Ingredient: cream

Salmon Pudding

(don't worry, it's not a fish dessert)

This is a real Swedish classic. As in Britain, also in Sweden a “pudding” can be both a dessert and a savory dish (unlike in Britain it can also mean an attractive person). This is… kind of a gratin I guess? There’s another traditional thing in Sweden called Cabbage pudding (coming on the blog sometime in the future), which is completely different from Salmon pudding so the Swedish word for savory “pudding” doesn’t mean much more than “stuff put together in an oven shape”, at least not to my knowledge. As you never now how traditional something you perceive as traditional really is, I did some light googling to get a sense of the history and it does seem to have been around quite a while. It is mentioned in the early 19th century, thou I would guess the recipe has gone through some changes since then. Presumably lemon wasn’t something that people had in general. On the other hand, maybe Salmon pudding wasn’t something ordinary people had? The good news is that all you ordinary people can have it now!

As it turns out, it’s also perfectly adapted to modern society as it’s an ideal lunch box meal. Easy to divvy up in pieces, well suited to be reheated in a microwave and you know…. ridiculously good, which is a big plus in my book.

It’s also one of these dishes that almost makes itself. Yes, there’s a bit of light seasoning but for the most part, the flavors come from the ingredients themselves and there’s not many of those. The only real hassle is slicing the potatoes and the onion which is why you should really have a kitchen mandolin handy.

Let’s get to it!

Special Equipment

  • Kitchen mandolin
Created with Sketch. 2 hours Created with Sketch. 8

Ingredients

  • 1 kgpotatoes (low starch)
  • 500 gcold smoked salmon
  • 2 yellow onions
  • 1 pot of dill
  • 6 normal sized eggs
  • 3 dlmilk
  • 3 dlcream
  • 350 gbutter
  • Some salt and black pepper

Directions

  1. Put the oven on 225 C.
  2. Smear the bottom of an oven pan with butter (50 g). Thinly slice potatoes and onion (preferably with a mandolin) and spread across the bottom. Sprinkle the surface with salt and black pepper. It’s hard to give any exact measure regarding the salt. It depends on how salt the salmon is, but it shouldn’t be a lot.
  3. Add a layer of salmon, then another layer of potato, onion and dill. Another sprinkle of salt and pepper (for each layer of potato). Repeat until you’re out of stuff.

  4. Mix the eggs (6), the milk (3 dl) and the cream (3 dl) in a bowl. Add a teaspoon of salt and a couple of dashes of black pepper, then pour the mix over the layers of potato, onion and salmon.
  5. Finish by spreading the surface with flakes of butter (100 g), more dill, the juice from 1/2 a lemon and another light sprinkle of salt.
  6. Put the pan into the oven for about 40-45 minutes (225 C). When it’s done the potatoes should have some firmness left and the top of the pudding should be ever so slightly burnt.
  7. Serve with clarified butter (200 g), some fresh dill and a slice of lemon.


This is actually a sort of summer dish, probably because of the fresh dill, but don’t let that stop you!

Banoffee Pie

(banana and toffee, bananatoffee, banoffee, get it?)

This is a ridiculous dessert. I guess it is very English (I think it’s English… look, I’m not gonna google it)? At least it feels very English, in that it’s just… too much… of… stuff? Digestive biscuits mixed with substantial amounts of additional butter? Condensed, super sweet milk? Banana? Whipped cream? Let’s get it all in there.

I’ve added a bit of acidity as the quadruple threat of “sweet and fat with no acidity”, i.e. digestive biscuits x condensed milk x banana x cream just feels a bit much for me. But the thing is, the sum of the parts really has got something. It’s rather glorious actually, in all its too-muched-ness. I find myself really crave it from time to time and it’s real easy to make, so I thought you might like it.

Created with Sketch. 4 hours (but three of them is waiting for the condensed milk to gel) Created with Sketch. 6-8

Ingredients

  • 200 gDigestive biscuits
  • 100 gbutter
  • 2 bananas
  • 200 g(2 dl) of cream (40-ish % fat)
  • 400 gcondensed milk
  • 1 lemon
  • Some sugar
  • Some cocoa powder
  • A bit of dark chocolate

