NAMI-NAMI: a food blog

Best rhubarb muffins recipe ever

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Sat, 18 May 2013 07:30:00 +0000

I just baked a batch and had to dig out this recipe from the depths of Nami-Nami and share this with you again :)

Photo updated in May 2009

We are still enjoying the rhubarb bounty. Here's a recipe for really moist rhubarb muffins that I made twice last week. Firstly, they were served at a 'girly' housewarming/birthday party last Thursday, attended by all my aunties (that's three maternal and one paternal), my parents (my dad was unable to attend the 'real' birthday party on a previous weekend), as well as some of my first cousins (not all 11 though:). Instead of birthday cake, I made lots of these rhubarb muffins that day, served as a pyramid on a cake stand. Very pretty!! But in the midst of all the buzz and excitement, we forgot to take a picture. Not that it mattered much, as it gave me a good excuse to make these very same muffins again on Sunday.

These muffins, let me tell you, are the moistest muffins you'll make. They're so moist, that even if you eat them on the following day, they taste like they're freshly baked. Delicious!

Rhubarb muffins
(Rabarbrimuffinid)

Serves 12

2 medium eggs
150 ml sugar
250 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
150 grams sour cream (20%)
50 grams butter, melted & cooled
400 grams rhubarb, (peeled and) chopped

Cinnamon and demerara sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Whisk eggs with sugar until pale and frothy.
Mix the dry ingredients. Add to the egg mixture together with sour cream and melted butter. Fold in the rhubarb.
Fill 12 hole muffin tray (they'll be pretty full, as rhubarb gives a lot of bulk initially, but shrink while the batter rises), sprinkle with cinnamon and demerara sugar
Bake at 225 C for 13-15 minutes, until muffins have risen and turned golden brown.
Cool a little before serving, as the rhubarb pieces can be very hot!

Other rhubarb recipes @ Nami-nami:
A creamy rhubarb pie (June 2005)
Rhubarb jam with ginger (May 2007)

Other muffin recipes @ Nami-nami:
Apple muffins (March 2007)
Cocoa and raspberry muffins (August 2005)
Dark chocolate and cherry muffins (April 2006)
Dark chocolate and chilli muffins (July 2005)
Savoury muffins with beetrot and blue cheese (October 2006)
Savoury muffins with feta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes (June 2006)

If you love cheese and you're in Estonia this weekend ...

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:29:00 +0000

... then you should head to the Rotermanni Quarter this Friday and Saturday for Estonia's first cheese festival:

Recipe for a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:49:00 +0000

My beloved maternal grandmother Senta turned 93 last week. NINETY-THREE. The digits 9 and 3 bother feature in my current age as well, meaning I have known my dear grandma for 39 years in total. She gave birth and raised five children - 4 girls and 1 boy. Now, at the age of 93, her family consists of 5 kids, 11 grandkids, 11 great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter.

She had to feed and raise the kids, run the whole household consisting of cows, sheep, poultry (all that in addition to having to milk all the cows in the big sovhoosilaut or a collective farm). And once the kids were all adults, she regularly had to take care of her 11 grandchildren who spent weeks at the countryside during each summer. A remarkable woman, and it's only recently that her mental and physical health has been failing her. She's a role model to me in so many ways (so is my paternal grandmother Adeele, who'll be 92 in September, but in very different way :)).

Here's a photo of my grandma and our youngest child, taken at the birthday party last week. They're 92,5 years apart:

My grandmother has been living with my parents for a few years now, and my mum asked if I could bring a cake to the party. Of course I could, and I decided to make this layered carrot and cream cheese cake that some of you were asking for and about after seeing it at Nami-Nami's 2013 Easter Brunch (see overview here). Here's the version I made last week, and before you ask, my two older kids were in charge of decorating the cake. That's why all the chopped pistachios ended up the way they did :D

The other two photos were made during the Easter, when I baked three carrot cake layers. The recipe below - and the cake for my grandma's birthday - had four cake layers - it's easier and more layers look more festive.

PS I've mentioned my grandma Senta on several occasions. Here's her recipe for an egg and smoked ham sauce, and she's the co-star in my post about the fermented oat flummery. She's also behind every story about Paluküla - the village where I spent all my childhood summers together with some of my cousins.

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
(Porganditort toorjuustukreemiga)
Serves 12 to 16

Carrot cake layers:
500 g carrots
4 large eggs
250 g caster sugar (about 300 ml)
a pinch of salt
240 g all-purpose flour/plain flour (400 ml)
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar or extract
100 g vegetable oil (about 150 ml)

Lime and cream cheese frosting:
400 g cream cheese, at room temperature
300 g thick sour cream
100 g caster sugar (just over 100 ml)
2 tsp vanilla sugar or extract
2 limes, zested and juiced

Preheat the oven to 200 C/390 F.

Carrot cake layers: peel the carrots and grate finely.

Measure flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar (if using) into a small bowl, give the mixture a stir.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with sugar, salt and vanilla extract (if using) until thick and foamy. Gently fold in the oil, then the grated carrots and finally the dry ingredients.

Line two large oven sheets with parchment paper/baking paper (mine are about 32 x 35 cm/12 x 14 inches)*. Spoon half of the batter onto one baking sheet, and the other half onto the other.

Bake, one at a time, in the middle of the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, until light golden brown and lightly springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and bake the other carrot cake layer as well.

Let cool completely.

Lime and cream cheese frosting:

Combine cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, vanilla and lime zest and juice in a bowl, and whisk thoroughly (it's easiest to use an electric whisk here).

Putting the cake together:

Cut both carrot cake sheets into two, so you'll end up with four rectangles. Place one carrot cake layer onto your serving tray, spread with one-fourth of the cream cheese frosting. Repeat three more times.

Garnish the cake with chopped pistachios and fresh mint or lemon balm leaves.

The flavour improves if you let it stand for a 3-4 hours in a cool place.

* If you want to bake three separare layers, then I used a 25x30 cm pan (10x12 inches), known as långpanna in Scandinavia.

Pineapple carpaccio with mint sugar

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:45:00 +0000

Photo by Juta Kübarsepp for Nami-Nami/Kodu ja Aed, 2013

I know all my far-away readers - at least those on the Northern hemisphere - are feasting on rhubarb and early strawberries already, but neither one is ready for consumption here in Estonia just yet. The local rhubarb should be ready in a fortnight or so, strawberries in 5-6 weeks. Until then I'll resist buying the imported stuff. Pineapple, however, doesn't grow locally anyway, so I must buy the imported fruit if I want to enjoy some.

Here's a quick dessert idea, originally popularised by Jamie Oliver. You'll find the recipe for "Pukka pineapple with bashed-up mint sugar" - that so Jamie, don't you think? - either in his book Happy Days with Naked Chef or on his website. I've been making this for years, and it's not the first time it's been mentioned here on Nami-Nami - I was served at our 2009 Easter Brunch. A great idea, really quick, and again, suitable for many popular diets (it's gluten free, vegan, raw*, etc). Note that I gave up bashing up the mint and sugar long time ago, and simply sprinkle these on top. Works just as well.

* Use either a really sweet pineapple and omit the sugar, or use Sucanat or some of the other allowed sweeteners listed here.

Pineapple carpaccio with mint and sugar
(Ananassiviilud mündi ja suhkruga)
Serves 4

1 small, sweet and very ripe pineapple
2-3 Tbsp caster/superfine sugar
a handful of fresh mint leaves

Top and tail the pineapple. Cut off the skin and remove the "eyes". Then cut the pineapple into four wedges and remove the hardened core. Cut into thin slices, place onto a serving plate.

Chop the mint leaves finely, mix with sugar and sprinkle onto the pineapple slices. Leave to macerate for half an hour or serve immediately.

