Happy New Year!

I hope all of you will have a marvellous new year!

My favorites from 2009 - recipes, part two

So, yesterday you got my favorite savory (-ish) recipes of this year. Here are the rest. Make them. Enjoy them. I know I do!


Cinnamon-Raisin Bagels (I like these much more than my old recipe)


Macarons (This is the most basic recipe, but I've made many variations - gingerbread, lavender, blueberry, cherry, pistachio, chocolate-peanut butter...)


Spiced Pecans


Coffee & Cardamom Biscotti with White Chocolate


Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins


Kettle Corn

My favorites from 2009 - recipes, part one

I went through this year's posts, and picked my absolute favorite recipes. It was really hard to pick just five so... I didn't. After all, the more the merrier! These recipes are all really, really awesome. I promise!

I'll split it into two posts - savories today, desserts and baked goods tomorrow.


Orange Apricot Lamb Stew


Carrot-Raisin Salad with Nuts


Fish Soup (with homemade aioli)


Avocado Edamame Salad


Italian Lentil Soup


Sweet Asian Dipping Sauce


Better, Fluffy Pancakes

Best of 2009 - new products

This will be pretty un-interesting for those of you not in Sweden, as all of these products are Swedish and probably pretty much only sold here. Sorry. Get even by telling me YOUR favorite new product in the comments - it'll be probably be something I can't get!

- Valio Mjukt Smör. (Soft Butter.) This is butter, with added canola oil to make it spreadable. We used to use a low-fat margarine spread before this, for many years. Then I had this sent home to my door from a PR-agency, along side a loaf of freshly baked bread. I was seduced. And won over. I haven't looked back. This is the only stuff that goes on my sandwiches now.

- Bravo Friscus juice. Orange and apple juice, with added "good bacteria" in order to strengthen your immune system and protect you from colds. I don't know if it works, but I drank it for two months and really got hooked. The apple juice in particular is really tasty.

- Ridderheims ham (and other cold-cut meat) without preservatives. They've launched a whole bunch of meats lately, including a Christmas ham which I really liked. Some of the products - the roast beef especially - were a bit dry, but I really did like that they didn't have any unnecessary chemicals in them.

- Allerum Lagrad Prästost - a very strong, aged cheese that was perfect to eat with the slightly sweet Vörtbröd for Christmas.

- Sour rats from Aroma. I blogged about them, and they are... great. In fact, they're so good I'll send a bag of them to a random commenter - just leave a comment, and make sure I have a way to reach you if you win.

My favorites from 2009 - books

It's almost impossible to write about favorites from a whole year - I can barely remember what happened last week, so how about what happened in January? I have no idea. But hey, let me try, anyway. I'll do a series of posts over the next few days, on my favorite cookbooks, my favorite recipes and my favorite new products. Let's start with the books!

What's your favorite from this year? Tell me in the comments!

Top 5 cookbooks



-Momofuku - absolutely great. I wanted to get on a plane to NY, go to every location and eat through the menus. I'll settle for cooking from the book though, which seems very, very useable - David Chang really goes into detail on how they work, and although some things probably won't be practical for the home kitchen, so many things are. (Website.)



-The Blackberry Farm Cookbook. I haven't been to the Blackberry Farm any more than I've been to Momofuku - but oh, I want to go. This cookbook (and it's much more than that, really, it has so many beautiful photos and interviews with the people somehow involved with the farm that it's really something you read, not just leaf through) is very different from the Momofuku - you won't find meat glue here, but tons of wonderful recipes for well-cooked food that's in season. (Website.)



-Rose's Heavenly Cakes. I have had the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum for several years (donated to me by a kind reader who was cleaning out her bookshelf!) and it's completely changed the way I think about cakes. (it's also scared me off from making them very often!) This book is a lot nicer - it still covers all of the basics, but it has color photos of all the cakes, and I find it a bit more approachable. I've made yummy vanilla cupcakes so far, but I can't wait for an occasion to try out something a bit more challenging, too. (Rose's blog.)



