Ceviche variation - Estonian marinated oily fish (Est. marineeritud räim)

A lot of people in the world like ceviche, a marinated fish or seafood dish known from Central and South America. Yumm! Humm! ...they say, munching on fish or prawn that has been soaking in lemon or lime juice spiced with locally popular chilli and cilantro. Very nice!
People on the northern side of the globe invented the same cooking technique with their locally popular spices. A special Estonian delicacy is marinated little oily fish. Since limes or lemons don't grow locally vinegar is used instead.

Marinate the small oily fish overnight

Ingredients
500g cleaned raw small oily fish ( raw anchovy, sprat, small sardine)
0.5 - 0.75 teaspoon salt
a 3 finger pinch sugar
1 dl apple or white wine vinegar
1dl  water
black pepper, crushed
allspice, crushed
1 small onion, sliced in rings

2 tablespoons rape seed oil

Layer the fish tightly side by side in a bowl or a small plastic container. Sprinkle with pepper and allspice in between the layers and add a few slices of onion. Repeat layering.
Mix the vinegar, water, salt and sugar and spread on the fish. Press the fish down a little and cover with a lid or plastic foil and leave overnight in the fridge.
On the next day, drain the fish from the vinegar marinade. Drizzle oil on top of the fish.

(Est. Marineeritud räim)

Serve with dark rye bread for the authentic northern taste.
In summer serve with new potatoes with butter and chopped fresh dill.

Rösti - Swiss Potato Paradise Dish

I had a bit of time to look around the Zurich airport recently. They are still going through some major renovation, but some areas have been finished. A refreshing change to nondescript fast food places is a new eatery that flirts with healthy - local- fresh theme. The green insignia of the Marche´corner invites with fresh breads, a salad bar, fresh juices, a grill station, pizza, fresh rösti as well as a pastry selection and a bar area.
Since I had time until my flight was boarding I wanted to try something out. At 5 pm the bread counter looked a bit deserted with little choice left, but the bread that was available didn´t look bad. Plain or with nuts or olives, bread rolls, sweet muffins? I chose a loaf with olives as a little bring along present for my host.

Fresh olive bread

Storm Joachim was taking its share outside and many flights were cancelled. I remembered my travel motto: "Eat and sleep whenever you can, since you never know when is the next time".
I can never say no to a good potato dish. Rösti is a Swiss specialty. It is great just plain. More sofisticated versions with special cheeses from the Alps or Gorgonzola or with sausage or with vegetables or bacon or mushroom or egg can be found in restaurants offering Swiss specialties. The next 20 minutes passed tasting a gold brown thick rösti. The potatoes and the level of frying was good, the potatoes stuck together. I had to season with salt as none had been used in the cooking process. Another traveller was desperately looking for some salt too at another table - he had some grilled vegetables. It could be the health aspect, however unseasoned food hardly satisfies a belly.

Rösti and blackberry-orange juice

Ingredients (for 2):
500g cooked potatoes
1 tablespoon oil
10 g butter
Salt
1 small onion (optional)
a couple of slices of bacon (optional)
1 tablespoon milk

Grate the potatoes on the wide cut, thicker pieces give a stonger bite. A 24 cm diameter pan is easier in the cooking process than a very big pan. Heat the oil and butter on the pan. If you are using onion and bacon cook the chopped onion and the bacon strips in the oil until the onion is slightly glassy. Add the grated potatoes and mix with the onion and bacon. Season with salt, use less if you are cooking with bacon. Cook further and stir every now and then. Press the potatoes together to make a firm "cake" and place a plate on the potatoes. Cook on low heat for 15 minutes until a crust has formed and potatoes have browned. Turn once. Sprinkle the milk on the potatoes and cook another 10 minutes until the bottom turns golden brown.

Serve as a standalone dish or as a side dish to a meat sauce. A popular Zürich specialty is rösti with a creamy veal and champignon sauce.

Persimmon kaki-apple & ricotta dessert - Swiss winter 2011

It is December and Christmas is all around. No sight of snow, temperatures above zero Celsius, constantly. Two weeks ago the Bern Christmas Market emerged overnight after the yearly Onion Market Day. The rare smell of the spruce catches my nose every time I pass and gives me the shivers. (That´s home.) Glühwein or mulled wine stands are full of people. The cafés in the streets are also brewing the season´s top drink, the spicy aroma following me in the archways. I like that most of the Glühwein is sold in recyclable porcelain cups.