Similar recipes:
Pineapple carpaccio with mint sugar by Anna @ Morsels & Musings (same recipe)
Pineapple carpaccio with mint and rum marinade by Silvia @ Citron & Vanilla
Pineapple carpaccio @ Kitchen Delights
Pineapple carpaccio with saffron syrup and pinenuts @ MyFrenchKitchen
Pineapple carpaccio, candied ginger and lime by Anne @ A Foodie Froggy in Paris

ANZAC biscuits (recipe for coconut oat cookies)

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:53:00 +0000

Did you know that it's ANZAC Day today? ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The Department of Veterans' Affairs of the Australian Government explains the Anzac day and tradition in detail. This being a food blog, it suffices to say that apparently these eggless crispy oatcakes were the cookies sent by the Australian and New Zealand women to the soldiers on the frontline during the WWI. And they're lovely - at least their modern equivalent!

The original recipe uses golden syrup, but honey works as well. I actually find the flavour very appealing, similar to the Estonian honey cake, and the chewy-crispy texture went down a treat with my family.

ANZAC-biscuits
(ANZAC-küpsised)
About 20 cookies

125 g butter
2 Tbsp or 45 g golden syrup or runny honey
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
2 Tbsp water
150 g or 250 ml or 1 cup all-purpose flour
100 g rolled oats
60 g shredded coconut
150 g caster sugar

Line a large baking sheet (or two smaller ones) with a parchment paper. Heat the oven to 175 C/350 F.

Place butter and honey/syrup into a medium-sized saucepan, heat and stir until melted and combined.
Mix soda with water and pour into the saucepan. The mixture will sizzle and foam - this is exactly what should happen. Stir until combined and remove the saucepan from the heat.
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, oats, coconut and sugar. Pour in the butter-syrup-soda mixture and stir until combined.
Using your hands, roll the cookie mixture into golfball-sized balls. Place these on the baking tray, leaving plenty of room between the cookies. Press the cookie dough into thinner disks for especially crisp cookies (that's the way I like them).
Bake in a preheated 175 C oven for about 10 minutes or until cooked (the cookies will harden as they cool down; if you didn't pat the cookie dough down, they may need few more minutes in the oven).

Store in an air-tight cookie jar.

SIMILAR POSTS:
Heidi @ 101 Cookbooks (Heidi adds some orange zest)
Lottie + Doof
Tori @ The Shiksa in the Kitchen (Tori toasts the coconut first)
Emily @ Chilli Marmalade
Jennifer @ Use Real Butter (nice step-by-step photos!)
Sneh @ Cook Republic
Martha Stewart
Laura @ Pies & Plots

Recipe for buckwheat with leeks and soy sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 06:43:00 +0000

What's your standby side dish? Pasta? Rice? Couscous? Bulghur? Potatoes? While these figure most frequently in our kitchen as well, then we also have buckwheat about once a fortnight or so. It's easy to cook and the slightly nutty flavour of this pseudo-grain complements quite a few dishes nicely.

Despite its name, buckwheat is not a wheat nor a cereal grain, but belongs to the same family with rhubarb and sorrel. The flavour is hearty and earthy, and it's quite a health food, being nutritionally high in all eight amino acids, calcium, vitamins B and E, and low-GI.

Just some years ago, the buckwheat meant just three things to most people - the Japanese soba noodles, Russian blini and the Breton crepes - all made with buckwheat flour. The hulled and roasted buckwheat kernels - buckwheat groats (kasha) - didn't figure at all, unless you lived somewhere in the Northern and Eastern outskirts of Europe. The Flavour Bible (2009), an excellent compendium of what-goes-with-what written for the American audience, doesn't even mention buckwheat. Heidi Swanson briefly mentions buckwheat flour in her Super Natural Cooking (2007), and suggests combining it with buckwheat honey and tart berries (cranberries, cherries, and such like) - there are no recipes in her book, though you'll find many on her excellent blog, 101 Cookbooks.

And then recipes started popping up here and there. Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours has a great choice of buckwheat recipes, though all using the flour, not the groats (her buckwheat-poppyseed sablés were lovely!). Estonian-American food writer and nutritionist Marika Blossfeldt has several buckwheat recipes in her Essential Nourishment, including kasha casserole and vegetable soup with kasha. Oh, and yours truly has been sharing her favourite buckwheat recipes over the years - see links below :)

2013 seems to be the year of the buckwheat, at least the year of the buckwheat becoming more and more mainstream.

The Wall Street Journal started the year with Buck-Wild for Buckwheat, including a recipe for San Francisco's Tartine Bakery's buckwheat hazelnut sablés (January 4th, 2013). The Kitchn praised it recently (Buckwheat: The New Baking Star, January 15, 2013, and Buckwheat for breakfast! 5 stunning ways to fall in love with buckwheat, February 26, 2013). The Guardian followed suit - one of the hottest chefs in Britain Yotam Ottolenghi shared his recipes for buckwheat polenta, and polenta and rice salad with dried cherries and hazelnuts (March 15, 2013). I'm sure more will follow.

Here's a simple buckwheat dish I love making for myself and the kids. Great way to use up leftover cooked buckwheat, though I admit I often cook buckwheat in order to have some left over for this particular dish. Note that it's vegan - and if you use tamari soy sauce, then it's also suitable for those avoiding gluten (buckwheat itself is gluten-free, despite the name).

If you're a fellow buckwheat lover, you may want to check out the Buckwheat Recipes Pinterest board, where you'll find 40+ great pins leading you to some wonderful foodbloggers' recipes. If you'd love to contribute to that board, then just leave your Pinterest handle in the comments and I'll send you an invite!

Buckwheat with leeks and soy sauce
(Tatar porrulauguga)
Source: L. Virkus, A. Kang, H. Ilves "Wok-toidud" (2002, in Estonian), slightly adapted
Serves 4

2 Tbsp oil
1 large leek, white and pale green part only
400 g cooked buckwheat (just under a pound)*
3 Tbsp soy sauce, or to taste

Halve the leek lengthwise, rinse off any dirt, if necessary. Cut into thin slices.

Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan/skillet over moderate heat. Add the leeks and sauté for a minute.

Turn up the heat, add the cooked buckwheat and fry, stirring constantly, until the buckwheat is heated through. Season to taste with soy sauce and serve.

* To cook the buckwheat groats, heat some oil in a saucepan, add the groats and give them a quite stir for a few minutes. Add boiling water (the ratio is 2 parts groats to 5 parts water) bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and fluff up with a fork before serving. NOTE that I prefer buying raw groats - if you only have that dark kasha available, you can skip the toasting bit.

More buckwheat recipes here on Nami-Nami:
Buckwheat with beets and dill
Cabbage and buckwheat kasha
Buckwheat kasha with mince
Warm buckwheat and mushroom salad
Buckwheat with beef liver
Buckwheat and mushrooms casserole

Saucy Asian Meatballs recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:48:00 +0000

There was a day in early December last year that involved a small round turning table, a batch of beautifully styled Saucy Asian Meatballs from Ali's Gimme Some Oven blog, one of my favourite white serving plates, our beautiful white and heavy cotton living room curtains, and our almost-two-year-old son Aksel. I don't want to go into details, but let me assure you that when you immediately remove those curtains and tuck them immediately into your washing machine, the sticky sauce consisting of hoisin sauce and dark soy sauce does wash off. Eventually.

And luckily, the recipe makes loads. So even if you have to throw half of the saucy meatballs away, as the tiny shards of your favourite serving plate and white sesame seeds are almost indistinguishable from each other, and we're not really encouraging eating stuff off the floor in our household anyway, then you still have enough to eat - and photograph - as well.

These have a pretty strong flavour, so they're more for nibbling than consuming in huge quantities.

Saucy Asian Meatballs*
(Aasia lihapallid)
Source: Gimme Some Oven
Serves about 8

Meatballs:
1 kg mince (I used a mixture of beef and pork)
2 tsp sesame oil
250 ml (1 cup) panko breadcrumbs
1 tsp ground ginger
2 eggs
1 Tbsp grated garlic
100 ml / 7 Tbsp finely chopped scallions/spring onions
0.5 tsp salt

Sauce:
175 ml hoisin sauce
4 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp grated garlic
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp sesame oil

Garnish:
white sesame seeds
finely chopped scallions/spring onions

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Mix together the meatball ingredients in a big bowl. Shape into balls about 3 cm (just over 1 inch). Place onto a greased baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until meatballs are golden brown and cooked through.

