lovely piece of unswedishness in the middle of Sweden: most, if not all, vendors are immigrants or children thereof, and as you walk between the stalls, they shout offers at you: "strawberries, 2 boxes for 20!", "fine plums, half price!", "beans, bananas, new potatoes!". I used to frequent a particular stall, often passing by on my way home from work, picking up fruits, nuts, and whatever vegetables we needed for dinner. By the end of summer, I bought a few kilos of lingonberries, and made jam.

One day, I arrived only fifteen minutes before closing time, and as I was browsing the produce, the vendor asked me if I was interested in some strawberries. The prime strawberry season was over by then, but he offered me 8 boxes (about 4 kg) for about €10, how can you resist an offer like that?

One of the things we tried with my accidental harvest was a homemade strawberry liqueur, which turned out to be a very nice base for summery drinks, going very well with some lemon or lime juice, vodka and soda water, or with juices for a sweeter touch. It also had a beautiful colour, and smelled heavenly. For all the aspiring hobby bartenders, this is a great recipe, a lot better than any store bought version.

Strawberry liquer

Makes about a liter.

Ingredients
1 kg of fresh strawberries (about 2 liters)
500 g sugar
1 liter of vodka

Trim the green parts off the strawberries. Place the berries, sugar, and vodka in a suitably large glass jar with a tight lid. Let sit in room temperature for three weeks. Every other day, turn the jar over a few times, so the sugar dissolves well. After the three weeks, pass it through a sieve and bottle. Keeps indefinitely, and will actually mature over the next three months or so.

The boozy left over strawberries can be served with some vanilla ice cream.

Because Yeast is Fun

2008-06-19T09:43:00.003+02:00

As previously stated, I really love baking bread, but unfortunately I don't do it all that often anymore. Since it has been a few months since last time, I thought I'd start out with the simplest thing of all - whole wheat rolls. My mother makes the most wonderful whole wheat rolls, but instead of asking for her recipe, I wanted to invent my own.

I used this recipe as a reference, but I changed the original recipe quite a lot. Instead of doing it the old-fashioned way, with only whole wheat and all-purpose flour, I added rolled oats and ground almonds to give the rolls some more flavour, as well as keeping the crumbling factor low. A couple of days after they were baked, they were still nice and juicy, which is well done for a roll that tends to become dry as a desert within 24 hours.

Whole Wheat Rolls With a Twist, adapted from svensksmak.se

I kneaded the dough by hand. If you have a Kitchen Aid or similar machine with a kneading hook, use that one instead. Unless, of course, you want a bit of exercise.

Ingredients
25 g fresh yeast
400 ml milk
25 g butter
3 Tbsp Honey
1 tsp salt
100 g ground almonds
100 g rolled oats
230 g whole wheat flour
220 g wheat flour, high in protein

Crumble yeast into a large bowl. On low heat, melt the butter, then add the milk. Let cool until lukewarm; about 37 C, or about the same temperature as your finger.

Add a small amount of the milk/butter mixture to the yeast, stirring with a wooden spoon until the yeast is completely dissolved, then stir in the rest. The reason for this is that it's much easier to dissolve the yeast in a small amount of liquid rather than a large.

Stir in honey and salt, then add almond and rolled oats, slightly crushed in the palms of your hand.

Add the flours in small batches, stirring vigorously as you do so. If the wooden spoon will no longer do the trick, knead it with your hands on a clean, floured surface until the dough is no longer sticking to your hands, the table or anything at all, and easily forms into a ball.

Put the dough back into the bowl, sprinkle some flour on it (so the surface won't dry out), cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 40 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Divide the dough into 24 parts, and roll into small balls. Place on a baking tray lined with a baking sheet or silpat, cover and let rest for another 30 minutes.

In the meantime, pre-heat your oven to full whack, but remember to lower it to 225 C once the buns are in the oven.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve while still warm, with ridiculous amounts of butter on top.

Strawberry Lime Tiramisù

2008-06-17T11:28:00.004+02:00

As you might have guessed by the picture, moderation isn't really my thing. At least not when it comes to strawberries.