-'Wichcraft. I'm a huge fan of Top Chef, and thus, of Tom Colicchio. I really, really wish I could fly out to eat at Craft, too, and I hope to experience 'wichcraft as well. (Eventually.) I'm happy to have the book, though - it has tons of recipes, and almost all of them sound great. And I love sandwiches for dinner. Don't you? (Website.)



-Not just a cookbook, but much more - Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton is a funny and engaging story about how a child begins her journey towards being an eater. Or something like that. Just read it. If you have kids, you'll love it. If you don't, you will still appriciate the recipes. (Website.)

Lamb Tagine

I don't know, but I'm all done with the christmas food now. I'll eat leftovers for a day or two, but that's it. (I have to admit I don't really like leftovers much at all!)

I got this amazing lamb recipe from an online friend at a Swedish discussion board, and I've just made some minor changes to it. It really is fabulous - fairly fast and very flavorful. Don't skimp on the saffron - it's hideously expensive this year, but it makes such a difference here.

A tagine is really another word for "stew" but refers to the cooking pot which is quite special. I don't have one - if you do, you could certainly make this in it, but it'll be perfectly fine in a heavy pot or a Dutch oven, too.

Lamb Tagine

(printable recipe)
serves 4-6

1 kg lamb, off the bone, in large dice
olive oil
2 yellow onions, coarsely chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
3 tbsp tomato paste
5-600 ml water
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 g saffron
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tbsp cumin
1 red chili, finely minced (or 1 tsp sambal oelek or similar chili paste)
salt, black pepper
5 sundried tomatoes, cut into fine strips
1 lemon, zest and juice
100 g dried apricots, cut into fine strips
fresh rosemary - a few sprigs
4-5 fresh tomatoes, de-seeded and diced

Brown the meat in some oil in a large pot, and place on a plate when it's done. Brown onions and garlic in the same pot, add tomato paste and fry for a few minutes. Add the lamb back to the pot, along with the water, all the spices and the sundried tomatoes. Cook on low heat for about 45 minutes. Check to see if the lamb is tender - if not, let it cook for a bit longer. If it is, add the lemon zest and juice, apricots and rosemary. Cook for 15 minutes, finally add the tomato dice and cook for an additional five minutes.

Serve with cooked bulgur or cous-cous, a dollop of thick greek-style yogurt and some lightly cooked veggies, like broccoli.

Recipe in Swedish:
Lammtagine

Thanks, Santa!

First blog post written at my new MacBook! I love it! It's a bit of a hassle getting everything set up - mail, contacts, bookmarks etc - but it'll be fabulous when it's all done, I'm sure. I was really good this year, apparently, since Santa decided to get me this!

And well, it *has* been quite a year! It seems to have gone by so quickly. The main event, obviously, was the birth of our son Titus, in May. He's already seven months and growing up so fast. It's quite amazing - I never expected to love life with a baby, but I do. The blog has been suffering a bit - not only because I haven't been cooking as much as before, but mostly because I haven't really felt the urge to sit down and write. I'll try to be better next year!

I downloaded something pretty cool - it's a little program called OmmWriter and it's designed to make writing much more like... actual writing, I suppose. It's full screen, so you don't see all your other programs, and thus, you're not disturbed. So far, I'm liking it. It's very serene. I'll try to use it to write a bit more next year - actual blog posts, rather than just recipes.

I don't say this often enough, but you mean so much to me. I would have given up on the blog long ago, if it wasn't for you - my readers. You are very important in my life - I appriciate you very, very much. Thank you. And happy holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Candy: Vanilla Bean Caramels

Yum - caramels is a must at christmas time! You have to have a candy thermometer, but other than that, it's easy. Pour your caramel into a lined pan - I use something called "bakplåtsfolie" which is a coated foil. It's perfect and never sticks - but it's also not widely distributed, so use whatever you normally would.