Directions

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and put the can of condensed milk in the boiling water. Turn the heat down so the water is just simmering. Leave for three (3) hours. It’s important that the can is covered by water the entire time so you might have to add a bit of water after a while.
  2. Slice the two (2) bananas into one centimeter-ish thick pieces and put them in a bowl or a shallow container of some sort. Squeeze the lemon and pour the lemon juice over the banana slices.
  3. Melt the butter (100 g) and smash up the Digestive biscuits (200 g). Pour the melted butter over the crushed biscuits and mix with an immersion blender.
  4. Put the biscuit-butter-mash-up in a pie tin and spread it evenly across the bottom. Use something flat to really…. um, flatten it… Let it rest in the fridge for at least one hour.
  5. Thing is, now you’re basically done! When the condensed milk has simmered for three hours, take it out of the water, open the can and spread it on top of the biscuit bottom of the pie tin.
  6. Add the banana slices (don’t use the lemon juice at the bottom of the tray) on top and finish it off with some lightly sugared whip cream (200 g / 2 dl, couple of pinches of sugar), cocoa powder and grated dark chocolate. If you leave in the fridge for a while it gets a bit more set and the jellyfied condensed milk has time to cool down, but that’s basically up to you. I’d say that it’s good to go from the start but gets a bit better from some 30 minutes or so in the fridge.

This is… well, I’ve already said it several times but it bears repeating: too much. It’s really great though.

Kids really fucking love it as well, so that’s good. It’s soooo hard getting kids to finish their desserts, am I right?

Chanterelle toast

(second breakfast?)

Sometimes, things are just too easy. It’s fall, it’s mushroom season and the goodiest most wonderful mushroom toast is so simple to make, it’s… well it’s ridiculous.

Cream, mushrooms, some soy and a nice piece of bread.

We’ve always picked a lot of mushroom in my family. Chanterelles of different kinds, Porcini, maybe even the odd Russula? Through the years I’ve had different favorites for this recipe. The Yellowfoot is spicier and a bit more intense. Porcini is softer and more “forrest-y”. I really like Black chanterelle which also look incredibly cool. The one I make most often though, is the one with Yellow or Golden chanterelle, but you can’t really go wrong with any of them (pictures below sometimes show Yellowfoot and sometimes Yellow chanterelle).

Created with Sketch. 15-20 min Created with Sketch. Enough for 5-6 toasts

Ingredients

  • 5 slicesof bread
  • 150 gmushroom
  • 200 gcream (2 dl)
  • 25 gbutter
  • 8 gChinese soy (use 5-10 ml depending on taste)
  • 0.5 cloveof garlic
  • A squeeze of lemon
  • Some salt and pepper
  • Some cheese for garnish

Directions

This is the best part because there’s really nothing to this recipe at all. It’s so so simple.

Firstly let me just note that it’s a bit difficult to give a good weight estimate for chanterelles. Depending on the water content 150 g can be almost nothing (a couple of big mushrooms) or quite a lot. Look at the pictures below to get a gauge of what I used.

  1. Clean the mushroom. If they’re not very dirty, just brush them off. Otherwise rinse them with water. Some people say this is bad, I have no idea why. Maybe they confuse it with shrimp? Mushroom is a liiiiittle bit like the shellfish of the forrest?
  2. Chop the mushroom and fry them in butter on medium/high heat. Fry them until they sizzle, then we’ve gotten rid of all the excess water.
  3. Add finely chopped garlic and fry for another minute or two. Use as much as you want but I’d recommend about 1/3 of a clove. This is not supposed to be real garlic-y but rather just give some depth.
  4. Pour over the cream and add the soy. Again, add soy to your preference. I’d say 5 g (1 teaspoon/ 5 ml) is on the low end and 15 g (1 tablespoon/ 15 ml) is on the high end for me, meaning 15 g will give you quite a sharp taste of soy. I prefer to be at 5-10 g.
  5. When the consistency is a bit more sauce-y then you want it, take the pan of the heat, add a squeeze of lemon, some pepper and salt (if you think it needs the salt). Then let it rest off the heat for 5 minutes.
  6. Toast the slices of bread in a toaster or in the oven.
  7. Put the mushroom “stew” on the toasted bread slices, garnish with cheese and you’re done! Maybe give them 5 minutes in the oven on grill, but this is very optional.

For me, this is one of these dishes that are just the tastiest ever. There’s a bit of childhood nostalgia in that for sure. As I said, we really are a mushroom picking family and chanterelle toast was always the go-to thing after a walk in the forrest.

However, that’s not all. The combination of chanterelle, cream, soy and a hint of garlic and lemon is really something. And as a bonus it’s really nice to go mushroom picking.

Enjoy!

Lemon & Meringue Tart

(when life gives you lemons, great!)

In Shanghai, me and Hanna lived close to one of the real hot spots for expats: Yongkang Lu. People mostly went there for the numerous bars. To eat, barhop and have a good time. This however didn’t sit well with the locals (living on the second floors along the street) who regularly started throwing things from their homes down to the street when the clock past 10PM – the official curfew.