I grew up with two older sisters and two younger brothers, and my father was the sole provider - this might not sound very strange to you, but in Sweden, women generally keep working even if they have children. My mother stayed at home. Despite the fact that we hardly ever had money to spare, we always had food on the table and (thanks to H & M, often new) clothes on our bodies. I don't really know how they did it, but my parents always made ends meet without showing they had to struggle. The only time I felt we could have used more money was during strawberry season. Having to share 2 litres, or about 1 kg, of strawberries with all of my siblings and both mother and father was simply torture. I always wanted more and, unfortunately, so did everyone else. My father used to weigh the strawberries to make sure no one got too much or too little, which I guess was fair albeit a tad annoying.

I think Daniel, with his three older sisters, have similar strawberry memories - the first summer we spent together (which was also the first summer away from our respective homes) we both marveled at the amount of strawberries we were allowed to eat without having to share! I think we both ate more than our fair share of strawberries that summer, not feeling the least bit guilty about not offering someone else to have a taste. Two years later, I feel every bit as amazed at the amount of strawberries I'm allowed to eat on my own, and I still don't feel like sharing.

We originally planned to make the Rhubarb Strawberry Tiramisù that FX Cuisine recently posted about, but when we got to the store there was no rhubarb to be seen anywhere, so we had to rethink. It took me about two seconds to combine the strawberries with lime instead of rhubarb, and the dessert turned out just as amazingly delicious as I thought it would. I still want to try the rhubarb version, but the strawberry lime one is definitely a keeper. That said, the finger biscuits that go well in the traditional Tiramisù does absolutely nothing for me in the fruit versions, and next time I'll just leave them out, or substitute with chopped nuts (depending on the fruit I use) or a less spongy biscuit or cookie.

Strawberry Lime Tiramisù for two greedy persons, inspired by FX Cuisine

You probably won't need all of the mascarpone cream (we didn't), but you can keep it in the fridge until you buy new strawberries, or whatever other fruit that tickles your fancies.

Ingredients
500 g fresh strawberries, rinsed and sliced
250 g mascarpone
2 eggs, separated
50 g sugar
1 lime, zest and juice
1 shot cointreau, or to taste
Finger biscuits

Instructions
Whisk together egg yolks, lime zest and sugar. Whisk this into the mascarpone, until the mixture is creamy and smooth.
Beat the egg whites until light and foamy, and gently fold them into the mascarpone cream.
Chop up some finger biscuits, and place in the bottom of a glass or serving bowl.
Mix together lime juice and cointreau, and cover the biscuits with a small amount each.
Layer everything in a fancy glass or serving bowl. Finish it off with a ridiculous amount of strawberries, and pour the remaining lime/cointreau mixture on top.

Chocolate cookies, or Märtas skurna chokladkakor

2008-06-15T16:23:00.005+02:00

Most, if not all, Swedish families have a copy of Sju sorters kakor in their cookbook collection. The name, which literally means "Seven types of cookies/cakes", refers to the Swedish (and probably Finnish/Finlandish (yes, there is a difference) - or so my Granny has led me to believe) tradition of serving at least seven different types of baked sweets during a syjunta (sowing circle) or kafferep (lit. coffee rope) - think English High Tea, but with coffee and sowing or knitting instead of tea and scones. Sju sorters kakor was first published in 1945, following a competition in which homebakers all over the country were asked to send in their best cake/cookie/bun recipes, and the winners' recipes were published in this book. Today, more than 60 years after its first publication, this book is the over-all most sold book in Sweden, and more than one in three Swedes own a copy.

With a history like this, it is safe to say that everyone in Sweden has either baked or tasted something from this book. One likely culprit is Märtas skurna chokladkakor, or "Märta's cut cookies". I've been making these since I was about twelve, an all-time favourite in the cookie jar. They're also useful if you need a favour from someone, or as a bribe. Simple, all-purpose, dead-simple to make cookies. What more do you need?