A note on syrup. Golden syrup has a very distinct taste and is not easy to substitute - but if you can't get it, try honey. White syrup is best substituted with pure glucose or corn syrup.

Vanilla Bean Caramels
(printable recipe)

300 ml cream (full-fat - 35-40%)
300 ml sugar
50 ml golden syrup
2 tbsp white baking syrup
2 vanilla beans (scored and scraped)

Mix everything but the vanilla in a wide saucepan and boil over medium heat until the caramel is 125-128°C. The temperature depends on how firm you want the caramel to be - I like mine rather hard and chewy so I aim for the higher number. Add the seeds from the vanilla beans. Pour into a prepared pan and let it set before turning the caramel slab onto a cutting board and cutting it into individual caramels.



Recipe in Swedish:
Gräddkola med vanilj

Cherry Vanilla Bean Macarons

Ok - one more batch of macarons. I actually made them in August but didn't manage to post about it until now... Oh well - they would be great for Christmas, too!

As you can see, these are a bit lumpy. That's for not sieving the almonds after grinding. I was lazy, and this was the price of that. Not a huge deal, but remember to sieve for prettier cookies!

The filling uses cherry syrup, a lovely little thing that you can find in many grocery stores, but probably not everywhere. Mine is Polish, and very tangy. You could do your own cherry reduction, too.



Cherry Vanilla Bean Macarons
(printable recipe)
makes about 20 filled cookies

3 egg whites, at room temperature
2 tbsp caster sugar
200 g powdered sugar
110 g almonds, blanched
red or pink food coloring (powdered or gel)

Combine powdered sugar and almonds in your food processor, and grind until very fine. Sieve. Re-grind any lumps or big pieces of almonds. Mix carefully (they tend to separate a little bit when sieving, since the sugar falls through first.)

Beat egg whites and sugar until you have a thick, glossy meringue. Don't overbeat. Stir in the almond-sugar powder, and fold together along with the food color. Don't overmix this - most seem to say that you should use less than 50 strokes. (You can try it by dolloping a little batter on a baking sheet - if the peak falls down, it's ready. If it doesn't, try a few more strokes.)

Pipe small rounds on a baking sheet with baking paper. Leave at room temperature for 30-60 minutes, to form a skin.

Bake at 150°C for 15-20 minutes. (I have a convection oven, and 15 minutes is perfect for me.) Let them cool completely before filling. Unused shells can be frozen, or kept in an air-tight container for a day or so.

Cherry Vanilla Buttercream
50-100 ml cherry syrup
3 egg yolks
75 g sugar
82 g corn syrup (or if you're in Sweden, white baking syrup works perfectly)
225 g unsalted butter, softened
1 vanilla bean, the seeds
pink food coloring

Beat the egg yolks until fluffy. Bring sugar and corn syrup to a boil, and immediately remove from heat. Pour over the egg yolks and beat at high speed until fully cooled. (Try not to get any on your beaters, or it will spin to the sides of your bowl.)

Add the butter, a pat at a time, until fully incorporated. Mix in the vanilla seeds and the cherry syrup, a little at a time. Finally add food coloring.

Spread - or pipe - the cream onto half of the macaron shells, top with the remaining shells. Eat right away or freeze.

Recipe in Swedish:
Körsbärs- och vaniljmacarons

Peppermint Meringues

As you might have noticed on Twitter, I've been making a lot of christmas candy and cookies lately! I made these yummies yesterday - really quick and easy, and super tasty. For a special treat, you could dip them in dark chocolate.. or perhaps sandwich them together with some chocolate ganache. I don't bother, I just eat them straight up.

They're perfectly crispy with a slightly chewy center - yum!

Peppermint Meringues
(printable recipe)
makes at least 50 small meringues

3 egg whites
200 ml sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
50 g peppermint candy
1-2 tsp peppermint extract
red food coloring - I use gel colors from Wilton.