Meanwhile, whisk together all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl until well blended.

Once the meatballs are cooked, dip them into the sauce until covered.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds and scallions/spring onions and serve warm.

* I have to thank Estonian food blogger Juta, who reminded me about these meatballs earlier today :)

Some links about Estonian food

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:06:00 +0000

I'll be compiling my annual "Where to eat out in Tallinn and elsewhere in Estonia" 2013 round-up soon (yep, even with three small kids I've been able to visit a café and restaurant or two, quite surprisingly :)), but until I do that, I leave you with some links about Estonian food and/or food in Estonia.

Based in Toronto? Then listen to David Sax and head over to The Estonian House for some lovely "pirukad": Pass the pirukas! At the Estonian House Café, meaty mains and deadly desserts bring the Baltic to Broadview (The Grid, March 20, 2013)

A first generation American of Estonian descent, Andres Simonson, explains the concept of Estonian smörgåsbord: Külmlaud - the guided tour (Estonian World, March 10, 2013)

London-based Swedish food writer Ana Maria Espsäter shares her impressions about the Estonian food and recommends places in Tallinn and outside the capital: Tallinn's mix of traditional and new (Just About Food, April 8, 2013)

Riina Kindlam's article in a January issue of Toronto-based online magazine Eesti Elu/Estonian Life cites yours truly and features one of my homemade cheese photos: Voulez-vous some SUIR or some SÕIR ce soir? (January 26, 2013)

If you read Finnish, then check out Sikke Sumari's overview about Tallinn restaurant scene: Jauhoton suklaakakku ja pari osoitetta Tallinnasta (Iltasanomat blog, April 12, 2013).

If you read Estonian, then Triin Paaver has been musing about the ethical aspects of foodblogging: Toidublogija rollist, vastutusest ja Tšiili hanemaltsast.

The photo above was taken in our garden in May 2012. Not sure our tulips will be in full bloom any time soon - it was still snowing yesterday! - but we're being hopeful.

Recipe for DIY Bounty bites aka homemade Mounds candy bars

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:45:00 +0000

Some home-made candy bars for a change. If you live in the US, then you'd think of these as Mounds, the candy bar produced by Hershey's. Everywhere else - including UK and Canada - you'd recognise these as Bounty, the candy bar produced by Mars Inc. A dense and sweet coconut centre, enrobed with either dark or milk chocolate.

I used milk chocolate (the American equivalent would be Almond Joy without the almonds :)), and made small cubes instead of the traditional oblong bar shape. I must admit we ate half of the coconut cubes before we even dipped them into chocolate :)

There are links to several homemade Bounty/Mounds recipes at the end of this post - do check these out as well.

DIY Bounty bites aka home-made Mounds candy bars
(Kodune Bounty)
Makes about 3 dozen

Coconut filling:
300 g desiccated unsweetened coconut flakes
300 g sweetened condensed milk
150 g butter, at room temperature

Chocolate glaze:
300 g dark or milk chocolate

I used the mixing bowl of my standing mixer, but you could also simply use your hand muscles to prepare the coconut mixture.

Place the butter and coconut into the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly - about 1-2 minutes. Add the condensed milk and mix for another 2-3 minutes, until thoroughly combined.

Line a small baking sheet/tray/tin with a parchment/baking paper. Transfer the coconut mixture into the tin and press into a block about 2 cm/0.8 inches high. Cover and put into the fridge for about 3 hours or freezer for about 1 hour.

Remove from the fridge/freezer, transfer the coconut block onto a cutting board and cut into 2x2 cm (0.8 x 0.8 inch) cubes. Like this:

Now there are two ways to proceed. First, cover a small tray with parchment paper and put aside.

If you prefer your candy bars at room temperature, then melt and temper your chocolate (here's a good article about tempering the chocolate or see my instructions below), dip each coconut cube into the melted chocolate until coated, then place onto the prepared tray. Cool completely, then keep in a cool place until ready to serve.

If you want to avoid tempering the chocolate - or simply like your sweets cold - then you can simply dip these into melted chocolate to coat, then place onto the prepared tray and put into the freezer. The butter and sweetened condensed milk keep these blocks from freezing completely, so you can always just grab one candy bar and enjoy straight from frozen. (This is how I enjoyed them, but then I also like my brownie bites straight from the freezer).

Why and how to temper the chocolate? The Internet - and food blogs - are full of detailed instructions on how to temper chocolate - and why. The latter is easy - unless you temper the chocolate, the chocolate-glazed candy bars/bites will lack the shine and the snap, both very desirable elements. "How" is trickier and indeed, tempering can be a hit-and-miss. I've followed this simplified seed-technique for tempering. Place about 2/3 of your chopped up chocolate (or, indeed, chocolate pellets - and NOT compound chocolate!) into a heat-proof bowl and place the bowl on top of a small saucepan, where you've brought about 5 cm/2 inches of water into simmer. Let the chocolate melt slowly, stirring as you go along. Remove from the heat, stick a chocolate thermometer into the bowl. Now add the "seed chocolate" or the chocolate you put aside at the beginning in two or three installments and keep stirring the chocolate and cooling it. Once all the added chocolate pellets have melted, you must continue stirring the chocolate, until it registers 28 C on the thermometer - that will probably take about 15-20 minutes of active stirring, so be patient! You can then gently re-heat the chocolate - either over the waterbath, on top of a hot water bottle or by hovering your hair-drier over the chocolate - until it's about 30-31 C (best temperature for working with chocolate).

Other foodbloggers making these:
Batoniki a la Bounty by Ania @ Strawberries from Poland (recipe in Polish)

Similar recipes:
Nourishing and scrumptious "Mounds" candy bars by Kimi @ The Nourishing Gourmet
Homemade Bounty by Dagmar @ A Cat in the Kitchen
Homemade coconut Bounty candy bars by Christina @ Scientifically Sweet
Mounds candy bars by Elena @ Elena's Pantry
Homemade Bounty bars by Louise @ Lick that Spoon
Homemade Bounty by Eva @ Made by Eva
Easy homemade Bounty bars aka Mounds by Marie @ Not Enough Cinnamon
DIY Bounty barres by Emilie @ Emilie and Lea's Secrets (recipe in French)
Isetehtud Bounty šokolaad by Sandra @ Sentjurin Food Production (recipe in Estonian)
Kookoskommid šokolaadis ehk kodused Bounty'd by Teevi @ Ampsukas (recipe in Estonian)
Kookostrühvlid by Silja @ Jagatud rõõm (recipe in Estonian)

Purukook or streusel cake - Estonian crumb cake recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 06:00:00 +0000

This Estonian classic - purukook (crumb cake, streusel cake) - is another recipe request. Over the last few years I've got several e-mails asking for this simple cake recipe, yet somehow I've never managed to blog about it until now. The basic ingredients are few - butter, flour, sugar (for the crumb), and some kind of thick jam filling. That simple.

There are several "schools" of making purukook. Some use cold butter, some soft (I find using cold butter makes for a crumblier crumb). Some use just the crumb base, some add an egg to the bottom mixture to make it firmer (I do). Most jams would work, I prefer something tart like thick apple or apple and cranberry or apple and lingonberry jam. The cake on the photos is made with raspberry jam - in that case I also throw in a handful of shredded or desiccated coconut into the topping mixture.

I've got a special question to väliseestlased aka Estonian expats. Have you tried making purukook before? Is it something that was popular among the expat Estonians? Would love to know that.

Estonian crumb cake "Purukook"
(Klassikaline purukook)

400 g (3 1/3 cups) all-purpose flour (1/3 to 1/2 can be spelt or wholemeal flour)
85 grams (3 oz) caster sugar
a pinch of salt
200 g (7 oz or 2 Tbsp less than 2 sticks) cold butter, cubed
1 egg

Filling:
500 g thick jam/marmelade

Line a 25x35 cm cake tin or a Swiss roll tin with a parchment paper or butter generously.

Preheat the oven to 200 C/400 F.