Things deteriorated further I guess, as Chinese authorities closed the street shortly after we moved back to Sweden. Anyway, we didn’t go there much for the drinking but we did frequent a café called Pain Chaud. A surprisingly wonderful French café, though everyone weren’t aware of that. One of the first time we went there the Chinese waitress serving us asked what “Pain Chaud” meant and which language it was 🙂 A french café yes, yet unabashedly Chinese.

Most importantly, they made great cakes and best of the bunch was this lemon/ meringue tart. I’ve tried to recreate it and I think I’ve done a decent job. I’ve pieced it together from a version of the filling in Greg’s tangy lemon tart, a less sweet variant of this simple pie dough, and this Leif Mannerström Italian meringue recipe. The result is different from the thing we had, but very good.

Special Equipment

  • Bunsen burner
  • Electric mixer
  • Thermometer
Created with Sketch. 2 hours Created with Sketch. 15 pieces

Ingredients

  • For the dough
  • 150 gbutter
  • 180 gflour (3 dl)
  • 60 gsugar (≈ 0.6 dl)
  • 5 gbaking powder (1 tsp)
  • For the filling
  • 3 lemons
  • 120 gsugar (ca 1.25 dl)
  • 5 eggs
  • 150 gdouble cream, i.e cream with ca 40% fat (1.5 dl)
  • For the meringue
  • 120 gsugar (ca 1.25 dl)
  • 37 gwater
  • 60 gegg white (ca 2 egg whites)
  • 5 glemon juice (1 tsp)

Directions

Start with the dough.

  1. Put the oven on 180 C.
  2. Melt the butter and mix it with the dry ingredients.
  3. Spread the dough evenly in a pie tin. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork.
  4. Coat the dough with aluminium foil, then fill it with (in order of preference) coins, rice, or beans. The purpose of this is to keep the dough from collapsing and generally keep its shape.
  5. Bake the dough for ca 15 minutes then take it out of the oven, remove the coins/rice/beans and the aluminium foil. Continue baking in the oven until golden, then let it rest.

  6. While the pie crust is baking, prepare the filling. Grate two of the three lemons (should result in ca 30-40 ml peel).
  7. Squeeze out the juice from all three lemons (should be 100-150 g/ 1-1.5 dl).
  8. Crack the eggs and mix them with the sugar. Whisk until reasonably smooth.
  9. Add the cream, the lemon juice and the grated lemon peel.
  10. Pour the filling into the (baked) pie crust. Bake in the oven on 130 C. It should be finished in about 30 minutes but depending on the shape of the pie tin (and the oven) the time can vary quite a lot. The lemon filling should be just set. If overcooked it becomes a bit to eggy.
  11. Let it cool for a bit outside the oven.
  12. And now for the Italian meringue. Mix 110 grams of the sugar with the water in a pot and bring it to 125 C. Let it cool to ca 115 degrees.
  13. Add the egg white, the lemon juice and the last 10 grams of sugar to the sugar solution whilst mixing with the electric mixer on the highest (most intense) setting for about three minutes. It’s very important that you’re mixing while you’re adding the egg white, otherwise you’ll get a very sweet omelette instead.Continue mixing on a slightly less intense setting until the meringue is fluffy and firm (ca 5 minutes).
  14. Spread the meringue across the surface of the pie.
  15. Give the top of the meringue a nice burnt tint with the Bunsen burner. You can do this with the grill setting on the oven (on warmest setting) but it doesn’t become as pretty 🙂

 

I just love love love this pie but it does require a bit of practice. I’ve made several ones that I haven’t been quite pleased with. The lemon filling is really so much better if the time in the oven is timed perfectly and the meringue can be a little bit tricky. Easily worth it to put in the time though.

Enjoy!

Janssons frestelse

(maybe my favorite food... yes, of aaaaaall of the foods)

Well. It’s that time again. Christmas is coming.

I like Christmas I have to say. All in all, it’s mostly quite cosy and nice. There are things I LOVE about Christmas though. And maybe, just maybe, what I love the most is Jansson’s frestelse (sorry, all my family members, you’re a strong second).

According to folk lore it was invented by the opera singer Per Adolf “Pelle” Janzon, that used to treat his guests to beer, schnapps and this type of gratin (Wikipedia tells me the name might be from a movie with the same name. Let’s hope it’s not that boring).

It’s something so unusual as a completely Swedish dish (I don’t even think it’s got an international name) that I really think should be the envy of the world. It doesn’t seem to be though. I think very few people outside of Sweden have ever heard of it. But hey, up here, it’s one of the seminal holiday dishes. It is essential. It is culture. I’m not sure if people really like it that much though..? But I love it and that’s enough for me.