Mix egg whites and sugar in a bowl. Place it on top of a saucepan with simmering water, and mix on high speed with a handheld mixer, until the meringue turns bright white, thick and shiny. Remove the bowl from the heat, and whisk for a few more minutes. Slowly add the lemon juice.

Crush the peppermint candy very finely, and add to the batter along with the mint extract. Stir in some color - either stir well and you'll end up with pink meringues, or just marble some color throughout. Place the batter in a piping bag fitted with a large star tip (Wilton 1M is what I use) and pipe small stars onto a lined baking sheet.

Bake at 100°C for 45 minutes. Turn the oven off and let the meringues cool completely.

Recipe in Swedish:
Polkagrismaränger

A little about my Christmas...

I did a Q&A with D. from Outside Oslo - check it out if you want to read a little about my holiday traditions!

Spicy Chocolate Cookies with Candied Ginger

I found this cookie recipe over at one of my very favorite food blogs - Baking Bites. Nicole has provided me with so many excellent recipes over the years, and like few others, she really inspires me to get into the kitchen and bake RIGHT NOW.

This cookie is great - spicy and flavorful and with gorgeous little chunks of ginger. It's also quite sturdy and perfect to pack up and send as holiday gifts. I've amended the quantities slightly, but for the original recipe (in US measuremeants), go here.

Spicy Chocolate Cookies with Candied Ginger
(printable recipe)

500 ml flour
4 tbsp cocoa powdder
1,5 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger, ground
1/2 tsp cinnamon, ground
1/4 tsp cloves, ground
1/4 tsp black pepper, finely ground
110 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250 ml sugar
1 large egg
4 tbsp molasses or dark syrup
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla powder
100 ml finely chopped dark chocolate
100 ml chopped candied ginger
100 ml raw cane sugar, for rolling

Mix flour, cocoa powder and all spices in a bowl. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, and add the egg. Beat well. Stir in the molasses, balsamic vinegar, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients, a little at a time, and mix into a smooth dough. Finally add the chocolate and ginger.

Shape small balls of the dough, and roll them in the raw sugar. Flatten slightly and place on a baking sheet, with plenty of room to spread out.

Bake at 175°C for about 10 minutes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Chokladkakor med ingefära

The best Gingerbread cookies

I've made gingerbread cookies (known as Pepparkakor here in Sweden, and probably gingersnaps in most of the world) many times, and I've tried several different recipes. You can always buy your dough chilled in the grocery store this time of year (possibly at IKEA for those of you who aren't in Sweden) but it's incredibly easy to make your own.

This recipe is quite different, since it doesn't contain butter. It's certainly not a "diet" sort of recipe though - it has plenty of sugar and cream. The cookies are really flavorful, and with an almost caramel crunch. Irresistible! The dough should rest in the fridge for at least a few days (and up to three weeks) so make it right away!

And you'll get a LOT of cookies. I divided my dough into six portions, each one made about two baking sheets of cookies. It'll all depend on the size of your cookie cutters. And save those with tiny details for another recipe, because these tend to fluff up a bit and don't hold their shape as well as some others I've tried. However, the taste more than makes up for that.



The best Gingerbread cookies
(printable recipe)
makes a whole lot of cookies

300 ml cream (35-40% fat content)
300 ml golden syrup
700 g granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon, ground
1,5 tsp cloves, ground
1 tsp cardamom, ground
1/2 tsp bitter orange peel, ground
2 tsp ginger, ground
1,5 tbsp baking soda
1 kg flour

Mix cream, golden syrup and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, or stir together by hand. Add all the spices and the baking soda, along with half of the flour. Gradually add the rest of the flour until you have a nice, supple dough that's not too tacky. Divide into six logs, and place each in a plastic bag or plastic wrap. Keep in the fridge for at least a few days, but preferrably a week.

Roll out and cut into desired shapes, and bake at 160°C for 8-10 minutes. (8 was perfect in my convection oven, for fairly small cookies.)