Measure the flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and using a knife or your fingers, cut and mix until the mixture reminds of a wet sand. (You can do it in your food processor).

Transfer about 1/3 of the mixture into a small bowl and put aside - this will be your crumb mixture. (Feel free to add a handful of desiccated coconut to this mixture, or perhaps some cinnamon or other spices).

Add the egg to the remaining mixture and combine until wet crumbs form. Scatter into the cake tin, spread evenly and then press down with the palm of your hand.

(If your filling is on the soft side, you may want to pre-bake the base for about 15 minutes, until golden.)

Spread the filling evenly over the (partially baked) base. Scatter the crumb mixture evenly on top.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes, until the crumb mixture is light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool before cutting into small bars.

Similar recipes in other food blogs:
Purukook by Mari-Liis @ Siit nurgast ja sealt nurgast (recipe in Estonian)
Kodune purukook by Ragne @ Kokkama Ragnega (recipe in Estonian)
Purukook õunamoosiga by Sandra @ Taimetoit.ee (vegan, recipe in Estonian)
Mustade ploomide ja rummiga purukook by Sille @ Toidutegu (recipe in Estonian)
Šokolaadi ja Beluga läätsedega purukook by Anneli @ Kiilikese toidulaud (recipe in Estonian)
Rukkijahu-õuna purukook by Silja @ Jagatud rõõm (recipe in Estonian)

How do you take your tea? Russian Revels and their Tea Horse tea

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:54:00 +0000

Although I like my coffee - a lot - I've been drinking more tea again recently. My tea-loving friends are to blame - first KAFO sent me nine jars of their just t's Black Label No X teas to try (I'm still in love with their Luxury Earl Grey tea that I used to me those dainty Earl Grey cookies). Then a Tallinn-born and London-based food blogger Katrina of The Gastronomical Me mentioned that she and her food-loving friend Karina have created a tea blend.

Tea blend? I knew that film stars, singers, models and such like always end up creating their own perfume, but apparently that's so old-fashioned. Nowadays you blend your own tea :D

Karina and Katrina together run a supper club in London, called The Russian Revels, hosting Russian feasts with Slavic generosity, Soviet attitude and British humour. These two Russians joined forces with London-based tea club Tea Horse and came up with their own tea blend, called "Russian Revels". The tea was included in the March 2013 taster box:

"A bright Ceylon Uva black tea is blended with lemon and cloves for a refreshing and lightly spicy infusion. Enjoy black, with a splash of milk or a slice of fresh lemon for an extra citrus zing."

I know I spent seven years in bonnie Scotland, but never got used to drinking tea with milk. Instead I've been enjoying this tea for almost daily now, always with a slice of lemon, like instructed. Lovely - the cloves add a surprisingly mellow, yet distinct flavour - nothing chai-like at all.

If you're based in the UK and if you like your tea, you may want to give the Tea Horse's subscription a go.

Disclaimer: I was sent the 75 g packet of tea for free by aforementioned Karina. Thank you!

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 07:19:00 +0000

Another Easter Sunday, another traditional Easter brunch at the Nami-Nami household. We were no less that 25 this time, including lots of kids. The number keeps growing and growing - no wonder considering that our own little family consists of five persons already! Had all the invitees made it, we would have been no less than 36 :)

The weather was bright and sunny, but pretty cold. It was snowing in the morning, and the children actually made two snowmen while playing outside during the afternoon! Not something you associate with Easter Sunday, I'd say, but then Easter was pretty early this year. Still, some of the guests ventured outside for a while and were basking in the sun on our south-facing patio. Very spring-like :)

As always, I tried to devise a menu that'd be light and spring-like, colourful and bright. I outsourced some of the dishes, and prepared some myself on Saturday evening and the rest on Sunday morning. Considering how quickly everything disappeared, we hit the spot (or perhaps I simply didn't make enough food?).

Here's the full menu:

We started - as always - with Mimosa cocktails, this time made with freshly squeezed blood oranges:

Our friends Kristiina and Paavo and their daughter Gretel brought along this beautiful citrus salad. Kristiina simply makes the best salads in our neighbourhood!

There was a colourful dish of fresh trout/salmon, avocados and arugula leaves, drizzled with a lime and olive oil, the recipe from one of the top Estonian bloggers, Mari-Liis:

I made small cucumber bites with herb and garlic cream cheese (a last-minute idea from Annie's Eats):

Small tattie scone buttons with smoked salmon mousse:

Marinated sprats (Sprattus sprattus balticus), bought from the Ristemäe Talu stall at my local farmer's market. A great mix of small fish, herbs, lemon and seasoning:

Another sprat dish, this time a tart using spiced canned sprats in oil on a bed of sautéed leeks and onions - a recipe from another great Estonian food blogger, Sille:

Deviled beet eggs, of course:

A small bowl of tiny chorizo meatballs for all the kids out there:

A big tray of simple roasted cauliflower (two huge heads of cauliflower, olive oil, salt'n'pepper) - not a morsel was left!

And another hit, prepared by our friends Liina and Tauno and involving caramelised onions and fried kid liver and hearts (kid = cabrito = young goat):

The desserts included this really lovely carrot and cream cheese cake with lime:

The traditional paskha, made again by our dear friends Paavo, Kristiina and Gretel:

and a huge pile of Estonian profiteroles aka choux puffs filled with cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk:

I'll try to blog about some of the dishes over the next few weeks or months - and if there's anything that you'd definitely want me to blog about, let me know in the comments. I may not be able to do it this week, but I'll try my best.

What did you eat on Easter Sunday?

See overviews of our previous Easter brunches:

Easter brunch 2012, featuring crostini with dill-marinated pork tenderloin, Ms Marmite Lover's focaccia shots, marinated olives, Estonian mushroom salad, cold-smoked salmon, a delicious paskha, cardamon-scented apricot and curd cheese cake, and much more.

Easter brunch 2011, featuring a pretty (imitation) snow crab salad, beet quail eggs, two types of home-made Estonian cheese "sõir", smoked salmon with horseradish dip, wild garlic (ramp) pesto with almonds, crostini with white cheese and red onion jam, puff pastry rolls with feta, white bean salad with chorizo, Limoncello, coconut and white chocolate tart.

Easter brunch 2010, featuring spinach and hot-smoked salmon salad with quail eggs, green beans and asparagus, Marika Blossfeldt's quinoa salad with beets and fennel, savory cheesecake with goat cheese and chives, Ottolenghi's cucumber salad with poppyseeds, bean salad with lemon and parsley, Baltic herring with cherry tomatoes and herbs, Estonian home-made cheese "sõir", paskha, traditional Simnel cake, and another cake with coconut, lemon curd, elderflower cream and lemon balm.

Easter brunch 2009, featuring bright green pea soup shots, zucchini rolls stuffed with goat cheese, hazelnuts, figs and mint, peppered beef fillet, marbled beetroot eggs and marbled turmeric eggs, layered surimi "crab" and egg salad, pineapple carpaccio with mint sugar, matcha madeleines, and two different paskhas.

We also hosted Easter brunches in 2007 and 2008, but somehow I didn't document their properly. I can see on Flickr what was on the table back in 2007, but that's about it.

Dyeing Easter Eggs with Onion Skins, Estonian style

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:00:00 +0000

This was originally posted in 2011. You'll find all my Easter recipes here.

We don't really 'do' chocolate eggs for Easter here in Estonia, but real, chicken eggs. Dyeing eggs for Easter is very popular, and using onion skins is probably the most popular method. Using onion peels gives you most beautiful dyed eggs, each one unique and special. Here are some photos of the process that I took few years ago.

Here's what you need to do:

* Few weeks before Easter start collecting onion peels. Yellow ones are better than red onion skins, as they give a nice colour.

* You need white eggs for doing this (this gives the shops a chance to sell specially packaged white eggs for a much higher price before the festivities).

* Take an egg and neatly put few onion peels around it:

* Take a piece of mesh/muslin/kitchen foil or even an old nylon stocking and wrap it around the egg to keep the onion peels on place. I used foil here:

* Boil as usual. Cool, then unwrap and unpeel.