Märtas skurna chokladkakor, from Sju sorters kakor, p. 94

Ingredients
200 g. butter, softened
250 ml brown sugar (regular works fine, too, I just like brown better)
500 ml all-purpose flour
4 Tbsp Cacao
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp vanilla sugar / extract
1 egg

For the glaze:
1 egg, slightly beaten
chopped almonds

Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 200 °C / 390 °F.
Mix everything together in a bowl; the dough should be smooth and pliable.
Divide dough into six parts, and roll them out into equally long strips. Place them on a baking tray, greased or lined with a baking sheet or silpat. Flatten them somewhat with your hands. Brush with the egg, and sprinkle the chopped almonds on top.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes, or until slightly crackled on top. While still warm, cut them into slanted rectangles, or parallelograms if you are mathematically inclined.

Reuben Sandwich

2008-06-15T14:55:00.014+02:00

The other day, having a beer and a burger at a bar, an exchange student from MIT laughed at me and said "I've never seen anyone eat a burger with knife and fork before", to which I replied "This is Europe, we have culture".

Entirely false, of course. Not the part about Europe having culture, it has so many cultures that it's always been a favourite pastime here to attempt to wipe some culture or other out. No, I was just eating the burger with cutlery because I didn't feel like getting ketchup all over my hands. But the experience gnawed on me, I felt a need to reassure myself that I wasn't a barbarian by American standards.

So I decided to make Reuben sandwiches for Saturday dinner. I first heard of the Reuben while watching an episode of House, and googled it afterwards. The Reuben, like most popular dishes, comes in many local variants, and there's a bunch of different background histories to it. Whatever the truth may be, it is certainly a dish with Central European roots (or at least components). As a disclaimer, I want it to be noted that I've never had an authentic American Reuben, so if you feel this is oh my god all wrong, please tell me why.

Authentic or not, this is a delicious sandwich which scores a good 8 on the decadence scale, and if served with a side of fries, I think you'll be at about a 10. Since it's not something you come across in Europe, this recipe will be illustrated with more pictures than usual, so that this delicious decadence can conquer the continent.

I believe that the traditional meat to use for a Reuben is corned beef. We substituted a simple cured ham. There should be thousand island dressing, we used something called "cocktail sauce" instead. At least when it came to sauerkraut and Swiss cheese, we could get hold of the real stuff, so we used sauerkraut with Riesling wine, and a nice Appenzeller cheese from La Gruyère.

Reuben Sandwich, Central European style

Serves 2 reasonably hungry people. To go all out on the decadence, serve with fries. I'd rather have a nice green salad with a lemon dressing, but to each his own.

Ingredients
4 slices of good rye bread
2-4 slices of Swiss cheese
ca 100 g of cold cut meat
ca 150 g sauerkraut
thousand island dressing
butter, salt, black pepper

Put the sauerkraut in a small saucepan with a bit of water, and let simmer to heat the sauerkraut and let it absorb the water.

Gently fry the meat with a little butter to let it release some fluids and cook a bit. You don't want the finished sandwich to taste of raw cold cuts, do you?

Butter the bread slices on what will be the outside of the sandwiches. This will make a mess of your cutting board, but sacrifices must be made for the greater good. If using an assymetric bread, take care to butter the slices so that when recombined, they will form a nice sandwich. I learned that one the hard way. If you didn't understand the previous sentence, don't worry, you'll do fine.

Slather, but don't slobber, the other side of the slices with thousand island dressing. Cover two bread slices with the cheese, and the other two with the meat.

Place a generous slab of sauerkraut on top of the meat. Season with black pepper and some salt.

Place the cheese-topped slices on the other ones. This is when you might realize that your slices don't line up nicely, and cover the fact up by taking the photo from a dishonest angle.

Heat the frying pan to low to medium heat, and place the sandwiches in it.

Press down on them with a lid, and fry them under the lid for about 4-5 minutes, until nicely browned.

Use a small plate and a fork to flip the sandwiches and place them with the uncooked side down. You need the plate, because the sandwiches have a tendency to fall to pieces otherwise. Do it like this: you place the plate right next to the sandwich in the pan, and use the fork to flip the sandwich against the plate. Now level the plate so the sandwich slides back into the pan. Don't worry, It's much easier to just try it than to try to understand my explanation of it, I promise you. Fry under the lid for another 4-5 minutes.

Cut each sandwich into two slices, and serve with a cold beer.