Recipe in Swedish:
Bästa pepparkakorna

Cookie swap!

I held a cookie swap on Sunday, for some of my friends. Awesome -
loads of cookies and great company. And I made a new gingerbread
cookie recipe that was wonderful - I'll try to post it tomorrow!

Christmas Candy: Chocolate Orange Hazelnut Bark

Here's a christmas candy you can whip up in less than ten minutes - and it tastes great! Maybe this goes without saying but - use a chocolate that you like to eat straight up. The flavor won't be altered much, just enhanced. You can add more zest if you like - this gives a fairly subtle orange hint.

I really don't bother with tempering my chocolate - I really don't do it very well, so I just skip it. It means it'll melt quickly when touched, and I keep mine in the fridge. (Yes, yes, I know it's sacrilegious.)



Chocolate Orange Hazelnut Bark

200 g dark chocolate
120 g toasted, skinned hazelnuts
zest from one orange
pinch of flaky sea salt

Chop the chocolate and melt it in the microwave. Zest the orange and coarsely chop (or just halve) the hazelnuts. Stir in half the zest and the nuts with the chocolate, and spread in a small loaf tin or a baking pan that you've lined with baking paper or something similar. Sprinkle with the remaining zest and nuts, and a little bit of flaky sea salt. Place in the fridge to set.

Happy St Lucia Day!

Today is Santa Lucia Day, which means celebrations all over Sweden with candles, music, glögg, gingerbread cookies and lucia buns - yeasted saffron buns, with raisins. In honor of the day, I'll do a repost of my recipe for Lucia Buns - Lussekatter, as we call them.

I wrote about Lucia three years ago, and I had another recipe for saffron buns here.

The problem with making saffron buns is that the saffron dries out the dough, and the buns go stale in no time. So make these on the same day as you plan to eat them, or put them in the freezer right away. They really won't keep well.

That said, this recipe is really good and really easy. It has a lot of butter and cream, and that helps to keep the dough nice and moist, and it's really a dream to handle. You don't need much flour at all, and no extra when you shape the buns, and that's always good in terms of moistness. So, do try these - you won't regret it!

Lucia Buns
Makes 20 large ones

100 g fresh yeast
400 ml milk, full-fat
100 ml cream (35-40% fat)
200 g butter
1-1,5 g saffron
200 ml sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1 kilo white flour

Decoration:
1 egg, beaten
raisins

Crumble the yeast into the bowl of your stand mixer (or a regular bowl, if making this by hand). Melt the butter, then add the milk and the cream and heat until it's about 37°C - it should just barely feel warm to the touch. Add this to the yeast and stir until it has dissolved.

Put the saffron with a pinch of sugar in your pestle and mortar, and mix well. Add to the dough, along with salt, sugar, the egg and most of the flour. Work into a smooth and silky dough - it will look pretty sticky, so add the rest of the flour, but don't worry if it's still sticky. It's supposed to be. It shouldn't stick to your fingers though.



Transfer the dough to a clean bowl, and leave to rise, covered, for 45 minutes. Then it's time to shape the dough. I started by dividing the dough into equal portions, using digital kitchen scales. I like my lucia buns fairly large - that, again, helps counter any dryness. The traditional shape is as you can see in the photo below a fairly tight "s". Place raisins in the middle of the swirls on each side.



Place on a cookie sheet, cover, and let the buns rise for about 15 minutes. Brush with a beaten egg, and bake at 200°C for 8-10 minutes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Lussekatter

Baby Sourdough Bread with Ricotta

I wanted to make a bread that Titus could try - that meant not a lot of fiber (so no rye), no salt, still some flavor, and something fairly soft. This - which I made completely by experiment - is great! It's not hugely popular yet, but then again, no food is. He'll get it, eventually...



Baby Sourdough Bread with Ricotta
makes one loaf

200 g water
50 g wheat sourdough starter
10 g fresh yeast
100 g ricotta
450 g bread flour

Mix all ingredients and knead really well. (About ten minutes in a stand mixer, or twice that by hand.) The dough shouldn't be tacky, but it will be fairly soft. Leave to rise for two hours.