Here's the result - each egg is unique and gorgeous:

Natasha describes a similar, though less complicated way of dyeing eggs with onion peels that's popular in Russia and Ukraine: Russian Easter Eggs. My 91-year old grandmother uses the same method - she says she's too old to "play around" with the onion peels too much :)

Beet deviled eggs aka Beetroot devilled eggs for Easter brunch

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:42:00 +0000

Beet-pickled eggs have made quite a few appearances here on Nami-Nami. First in April 2007, then again in March 2008, but in a marbled form. The ruby eggs were present on our Easter brunch in 2009, and ruby-red quail eggs were present on our Easter brunch in 2012. Probably in 2010 and 2011 as well, I just forgot to take a photo of them. If you read Estonian, then you saw them in my recipe column in the March 2013 issue of Kodu ja Aed ("Home and Garden") magazine as well:

Photo by Juta Kübarsepp for the March 2013 issue of Kodu ja Aed

Yet it had never occurred to me to make deviled beet eggs until I came across this post on The Kitchn (well, I actually first spotted the recipe on Pinterest, where I promptly pinned this to my Beautiful Beet Recipes board). I had to make them.

Deviled beet eggs/Beet deviled eggs/Ruby eggs/Beetroot devilled eggs

Step 1: Simple beetroot eggs:
free range and/or organic eggs
beetroot juice/beet juice
salt

First you need to hard-boil some eggs. There are several "schools" of boiling eggs, but here's what I do. Place the required number of eggs in a single layer in your saucepan. Pour over boiling water to cover. Set the timer at 8 minutes (I use large eggs, 7 is enough for smaller eggs) and simmer over moderate heat. Once the timer goes off, rinse the eggs under a cold running water for a few minutes to cool them down.

Note that you don't want to overcook your eggs, as this results in those unsightly green-blue rings around the egg yolk, caused by sulphur compounds. You can avoid those by not overcooking your eggs in the first place and quickly cooling them down in cold water after cooking.

When cool enough to handle, peel the eggs carefully. Place in a single layer in a bowl, pour over the beetroot juice, season with a bit of salt. Cover, place into the fridge and leave to marinate for about 3 hours. (Longer, if you want, but I wanted just a thin ruby-red beetroot effect this time).

If you wish, you can serve the eggs just like this, halved - look at that gorgeous yellow yolk! I cut off a thin slice from the base of each egg half - this way they sit neatly on the plate and don't slide all over the place or fall over.

Hey, I still have that chicken!

Step 2: Stuffed beetroot eggs/Deviled beet eggs:

If you want to make devilled beetroot eggs, then halve the eggs and gently scoop out the egg yolks. Make your favourite devilled egg mixture. My regular "Estonian deviled eggs" include some mustard, butter and mayonnaise. However, knowing the affinity of beets and horseradish, I used egg yolks, butter, mayonnaise, some strong horseradish and finely chopped dill for the filling. Worked like a treat!

To be more precise, then that's what I did. Mash the egg yolks and butter (I grate the butter and egg yolks finely, but you can also press them both through a sieve). Stir in the mayonnaise and season with salt and horseradish. Mix in the dill.
Spoon onto the egg halves or use an icing bag with a serrated tip and fill the eggs.

Enjoy! You can make these a few hours in advance, but keep them in the fridge until serving then.

More ruby egg/beetroot egg/beet egg recipes:
Perfect hard-boiled ruby eggs by Alanna @ A Veggie Venture
Beet-pickled deviled eggs by Leela @ The Kitchn
Beetroot-pickled eggs by Allegra McEvedy @ The Guardian
Beet pickled eggs with fennel @ Not Without Salt
Beet pickled deviled eggs by Paula @ Bell'Alimento
Pink deviled eggs by Denise @ Chez Us
Beet deviled eggs by Angie @ Eclectic Recipes
Pickled deviled eggs by Kelly @ Just A Taste
Beet-pickled eggs @ Cookistry

Simple Magic bars recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:32:00 +0000

I was due to give a Scottish cookery class last Sunday in Aegviidu - a small town about an hour from Tallinn. While finalising the menu for the cookery class (skirlie and clapshot and cranachan and such like), I flipped again through the pages of Scottish author's Sue Lawrence's excellent "A Cook's Tour of Scotland: from Barra to Brora in 120 recipes". One of the last recipes in the book was for Anta Bars - a tray cake that Sue Lawrence was served at the Anta Pottery's tearoom in Fearn, Tain, near Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands (see here for the exact address). Ingredients? Digestive biscuits, butter, sweet condensed milk, milk chocolate and desiccated coconut. Very similar to Magic bars, though these tend to have a layer of nuts included as well, and are layered somewhat differently (I rely on the Joy of Baking blog for this information).

I had a whole packet of sweet condensed milk I wanted to use, and while I really wanted to make the Millionaire's Shortbread, I decided to give these Anta Bars a go instead. Why? Well, for the Millionaire's Shortbread (also known as caramel shortbread) you need to boil the condensed milk first, whereas the Anta Bars have a layer of regular sweet condensed milk drizzled over the cookie crumb base. So much simpler and quicker.

A word of warning, however. While Scotland can be really proud about the great quality of their produce and ingredients (venison, lamb, beef, salmon, raspberries, shortcakes, haggis etc etc), then this cake is not the healthy option, for the fainthearted or for those counting their calories. It's extremely sweet. You know, tooth-achingly sweet. Definitely an occasional treat rather than your regular afternoon tea or coffee cake :)

Sue Lawrence's recipe was excellent - no surprise, as she is considered one of the best Scottish food writers of our times. However, I did reduce the amount of coconut flakes after the initial attempt, as I had hard time getting the original amount (170 g of desiccated coconut) to stick to the cake and not fall off. Also - even if you might be tempted to use dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate, perhaps to counteract the sweetness, then don't - this cake needs the much sweeter milk chocolate. Trust me, I tried both versions..

Anta Magic Bars or a recipe for caramel, milk chocolate and coconut slices
(Anta koogiruudud)
Source: Sue Lawrence's "A Cook's Tour of Scotland", sligthly adapted
Serves about 24

140 g butter, melted and cooled
350 g Digestive biscuits or graham crackers
300 g sweetened condensed milk
200 g good-quality milk chocolate, chopped (or use chips)
100 g desiccated coconut

Line a baking sheet/Swiss roll tin (about 25x35 cm) with a parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F.
Finely crush the Digestive biscuits (I used my food processor), then mix thoroughly with melted butter. Spoon the biscuit mixture into the cake tin, pressing down. Drizzle the sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture.
Now scatter the chopped chocolate evenly on top, finally sprinkle with coconut flakes, patting down lightly.
Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, until the coconut is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before cutting into small squares or bars.

Other foodbloggers have been testing Sue Lawrence's recipes:
Cock-a-leekie soup by Pille @ Nami-Nami
Mince and tatties by Pille @ Nami-Nami
Chocolate brownie with raspberries by Pille @ Nami-Nami
Smoked salmon frittata by Pille @ Nami-Nami
Haggis and winter tzatziki wraps by Sophie @ Mostly Eating (intrigued!!!)
Passion cake by Maggie @ Kitchen Delights
German apple cake by Celia @ English patis

Beets with cumin seeds and tomatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 08:17:00 +0000

Regular readers of this blog know about my fondness of beetroot. I'd like to think that I have a pretty good selection and variety of beet recipes here on Nami-Nami. You'll find recipes for beetroot cream cheese spread with horseradish, beetroot and blue cheese risotto, Georgian beetroot and walnut salad, Persian beet borani, beet and feta quiche, a wonderful vegan beetroot borscht, beetroot pesto, beet and blue cheese muffins, beetroot pickled eggs, beetroot and goat cheese soup, beet and ginger cake, beet bruschetta, raw beetroot salad, beet and potato pie, a layered beet and smoked salmon salad, dashing coconut and beet soup here on Nami-Nami - and this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Yet I discovered something totally new - and exciting - last weekend. It all began when my dear hubby told me that he had discovered a long-forgotten pile of beets in our garage that also doubles as a very cold larder. And these were not just beets that he unearthed, but some lovely Chioggia, Golden Burpee and small long beets grown by yours truly last summer. They were perfectly crisp and happy, as they had been hiding themselves in a box of sand destined to entertain our five chicken :)

They needed a great recipe. I made actually two great dishes - a beetroot and chocolate cake (using raw, not cooked beets), and then this recipe for an Indian-style beetroot dish that I came across on Delicious Magazine (UK) website. The recipe was by Tom Norrington-Davies, who credits the Indian food guru Madhur Jaffrey for the original recipe. Tom Norrington-Davies writes that he loves making it "for barbecues and serve it with lamb chops or sausages. It is good hot or cold".