It’s a bit complicated to explain what ‘Jansson’ actually tastes like to non Swedish people. You see, in Sweden there are anchovies, but they’re not like anchovies in the rest of the world, which are usually salty and preserved in oil (they’re called “sardeller” in Sweden). The Swedish version is very sweet, pickled with a whole bunch of spices like cinnamon, bay leaves, allspice, black pepper, sandel wood, clove, cardamom and some version of oregano. And it’s not made from the fish “anchovy” either, but rather sprat. Crazy stuff, right? But it is the bomb. And these “Swedish anchovies” basically make the dish; the savory, sweet, fatty, salty, wonderfully decadent Janssons frestelse. I love everything about them. Even the can they come in is awesome!

In my family we eat (and always have eaten) Jansson’s on 100% of the following holidays: Christmas, Easter, Midsummer, and on 0% of all the other days. Or, well… sometimes my dad can’t help himself and makes it off-season with like twice the anchovies.

It’s also really easy to make, as all the spicing is already in the stuff you put into the gratin. No added spices, easy peasy.

Let’s go!

Created with Sketch. 45 minute preparation, ca 45 minutes in the oven Created with Sketch. 8-12 servings

Ingredients

  • 1.8 kgpotatoes
  • 3 yellow onions
  • 400 (or 500) gcream (40-ish %)
  • 3 (or 2)cans of anchovies (125 g per can, including the liquid)
  • 100 gbutter
  • 25 groe
  • 20 gtomato puré
  • 50 gbread crumbs

Directions

As you might have guessed, I like anchovy. So this recipe does not skimp on the anchovy. For some people this amount can be a bit much. If you think that you’re one of these people, you can skip one of the cans of anchovy and add about 100 g (1 dl) of cream instead.

  1. Put the oven on 225 C. Put a pan with 25 g of butter on medium heat. Chop half of the onions. When the butter starts to sizzle, lower the heat to medium/low and add the chopped onion. Fry until the onion starts to caramelize.
  2. While the onion is frying, peel the potatoes and cut them into sticks.
  3. Finely chop the rest of the onion. Open all three cans of anchovy and drain the pickle-juice into a bowl. Whatever you do: don’t throw it away! This is very important. It really packs a lot of flavor! Chop the anchovy from two of the cans. When the onion in the pan has caramelized somewhat, let it cool down off the stove in a bowl.


    I mean, just look at those… so pretty.
  4. Whisk the pickling juice, the roe and the tomato puré into the cream.

  5. Now you’re all set to put the pieces together. Layer potato sticks – raw and fried onion –  and pieces of anchovy, until you run out of ingredients.
  6. When you’re done with the layering, pour the cream/anchovy pickling juice/tomato puré/roe- mix on top.
  7. Now sprinkle the bread crumbs evenly over the surface.
  8. Distribute the remaining can of anchovy fillets on top of the layer of bread crumbs.
  9. And finally: slice the remaining butter (or better yet, use a cheese grater) and layer it on top of the anchovy fillets. 
  10. Into the oven it goes! It needs about 45 minutes but this is very dependent on the oven, the depth of the oven dish and to some extent the ingredients (like the type of potato). You’ll know it’s done when it’s golden brown, the cream is wonderfully gooey and the potatoes are soft. Check in now and then to time it perfectly. Let it rest out of the oven for at least 30 minutes before eating. As with many recipes, this is probably the most important and hardest part. But the gratin really has to set to let the ingredients meld. It’s also way tastier at something like 60 C than piping hot.

This is normally had at Christmas with tons of things as a part of the Christmas dinner behemoth. But it’s great with just some good ol’ meatballs and an egg.

Happy holidays!

Popcorn Ice Cream

(how everything started)

So this must be the appropriate place to start, right? My brother first made this a long(ish) time ago. I don’t know, let’s say five years ago (you can find his recipe, in Swedish, here). I think he read about it on a Swedish blog but I’m not really sure. Anyway, it kinda became a thing in our circle. I then decided to do it one of the first times we had Danilo and Maria over for dinner, serving it with something that my father introduced me to: salt and olive oil on ice cream (which he in turn got from some place, probably Mathias Dahlgren actually Jamie Oliver). And it continued to be kind of a thing. It became something fun to serve new people and then annoyingly ask: ”…what do you think it is..? Guess!” (it really is pretty rare that it’s fun when someone asks you to guess, but… I’m naively open to the possibility that it might not always have been annoying).