Glühwein - red or white, Punsch...

The stands at the farmers´market have made space for Christmas decorations.

Christmas tree in Bern on Parliament Square

Farmers´market in December

Christmas on the market

The Christmas Market is full of stuff offered for presents. My favourite stand is one that sells all sorts of musical instruments, pipes, flutes, didgeridoos, castagnettes, drums and a whole lot more, the names of which I don’t even know but all make very good sounds. You can feel it, you can feel the rhythm…

Didgeridoo plus the classes to learn to play it

Want to make some music, pick an instrument

Fantastic rhythm instruments

The second favourite is a games stand with board games, some of which I used to play and still do whenever the occasion presents itself. 

"Mensch ärgere Dich nicht" board game, very competitive

More intellectual games

And a very interesting display with voodoo dolls. What fantastic artistic little creatures.

Voodoo dolls, great faces

Christmas Market

A sweet treat today: Persimmon kaki and apple dessert

Ingredients:

1 persimmon kaki, cut into cubes

2-3 apples, peeled, hearts out and chopped

250g ricotta cheese

250g curd (Magerquark)

10 tablespoons sugar

Juice of one lime, the green one

1 tablespoon gelatine “powder”

0.75 dl milk

Put the apple and persimmon pieces into a pot together with the lime juice and bring to boil. Add half of the sugar. If you have sour apples you may need more sugar. Add sugar to your taste. Cook until the fruit is soft, about 10-15 minutes.

In a bowl mix the ricotta and the curd and add the remaining sugar, again add more to your taste if needed. Purée the soft fruits with a mixer and let cool.

Mix the gelatine with the milk and let it soak for 15 min. Then heat and melt the gelatine by putting the bowl into a pan with some hot water. No need to boil the water in the pan, heating it just enough to melt the gelatine is fine.

Persimmon kaki - apple & ricotta dessert

Mix the melted gelatine milk with the ricotta.

Fill serving bowls or glasses with the ricotta first and then add the fruit purée on top. Leave in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

TIP: you can also use the special sugar for making jams, the fruit purée would harden a bit more.

Plastic Around Carrots: Are You Buying Carrots or Plastic?

 

Carrots are wonderful vegetables. I use a lot of carrots in soups or as vegetable side dishes. Since I don’t have a garden I get my carrots from the farmers or supermarket. I like to select carrots and buy the ones I like. Depending on the dish I may choose narrower or thicker ones. The narrower I find sweeter and crunchier for eating raw, the thicker ones are easier to grate or more convenient to chop for soups or good in stews.

Daucas Carota (Lat), Carrots (Eng), Möhre, Karotte (Ger), Rüebli (Swiss Ger), Porgand (Est)

In the supermarket the only option is to use the plastic bag offered. In order to reduce the amount of bags and consequently the costly garbage at home I use one bag for all the vegetables and fruits I buy instead of a separate bag for each. And I often reuse the bag at home for something else.

So yesterday in a supermarket I chose my carrots and wondered around the vegetable section for a while. I found there were 4 different possibilities to buy fresh carrots.

1. Select your own and weigh them yourself. Price per kg 1.60.
2. 1 kg packaged in a plastic bag. Price per kg 1.60.
3. A value line 2.5 kg packaged in a plastic bag. Price per kg 0.84.
4. 4 carrots packed on a plastic tray wrapped in plastic. Price per kg 1.90.

Carrots in the value pack on the left, packed in double plastic on the right

Voilà! Number 4 was not explicitly marked as a bio-organic product that would perhaps justify a higher price. Apparently there is demand for carrots packed on a plastic tray and people are willing to pay more for it. In fact, I would just be paying more, once for the tray and second time for creating more garbage. Every bag of garbage you generate costs in Switzerland.Personally, I find no use for that tray at home to give it “a second life” in some other use to justify its existence even if the price was the same as for the loose carrots. 