A very novel way of using beets, I thought, and made this dish for our leisurely and long afternoon meal on Sunday. I tweaked the recipe - I couldn't see the point of squeezing the hell, sorry, liquid, out of the canned tomatoes, only to replace it with water later, but otherwise I followed Tom's recipe.

Our test group of the day - four adults and three kids - were all happy with the result, and if you're into sweet-and-sour flavour combinations, you'll love it. Just like Tom, I can see serving this with grilled meats during the summer, or as a vegetable side dish during the winter.

If you're a fellow beet lover, you may want to check out the Beautiful Beet Recipes Pinterest board, where you'll find 100+ great pins leading you to some wonderful foodbloggers' recipes. If you'd love to contribute to that board, then just leave your Pinterest handle in the comments and I'll send you an invite!

Beetroot with cumin seeds and tomatoes
(India peedihautis vürtsköömnete ja tomatitega)
Serves 6

400 g canned crushed tomatoes
about 500 g small beets
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 heaped tsp of cumin seeds
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
0.5 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar or juice of 1 small lemon
a generous pinch of sugar

Peel the beets, cut into smaller chunks or wedges, depending on the shape of your beets.

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, add the cumin seeds, onion and chilli flakes and sauté gently for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and fry for another few minutes, until the onions are starting to brown a little.
Add the beets, canned tomatoes, vinegar/lemon juice and salt and sugar. Bring the ingredients to a simmer, then cover and cook for 40-60 minutes, until the beets are tender.

Uncover, season to taste. Turn up the heat to thicken the sauce a little, if that seems necessary.

Gigantes plaki aka Greek giant baked beans

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:05:00 +0000

Gigantes plaki (yigandes plaki, γίγαντες πλακί) is a popular Greek taverna dish, consisting of oven-baked fasolia gigante ("giant") beans with tomato sauce. Gigantes are occasionally also called elephant beans (elephantes) - which is the name reserved for extra large giant beans :) The gigantes are native to Greece, and the ones from Kastoria are especially prized, as well as the ones from Florina and Drama regions - all three have the PGI-designation or are recognised by the EU as products of Protected Geographical Indication.

If you're in Estonia, look out for Garrido gigantes (either canned or dried, offered by Kaupmees) or Palirria (large cans, offered by HellenicTrade - these are the ones I've been using). Elsewhere, look for the jumbo beans/elephant beans/gigantes at Greek and Middle Eastern markets. Amazon.com sells Kastoria giant beans online, and there's also a canned variety available. You can use dried or canned cannellini or lima beans instead, but you'll need to adjust cooking times accordingly.

Serve as part of a mezedes spread, or spoon onto a slice of leavened white bread. I sometimes crumble some decent feta cheese on top at the end of the baking time :P

Giant baked beans, Greek style
A recipe from BBC Good Food (September 2009), slightly modified
Serves 8

400 g dried giant or butter beans or 3x400 g canned beans
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (Greek, of course)
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp concentrated tomato paste/pureé
2x400 g cans crushed tomatoes
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp dried oregano
couple of pinches of ground cinnamon
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To garnish:
2 Tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf/Italian parsley

If using dried beans: soak the beans overnight in plenty of water. Drain, rinse, drain again. Place in a large pan covered with fresh water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, then simmer gently for 50-60 minutes, until the beans are tender but not too soft. Drain.

If using canned beans: tip the beans onto a large colander, rinse with cold water. Drain and put aside.

Heat the oven to 180C/350F.

Make the sauce: heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over moderately low heat. Add the onion and fry for about 7-8 minutes. Add the garlic and fry for another 2-3 minutes, until the onion is translucent.

Add the tomato puree, sauté for a minute. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the beans) and cook for 2-3 minutes. Season generously with honey, oregano, salt and pepper, then tip in the drained cooked beans.

Transfer the mixture into a large ovenproof dish - I love using my lasagne pan - and bake for approximately one hour. Don't cover and don't stir! The dish is ready when the tomato sauce has thickened and the beans are soft and flavoursome.

Remove from the oven, cool a little. Scatter the parsley on top and drizzle with some extra olive oil.

Similar recipes:
Gigantes sto Fourno @ Kalofagas
Greek style baked beans @ Souvlaki for the Soul
Gigantes in savory tomato sauce @ Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska
Twice-cooked gigante beans with garlic and feta @ Kalyn's Kitchen
Gigantes plaki (Greek baked beans) @ Closet Cooking
Gigantes plaki: Greek baked beans @ Choosy Beggars
Gigandes plaki by Simon Rimmer
Fasolia Gigantes Plaki: Big Greek Beans baked in a Bodacious Red Sauce @ Sortachef: One Hot Cat in a Woodfired Kitchen
Gigantes plaki @ Jono & Jules do Food & Wine
Gigantes plaki @ Life is Like a Dumpling
Greek baked beans (Gigantes plaki) @ the taste space – steam, bake, boil, shake!
Greek baked beans @ Eats Well with Others

It's Pasta Time: Tagliatelle with creamy spinach and pan-fried salmon

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:04:00 +0000

One of my favourite pasta dishes recently is this clean-looking pasta (usually tagliatelle, but I've also used linguine) with seared salmon, fresh spinach and cream, with a light lemon kick. For an extra quick version I've used smoked salmon, but using fresh salmon is much wallet-friendlier and has more kid-appeal as well. Also, it's a great way to use that thinner tail-end of the fish that I usually put aside when baking salmon in the oven.

Note that there's no Parmesan cheese in the dish!!!

Tagliatelle with creamy spinach and pan-fried salmon
(Makaronid praetud lõhe ja spinatiga)
Serves 4

400 g tagliatelle pasta (linguine or spaghetti would work as well)
water and salt, for cooking pasta

400 g salmon or trout fillet
butter, for frying
100 g fresh baby spinach leaves, rinsed
about a cup of double cream
a handful of fresh parsley
1 lemon, zested
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pot of water into a rolling boil, season with salt and cook the pasta al dente according to the packet instructions.

Meanwhile heat the butter on a large frying pan over moderate heat. Place the fish onto the pan, skin-side up, and fry for 3-4 minutes. Flip over and cook for another 2-3 minutes. (The fish will be still undercooked, but you'll cook it further in a minute).

Remove the fish fillet from the frying pan:

Using two forks, break the fish into bite-size chunks:

Heat some more butter on the frying pan, add the rinsed spinach leaves and cook till wilted.

Add the cream, season with black pepper, parsley and lemon zest. Return the fish to the pan and simmer for a minute or two.

Drain the pasta, toss with the sauce and serve immediately.

Creamy spinach and salmon sauce @ Know Thy Food

Earl Grey tea cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 11:10:00 +0000

Imagine a kitchen - well, actually a whole house - where the wonderful aroma of Bergamot orange is floating in the air. (If you're unfamiliar with bergamot, then my blog friend David Lebovitz comes to the rescue). Does that smell sound appealing? If yes, then read on :)

A friend of mine who works at KAFO (the Estonian distributor of Lavazza coffee, Just t teas, Jura coffee machines, Monbana Trésor chocolates, David Rio chais and such like) gave me a selection of Just t Black Label No X teas for degustation recently. All nine of them:

I had fun brewing and sipping them. Personal favourites - No 1 (Lemon balm herbal infusion), No 5 (Black tea Earl Grey Luxury), No 7 (Green tea jasmine blossom) and No 9 (Black tea Bombay Chai, with ginger, cloves, black pepper, cinnamon).