Flatten the dough into a rectangle. Roll it up, from the short side, and place in a greased bread tin. Leave to rise again, for 1-2 hours.

Bake at 200°C for about half an hour - the bread should reach a core temperature of 96-98°C.



Recipe in Swedish:
Surdegsbröd med ricotta för bebisar

Moose stew with parsley

Very exotic to some, every day food to others - moose is quite common in Sweden. This was a delicious lunch the other day when I visited my
friend. I dont cook much with it myself, since I don't know any
hunters and thus lack a good source, but I love eating it.

Edit: here's the recipe: http://feline-eliza.blogspot.com/2009/07/moose-stew-for-american-public.html

Cookie Box

The perfect holiday gift! This one has gingerbread macarons, gingerbread biscotti and chocolate chai snickerdoodles.

Cookbook Watch: Christmas Gifts

Some of the books that has come out this fall would make excellent christmas gifts! I've saved two of my favorites for a separate post - coming soon.

For the parents:



The Gastrokid cookbook, by two food writers, would be perfect for those wanting to raise an adventurous eater. No guarantees, but the book is full of useful tips and recipes - and for food you want to eat, too. For more, go to the Gastrokid website.



Hungry Monkey is written by a food writer as well - Matthew Amster-Burton, and it's an amusing book about his daughter Iris. Again, very helpful for a parent thinking about how to feed his or her kids, and it has excellent recipes as well despite being not just a cookbook. For more on this, go to the Hungry Monkey website.

For busy families:



Martha Stewart's Dinner At Home is full of suggestions for fast and easy dinners that still look delicious and are nutritious and good for you. Typically Martha, the book is also beautiful.



Tomas Tengby is well known in Swedish television and radio, and has written and co-authored several cookbooks before, but his latest, Välkommen på middag! ("Welcome to dinner" - available in Swedish only) is the one I like best so far. It has a lot of rough sketches rather than full on recipes, and since that is really the way I cook, it suits me just fine. He gives a lot of tips on how to build a meal, and reminds us that cooking doesn't have to be difficult or complicated.

For fairly ambitious cooks:



Melker Andersson owns several restaurants in Stockholm and has now written a book about homecooking. Hemma Hos Melker ("At home with Melker" - available in Swedish only) is divided into three parts depending on how long the recipes take to cook. Nothing looks too difficult, and those things I've tried have been delicious. If you want to achieve great flavor and get some tips from one of the most succesful Swedish chefs - this is your book.



Fredagskocken by Mattias Larsson is an excellent book! Mattias is pretty well known in Sweden from his participation on Mix Megapol, a radio station. He's part of the morning show every Friday, and cooks live on the air. His passion for food really shines through, and this book has 23 three-course menus from the radio show. I was lucky enough to meet Mattias a while ago, and his recipes are excellent. They're very approachable, and don't contain a whole lot of strange ingredients - you can get just about all of them at a regular grocery store, which certainly is a bonus. This is a book I know I'll use a lot this coming year! (Mattias website: here.)

For someone about to live on their own:



Basic Kokboken (Swedish only) is not just a basic cookbook (as the name would imply) but it's also quite inspiring. It has the usual, to be expected recipes, but it also has more than that and I wish I had had this when I first moved out!



And if you don't think a whole lot of cooking is going to take place when the kid goes off to college (or wherever), maybe Vodka med Smak ("Vodka with Flavor" - available in Swedish only) is a good alternative. It's a second book from Swedish bar Café Opera, and it's all vodka-based drinks.

For foragers:



Svamplycka ("Mushroom Luck" - available in Swedish only) by Jens Linder is a wonderful book if you like to trawl through the forests for those 'shrooms. It covers many different types, and has lots of recipes for each kind of mushroom. Jens Linder also blogs, in Swedish, here.