I use one bag for all the veg and fruit I buy and reuse the bag

Yes, I have considered the point of hygiene as well before writing this, but did not find a convincing point. I see people eating fruit and vegetable bought in supermarket without washing them first. So they are not really bothered about this at all. When I buy the carrots selecting them from a crate myself, yes, someone else may have touched them, but I will wash and typically peel the carrots at home, so no issue there.

Please help reduce meaningless plastic!

Bruschettas with goat cheese, persimmon kaki and pears

 

As a child we often made bread with cheese in the oven. This was called “ahju juustusai” or oven cheese bread. The cheese melted and the bread turned crispy. Discovering the Italian food later in my life it turned out that they like to crisp their bread with some olive oil in the oven as well and call it bruschetta. I am sure that in other countries there is something similar: slices of bread with a topping cooked in the oven.

Having just some bread that may be even a few days old, some garlic and olive oil or a piece of cheese you have the ingredients for a crunchy savoury snack.

Judging by the local supermarket choice it looks like November is the season for persimmon kaki. The orange fruit is called “hurmaa” in Estonian. As this fruit does not grow in Estonia or in Switzerland I do wonder in my brain cells that focus on etymology why the Swiss have borrowed the name persimmon kaki and the Estonians hurmaa? Must be related to the country of origin where this fruit first came from, I guess.

Cut bread into slices

Drizzle some olive oil onto them

Cut 5mm thick slices of persimmon kaki and place them on bread

Cut slices of hard goat cheese and place on top of the fruit

Or grate the hard goat cheese and place on top of the fruit

Preheat the oven to 190-200C. Cook for 10-15 minutes until the cheese melts, becomes slightly brown and the bread becomes crispy.

Goat cheese and persimon kaki & pear bruschettas

Variations:

a) As an alternative to the persimmon kaki you can use pears in the same way.

b) You can also grill the fruit first on the grill pan and add the visual effect of the grill stripes on the fruit slices before adding the cheese on top and cooking the bread in the oven.

Meet Stachys, a forgotten famine vegetable or an expensive gourmet weed with tubers?

 

My recent trip to the farmers´market made me curious about little root type things that reminded me of the Michelin man in the miniature form. Turns out this is stachys affinis, sometimes known as Chinese artichoke or in France crosnes. The roots are actually tubers that can be eaten raw or cooked. On popular request about my visits to the market I decided to experiment.

Stachys affinis, chinese artichoke - eatable tubers

First, I must say, these whitish or ivory colour tubers are not cheap…at least not at my market. Searching on the internet I happened on a site that described stachys as famine food. When all else fails, eat stachys. It almost feels like when things are hopelessly bad, let’s get a bottle of the most expensive champagne and enjoy the moment. What an interesting paradox…perhaps this is the most expensive weed grown under bio-certificate and sold to gourmands for a fortune. For this handful I paid almost 5 francs. The same money can buy me 2.5kg of non-bio potatoes or 1.5kg of bio potatoes. Both are tubers.

5 Francs for this handful of stachys...perhaps because it is Bio

At home I tried them raw. Crisp bite, not chewy, no strong taste of its own, indeed a bit nutty in taste if anything. Not bad, but not too impressive either.

Chinese artichoke or crosnes can be eaten raw

Since the guy at the market explained that besides raw I can cook them with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper, I followed his advice. They don’t need to be peeled, just washed.

I prepared a salad with Roman lettuce and for the dressing sautéed the stachys tubers in some olive oil, added small bacon strips, salt, pepper and lime juice. Mixed the sauce on the pan and poured on top of the lettuce. Pomegranate to garnish and add colour. Ready.

Sautéed chinese artichoke in a salad

Some recipes advise to pre-boil the stachys before sautéing. Since it can be eaten raw, I figured no boiling required. The cooked stachys maintained its crisp bite although softer than raw. The taste is soft, nutty, allows various flavour combinations in salads, sautéed vegetables or stir-fry dishes. I might experiment just once more as a wok stir-fry...after the next pay-day.

The literature I found mentioned that stachys is easy to grow and yields circa 1 kg per square meter and is good for digestion.

Judge yourself.