However, Nami-Nami is a food blog, not a drink blog, so I should provide you with a recipe instead of going on about my favourite teas, right? Coincidentally, my Uppsala-based friend Annika gave me two Swedish food magazines last Friday, and there was a recipe for Earl Grey-drömmar in one of them. These were egg-free cookies where one had to make an Earl Grey infused sugar to start with. Unfortunately, the cookies were a huge disappointment - they were too sweet and way too crumbly, so we sent the big box of cookies to someone we know appreciates soft and sugary cookies :)

Yet the smell of Bergamot in the air was so amazing that I had to give those cookies another try. This time I simply took my regular thumbprint cookie recipe and incorporated the lovely Earl Grey infused sugar into this recipe.

Much, much, much better. I ate them plain, well, with a large cup of freshly brewed Earl Grey tea, but a tiny schmear of lemon curd will make them even more enjoyable.

Earl Grey tea cookies
(Teeküpsised)
Makes about 30

60 g (about 100 ml) icing sugar/confectioner's sugar
2 Tbsp finest Earl Grey tea leaves
200 g unsalted butter, softened
240 g all-purpose/plain flour (400 ml)
55 g potato starch/potato flour
a pinch of salt

To start with, make the aromatic Earl Grey sugar. Blitz the caster sugar and tea leaves until you've got a fine powder:

Cream the butter with the Earl Grey sugar. Mix flour, salt and potato starch, sift into the butter mixture. Combine with a wooden spoon.
Using your hands, take small chunks of cookie dough and roll into small balls.
Place on a cookie sheet and flatten slightly. (If you prefer making thumbprint cookies, then press a thumb print onto each cookie and fill with a small dollop of lemon curd).
Bake in a preheated 180 C oven for about 15 minutes, until the cookies are light golden.
Cool for a few minutes, then transfer onto a metal rack to cool completely.
Enjoy.

More recipes using Earl Grey tea leaves:
Earl Grey cupcakes with lemon Earl Grey buttercream by Hannah @ Honey & Jam
Earl Grey ice cream by Ali @ Gimme Some Oven
Earl Grey chocolate cake by Tracy @ Shutterbean
Earl Grey shortbread by Diana @ Appetite for China
Earl Grey banana bread by Lauren @ Healthy. Delicious.
Earl Grey poached pears by Karen @ Citrus & Candy
Earl Grey chiffon cake @ Happy Home Baking

NB! If you've got a favourite recipe using Earl Grey, feel free to leave the link to the comments!

Chickpeas with chorizo (Garbanzos y chorizo)

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:52:00 +0000

Chickpeas (or garbanzo beans, as they're known in the US), that excellent store-cupboard ingredient that helps one to make many an excellent meal. A filling chickpea and tuna salad with smoked paprika powder. A healthy vegetarian side dish consisting of chickpeas and pomegranate molasses. A quick tortilla wrap with chickpeas and tuna. A chickpea and tomato soup with smoked paprika. A chickpea and tomato soup with Moroccan spices. A quick hummus with beets. Or a quick hummus with wild garlic, come ramp or ramson season. Or a quick hummus with harissa paste, if you want something a wee bit spicier.

I always keep some in the cupboard, as they are indeed an excellent stand-by.

Chickpeas and smoked paprika powder (pimentón) is a match made in heaven, and this is utilised in this wonderful Spanish creation, garbanzos y chorizo. No pimentón or smoked paprika powder - pimentón de la Vera is considered the best - is needed, but you need a good-quality Spanish cooking chorizo that is seasoned with pimentón to start with. I came across a locally-made chorizo sausage last weekend - produced by Liivimaa Lihaveis - and decided to try an old favourite chorizo-and-chickpea (or chorizo-and-garbanzo) dish of mine*, and see, if the locally produced chorizo stands up to the proper Spanish one.

It did, I'm happy to admit.

Chickpeas with chorizo
(Kikerherned chorizo-vorstiga)
Serves four to six

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
1 red or yellow bell pepper
300 g cooking chorizo
400 g canned chopped tomatoes
800 g canned chickpeas (that's 2 regular cans)
about a cup of water
salt and freshly ground black pepper
fresh parsley, finely chopped

Peel the onion, halve and cut into thin slices. Halve and deseed the pepper, then cut into thin strips. Rinse and drain the chickpeas. Cut the chorizo into thin slices.

Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan or a large sauté pan. Add the onion and pepper and a sprinkle of salt and sauté over moderate heat for about 5 minutes, stirring every now and then.

Increase the heat, add the chorizo and fry for another few minutes, until the chorizo is slightly browned.

Add the chopped tomatoes, then pour about a cup of water into the tomato can, give it a quick swirl and pour into the pan. Add the chickpeas. Bring into a simmer, reduce heat to medium, cover and simmer gently for about 20 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle some herbs on top and serve with some crusty bread and a fresh green salad.

NOTE: This reheats well (you can add some water, if too dry), and it also tastes great when cold.

* This dish is indeed a regular in our kitchen - I discovered this photo from August 2011 and this photo from April 2009 as well this one from April 2008 in Flickr :)

Similar recipes in other foodblogs:
In my Life (very similar to mine)
Morsels & Musings by Anna
Lindaraxa
Spanish Recipes pic by pic
Flanboyant Eats (much soupier version)

The 3-ingredient cookie

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:47:00 +0000

An excellent version with oats, bananas, dried cranberries and grated orange zest.

Have you heard about those three-ingredient cookies consisting of nothing but bananas, oats and an optional fill-in (chocolate, raisins or nuts, for instance)? No added sugar. No added fat. Suitable for vegans and all those on lactose-free, casein-free, gluten-free*, egg-free, dairy-free diets. Take 2 minutes of prep work and need about 15 minutes in the oven. That's less than it takes to unpack your regular grocery bags, so they're super-quick as well.

* You need to make sure you use certified gluten-free oats, also called 'pure oats'.

I came across the recipe in The Burlap Bag. As the author Lauren notes, even if you eat all of those, you've basically consumed 2 bananas and a cup of oats, so this qualifies as health food in my opinion. They are soft and slightly chewy. They're not the best-oat-cookies-in-the-world (these are!), but they're pretty moreish and satisfying. Flavour- and texture-wise, these remind me of those soft apple and oat drops I've been making, just much quicker and simpler.

My two older kids love them (Karoliine, our youngest, is still to young to have any solids), and the grown-ups are pretty fond of them, too:

So here's the recipe. Again, a huge thank you goes out to The Burlap Bag for this great 'cookie' idea. Come autumn, I'll try their Autumn 2-ingredient Cookie, using pure pumpkin pureé.

Use really ripe bananas for making these - the riper your bananas, the sweeter the cookies.

3-ingredient oat cookies
(Kaerahelbeküpsised)
Makes about 16 bite-sized morsels

2 ripe medium-sized bananas
200 ml (4/5 of a cup) of quick-cooking oats
a handful of either raisins or dried cranberries (craisins) or chopped dark chocolate or chopped walnuts

Pre-heat the oven to 170 C/350 F. Line a cooking sheet with a parchment paper or simply grease your cookie sheet thoroughly.

Peel the bananas, place into a bowl and smash with a fork. Add the oats and the add-in (I love the tiny seedless currant raisins):

Mix till combined. Take about a teaspoonful of the mixture at the time, form into a ball and transfer onto your cookie sheet.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Cool slightly and enjoy!

Other foodbloggers making these:
Anne @ Anne's Food (9 March 2013, in English)
Martiina @ Tegemisi. Toimetusi (4 March 2013, in Estonian)
Gaili @ Tsheburashka (3 March 2013, in Estonian)
Kätrin @ Kätrin kokkab (13 March 2013, in Estonian)
Karen @ Kafka na praia (2 April 2013, in Brazilian Portuguese)

More moreish oatcake recipes:
My melt-in-your-mouth oat cookies
Cheesy oatcakes
Peppery oatcakes
Oatcakes with ginger
Apple and oat drops

Two years ago: Estonian Soda Bread Recipe
Four years ago: Raisin Fruit Soup Recipe (Kissel)

Grilled mackerel with potato and chorizo hash

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:54:00 +0000

Doesn't this look like something wonderfully light and spring-like? We've had couple of beautifully sunny days here in Estonia recently and I do believe now that this looooong and greyish winter will end, eventually.