So why the fuss, you might rightly ask. This just sounds like a hipstery over worked, over hyped, over well… this just sounds like the sorta thing that’s gonna be over pretty quickly, right? Not a thing that becomes something more than a fun (pretentious) little (annoying) thing? Buuuuut, listen, I know popcorn ice cream sounds weird, but the weird part is actually that it’s not weird at all. It’s just a really, really good flavouring for ice cream!

Quite frankly, it’s my favourite ice cream. And despite attempts to find a conceptually appropriate pairing, e.g. coca-cola sauce, I think salt flakes and olive really hold its ground against the alternatives. And you know what? I know it sounds weird, but the weird part is that it’s actually… yeah, you know where I’m going with this. It’s just great.

And so what if all the above makes me look like a bit of a quirky foodie type guy, can’t that just be ok?

Time-wise: if you have a fancy ice cream maker: ca 2 hours. 1.5 hours of prep, ca 30 (eh, maybe 40) min in the machine. Explain fancy! Fancy means active cooling. Cheaper ice cream makers have cooling blocks that have to be frozen in preparation to making the ice cream. In addition, with these machines you normally have to cool the batter before putting it in the machine. With an active cooling aggregate you can put warm batter in the machine (at least the one I have). I do think however, that results improve if the batter is pre-cooled, also in the case of active cooling. So:

If you have an freezing block style ice cream maker: Ca 4 hours. 1.5 hours of prep, 2 hours to let the batter cool down, 30 min (ish, very dependent on the actual machine) in the machine.

Ideally, regardless of machine, it’s preferable to make the batter the day before and stuff it in the fridge overnight.

Let’s get down to it shall we?

Special Equipment

  • You kinda have to have an ice cream maker to make ice cream. You can make it without but even a rudimentary (cheap) one makes a big big difference
  • A cooking thermometer
Created with Sketch. 2 or 4 hours depending on equipment Created with Sketch. 4 Servings

Ingredients

  • 300 gmilk
  • 300 grdouble cream
  • 60 gsugar
  • 80 gegg yolk (4-6 yolks, depending on size)
  • 50 gun-popped popcorn

Directions

  1. Pop the popcorn in a pot. Actually, add just a little bit of salt to the popcorn.
  2. Heat the milk and cream together in a pot.
  3. When the milk-cream mixture reaches a light simmer, take it off the heat and add the popped popcorn. Put this to rest for about 45 min under a lid.
  4. Mix the egg yolks with the sugar. Some light whipping will do.
  5. Sift away the popcorn from the milk-cream mixture. You should be left with ca 5 dl of popcorn-tasting cream-milk. Throw away the mushy popcorn and whisk the popcorn-milk-cream in with the egg yolk and sugar.
  6. Put the mixture in a pot and gently warm it to about 84 degrees Celsius. Stir the bottom of the pot continuously with a whisker or a wooden spoon. The important thing here is to not let anything stick to the bottom of the pot.

    The exact temperature is hotly debated (not really that hotly though…)! Some recipes say 82, others say just below 85. I say 84. The important part is to not let the yolk get to hot. If this happens, the batter gets grainy and taste a lot more like eggs. But don’t worry, there’s a fix! Repeat step 1-5. Easy, no? But seriously, it’s not that hard, just be careful. Start out on a fairly high (stove) temperature but reduce it quickly when the thermometer starts ticking faster. Reduce the heat as the temperature rises so that the temperature of the mixture (ideally) comes to a halt at 84 degrees. Remember to stir. Keep the temperature at 84 degrees for a little while, say 20-30 seconds, before removing the pot from the stove. And if you’re the nervous type, just stop a little bit short of 84.
  7. Let the batter cool down until it’s about fridge temperature. Best practise? Leave it in the fridge over night. This improves both taste and texture of the final product.
  8. Put into the freezer whatever you’re serving the ice cream in. Home made ice cream tends to melt pretty quickly. Serving it in chilled bowls really helps to counter this.
  9. Put the batter in the ice cream maker.

    My ice cream maker stops stirring automatically when the batter is wonderfully creamy*. This usually happens after about 20 minutes, if the batter starts out cool, and the machine then proceeds to freeze the ice cream. At -22 degrees C this can quickly make the ice cream too firm. Leave it in the machine (or put it in the freezer) for just 10 minutes before serving. It should then be firm, but still silky smooth.

 

*My former (cooling block) one, just stopped when it couldn’t manage to stir anymore because of the thickness of the ice cream, which is usually at about the same texture.

Serve in chilled bowls with a sprinkle of salt flakes and some olive oil. It is to be eaten post haste!

And hey, don’t forget to annoyingly ask your guests what they think the flavor is. They’ll love it probably.