Beetroot soup with sauerkraut

I was making some Spanish potato omelettes earlier today. When the tortilla stuck to the pan and the result was not what I wanted I first was surprised with horror. What happened? I have made the Spanish tortillas many times before and was looking forward to another glorious result. I then thought it must be the pan that for some reason has changed its quality. I was disappointed with the whole thing.
Like I hadn´t had enough, soon after I found myself experimenting with pumpkin. Again I had pictured something else and felt more disappointment sneaking upon me. Pumpkin is a tricky vegetable for savoury dishes. I started off with a pumpkin spread for toast for tomorrow´s breakfast, then changed part of the mix and moved on to frying pumpkin-potato cakes on a pan (another, non-sticky one, this time) and eventually will end up with pumpkin soup from the same roasted pumpkin for dinner tomorrow. In summary the Sunday in the kitchen went from high expectations to horror to disappointment to curiosity to annoyment to keeping going... Next time it will be better! Next time it will be beetroot. Beetroot never let´s me down.

Red beetroots growing in my favourite garden - July, roots still small

 
Beetroot Soup with Sauerkraut

1 small onion
1-2 tbl spoons oil
1 big potato
2-3 medium beetroots
1.5 l water
salt or 1 cube of bouillon
black pepper
100-150g Sauerkraut, pre-cooked
sour cream or creme fraiche
onion seed sprouts or chopped parsley


Chop the onion and fry in a little oil in a pot. Cut the potatoes and beetroot into small cubes. The ratio should be 1:2 of potato to beetroot. Add the water to the glassy onions and bring to boil. Cook the potato and beetroot with some salt until soft. Purée the vegetables with the mixer or blender and return to the pot.
If the sauerkraut is too long, cut it into more bite sized length and add to the puréed soup. Bring to boil.
Taste and season with salt and pepper.
Serve hot with sour cream and onion sprouts or parsley.

Beetroot soup with sauerkraut

Deviled Eggs or Stuffed Eggs (Estonian: Täidetud munad)

 In the last century the nutritional advice that was projected in the media recommended to limit the number of eggs eaten per week to one or two. In more recent reading I see a significant change to even recommending one egg per day. Of course people who have egg allergy know if and what they can eat. Eggs are very old food. As our ancestors were eating eggs, the animals in the wider food chain eat eggs; I would say that the eggs are a proven food regardless of the fashion in the nutrition circles.

Brown eggs seem to be more popular on the market

The real country eggs from the birds that have been eating real grass are the best.

In Estonia the filled boiled eggs have been popular for decades. Nowadays one can buy the ready made ones in the shop; however I prefer to make them myself. These egg halves were always present on party dinner tables. These dinner tables that were full of all sorts of dishes deserve a separate story. Here is a little pre-taste in the form of filled eggs.

Eggs at farmers´market

The simplest recipe of filled eggs:

1 egg per person as minimum.

Boil the eggs (8-10min, the yolk must be hard)

Let them cool in down. If you are in a hurry, put them in the sink with cold water.

De-shell.

Cut the eggs in half either vertically or horizontally.

Take out the yolks into a bowl.

Press the yolks with a fork into a homogenous mash.

Mix the yolks with mayonnaise, ca. 1 teaspoon per each egg.

Mix into a smooth paste. Season with salt if necessary.

Fill the egg whites with the yellow paste.

Garnish with some dill or parsley

Filled eggs with sun dried tomato, mayo and chives

For a more sophisticated version and more variety add one or more of these ingredients:

Mustard

Anchovy paste

Cayenne or chilly pepper

Capers, chopped

Sun dried tomatoes, chopped

Chives

Dill

Fried and cooled bacon bits

Caldo Verde – Portuguese Cabbage and Sausage Soup

Soup triggers a lot of emotions in many. Some just love soups and would eat some soup every day. Others occasionally have soup as a light meal. Then there are those who consider soup as non-food and avoid eating it as much as possible. Some treat soup as something served in a soup kitchen. Some Moms want their children to eat soup as soup is healthy.

Personally, I tend to prefer soups that have pieces in them to purée-soups. Maybe because I like to eat the soup rather than “drink” it.

I was fascinated to read that there was a soup festival, a Soup Congress, in a small Portuguese town earlier this year where restaurants served some 50 different soups. How cool is that!!

I don’t have any scientific evidence but I do believe that soup is healthy, good for digestion, warms the body, and usually involves one or more vegetables. Chicken soup is good against common cold and so on.