Here's a simple lunch or dinner idea, using new potatoes, cooking chorizo (you can choose a spicy or milder one, it's up to you) and fresh mackerel. Flavoursome and filling!

Grilled mackerel with potato and chorizo hash
(Grillitud makrell chorizo-kartulipadjal)
Adapted from DeliciousMagazine.co.uk
Serves 4

500 g new potatoes, skin on
2 whole mackerels, filleted into 4 either by you or your fishmonger
2 Tbsp olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1 garlic clove, crushed
a small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
100-150 g cooking chorizo, cut into smaller chunks
salt and black pepper

Wash the potatoes thoroughly, then parboil in salted water until just tender. Drain and cool slightly.

Put the fish fillets into a shallow dish. Mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic, chopped parsley. Pour over the fish, then season generously with salt and pepper.

Peel the cooled potatoes, chop into smaller pieces.

Pre-heat the grill to high.

Prepare the potato and chorizo hash. Heat a large frying pan and cook the chopped chorizo over a high heat for about 2 minutes or until the oil starts to run. Add the chopped potatoes and cook for another 8-10 minutes, stirring every now and then, until the chorizo and potatoes are golden and crisp.

When the potatoes and chorizo are cooking, lift the mackerel fillets from the marinade. Place onto a grill rack and grill for 7-8 minutes, until the skin is golden and the flesh is cooked through.

To serve, spoon the potato and chorizo onto warmed plates, place the fish fillets on top, drizzle with some herb oil and serve immediately.

Fried fish in marinade (Baltic herring recipe)

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:57:00 +0000

Time for another Estonian recipe here on Nami-Nami. My mum celebrated her birthday last weekend, and this - "marineeritud praetud räimed" aka "praetud räimed marinaadis" - was one of the dishes I brought along to her party. You see, both my grandmothers - one 91, the other 92 years old - are staying with my parents these days. The other day my mum was complaining that her mum and her mother-in-law (that's my two grandmothers then) had been asking for fried Baltic herring for a while now and my mum hasn't had a chance to go to the market in search of fresh fish. As we have an excellent fishmonger - Pepe Kala - at our weekly farmer's market in Viimsi, I decided to make my mum's life easier and cooked a batch to take along.

In Estonia this dish is made with Baltic Herrings (Clupea harengus membras, above), a subspecies of the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus). Baltic herring is smaller and less fatty than the Atlantic herring, and they're also much smaller - up to 18 cm long compared to the Atlantic herring's 40-45 cm. Baltic herring - räim - is considered the "national fish" of Estonia. It's known as silakka in Finnish, strömming in Swedish, hareng de la Baltique in French. True (Nordic) fish aficionados claim the taste of Baltic herring to be superior to the taste of much more well-known sardines. :)

If you cannot get hold of the Baltic herring, you could try sardines instead - apparently the marinade works well with fried sardines, too.

Fried Baltic Herring in Marinade
(Praetud räimed marinaadis)
Serves 8

600 g Baltic herring fillets (or about 1 kg fresh fish)

2 large eggs
4 Tbsp milk

200 ml all-purpose flour or rye flour

oil for frying

Marinade:
1 l water (4 cups)
2 carrots
2 onions
10 black peppercorns
5 allspice berries
2 bay leaves
2 Tbsp 30% vinegar
1.5 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp caster sugar

Fry the fish. Whisk the eggs with milk, dip fish fillets into the mixture, flesh side down. Press both sides of the fish into the flour, shaking off any extra flour.

Heat a tablespoon or so of oil in a heavy frying pan until hot. Place the breaded fish fillets, flesh sides down, onto the pan and fry for a 2-3 minutes, until dark golden brown. Flip gently over and fry the skin side until golden brown. Transfer the cooked fish fillets into a large bowl.

Make the marinade. Peel and thinly slice the carrots and onion (I used my trusty Benriner mandoline slicer). Place the vegetables, peppercorns and allspice berries, bay leaves, salt and sugar into a medium-sized saucepan. Add the water and bring into a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the carrots are al dente or still have some bite to them. Taste for seasoning - add more salt or sugar, if necessary. The marinade should be quite salty and sugary to have enough potency to flavour the fried fish fillets.

Now add the vinegar* and remove the pan from the heat. Again - you want the marinade to be vinegary to flavour the fish, but not so much that the resulting dish would be too vinegary. Let the marinade cool for a 10-15 minutes, then slowly pour the whole thing (including the carrots, onions and the seasoning) over the fried fish.

Cool completely, then cover and transfer into the fridge for at least 8-10 hours or overnight.

Enjoy on a slice of good dark rye bread or alongside boiled potatoes.

These keep in a fridge for a week or so.

* A note on vinegar - we use the 30% proof vinegar to make this dish in Estonia. Use whatever neutral-tasting vinegar you have, adjusting the amount and aiming for the slightly vinegary marinade.

Lenten buns aka semlor aka vastlakuklid 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:48:00 +0000

It's Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday today, which means pancake feasts in many places across the world. In Estonia and other Nordic countries, however, this means eating lenten buns (semla, vastlakukkel) instead. I baked a batch of these wonderful buns, filling them with whipped sweet cream this year. No marzipan, no jam.

You'll find all my Lenten recipes here., including recipes for barley and bacon porridge and split pea soup with smoked pork.

Estonian recipes: yellow split pea soup with smoked pork (hernesupp suitsulihaga)

noreply@blogger.com (Pille) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Originally posted in February 2012, slightly edited.

It's Shrove Tuesday tomorrow, and before feasting on delicious Lenten buns (I've blogged about the classic ones, chocolate ones and luscious raspberry and marzipan ones), Estonians eat split pea soup. Thick, hearty, well-flavoured (smoked pork!) and textured (peas + pearl barley) - all the elements of a substantial and delicious winter soup are present. Here's a recipe that I've been using for years to make a big (I mean it!) pot of delicious soup.

It's a fusion recipe, of a kind. You see - apparently in the Southern Estonia, they used to put barley in the split pea soup; in the North, they replaced the pearl barley with cubed carrots and potatoes. I use them all, so it's a meet-me-in-the-middle soup :)

Note that the soup reheats very well. As it thickens when cooling, you may need to add some water when reheating it, and adjusting the seasoning again, if necessary.

Estonian Yellow Split Pea Soup with Smoked Pork
(Hernesupp suitsulihaga)
Serves eight to ten

200 g yellow split peas
150 g pearl barley
3 litres of water
about 1 kg of smoked pork - rib, cheek or hock
1 large onion
2 to 3 large carrots
2 large potatoes
salt to taste
2 to 3 tsp sharp mustard (or to taste)
fresh herbs (parsley, celery, dill, thyme, savory)

ON THE PREVIOUS NIGHT OR IN THE MORNING:
Pick through the peas and pearl barley to remove any grit. Place into a bowl, pour over enough cold water to cover by couple of centimetres and leave to soak. (This reduces the cooking time considerably).

ON THE DAY:
Place the smoked pork into a large bowl (definitely larger than 5 litres!). Add the 3 litres of water and bring slowly into a boil. Remove any froth and scum that appears on the surface.
Rinse the soaked barley and peas, drain and add to the saucepan. Bring to a boil again, then reduce heat, cover with a lid and simmer gently for about an hour.
Meanwhile, peel and chop (or grate coarsely) the onion, carrots and potatoes. If you wish, you can sauté the onion and carrots in some oil - this enhances the flavour.
Add the vegetables to the soup and continue simmering for about half an hour, until the meat and vegetables are fully cooked.
Take the pork out of the soup, remove the meat from the bones and chop finely. Return the chopped meat into the saucepan.
Season the soup with mustard and salt, add some herbs of your choice and serve.