A little thing that I don’t like so much is that some soups turn into a colour that is somewhere between dull greenish brown, despite being absolutely tasty. Then, some fresh green parsley or chives or a little cream or some fried bacon can pimp it up to please the eye as much as the taste buds.

Green and Purple Kale and Cavalo Nero (Tuscan black cabbage)

October - November is the peak season for various cabbage soups and here is one from Portugal. The popular “caldo verde” or green broth, made with potato, couve de gallega or  kale and sausage. I have used leafy curly kale cabbage, but if that is not available, collard greens or Savoy cabbage will also do. Caldo verde is perfect since it is both puréed and has some pieces in it at the same time.

Curly Kale

Kale cabbage

Caldo Verde Recipe

Serves 4

2 l water

1-1.5kg potatoes

1 onion

500g of green (leafy) cabbage, kale

200-300g Portuguese linguiça, chorizo or other sausage

Salt

(bay leaf)

Heat the water in a large pot. Peel and cut the potatoes into cubes and boil.

Add chopped onion, some salt and optionally a bay leaf and cook until potato is soft. Remove the bay leaf. Purée the mix into smooth soup.

Separate the kale-cabbage leaves from the core and cut into very thin strips. Add the kale into the soup and cook at medium heat till cabbage is soft for ca 10 min.

Cut the sausage into slices and add to the soup. Simmer a few minutes together with the cabbage.

Choose the spicy sausage or spice up the soup with a bit of chilli powder when using mild sausages.

Some recipes advise to cook the kale separately; however I prefer that everything from the cabbage stays in the soup.

Caldo verde, Portugal

Serve hot.

Bom apetite!

Farmers´ Market in Autumn: Double Baked Potatoes

Farmers´ Market

Pumpkins in all colours, shapes and sizes

Brussels sprouts, winter vegetable

The produce at farmers market has changed from apricots and strawberries to pumpkins, cabbages, root vegetables, Brussels sprouts, apples and quince. Autumn has arrived and soon will make way for winter. One of the mushroom stands was not even there any more. Winter decoration arrangements have appeared alongside the chrysanthemums. Everything is transitory, everything changes.

Chrysanthemums bring colour to the autumn market

Flower arrangement "Winter is coming"

The city has changed colours too. People are wearing coats, hats and scarves. And rightly so. When it is cold outside, dress up warmly and everything is fine. That’s the way to survive the winter. The minus temperatures are not too far.

Colourful Autumn

Swiss walnuts - yes, locally grown

It is good to see that the tourist season continues even though the summer is over. Hearing English from both sides of the Atlantic, Spanish, German… Those visiting the city on a Saturday are lucky to see the busy farmers´ market and try some of the local fruit, apple juice, cheeses or pastry.

I love potatoes in every season, but now some oven baked potatoes just feel right as a great tasting source of energy.

Double Baked Potatoes

The main ingredient are big potatoes, the filling can be made with different ingredients at hand.

Chanterelle filling on the left, pumkin-bacon on the right

6 big potatoes

A slice of pumpkin cut into big chunks

Oil (rapeseed or olive oil)

Salt

6 Bacon slices, cut into small pieces

Chives, finely chopped

100g grated cheese

Wash the potatoes very well. Poke the potatoes with a fork a few times so the steam can escape during the cooking process. Roll the potatoes lightly in oil and spread some salt on the skin. If you put the potatoes in the aluminium foil they will cook quicker but will not build a crispy skin. In the preheated oven bake the potatoes at 180-190C until they are soft. When the knife goes into the potato easily it is ready. The baking time varies depending on the size of the potatoes, ca. 45min – 1hr.

Put the pumpkin chunks in aluminium foil, drizzle a little oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook in the oven together with the potatoes for 20 min. Check every now and then that they don’t burn at the bottom.

On a dry pan fry the bacon pieces, fat will sizzle out.

Grate the cheese.

When the potatoes are ready, halve them with a knife. Carve out some of the potato with a teaspoon. Mix this with a little cheese, bacon bits, soft pumpkin, and chives and re-fill the potato halves. Spread more cheese on top.

Do this with all potatoes and return the halves into the oven for ca 15 minutes until the cheese has melted.

Serve with chives and fresh salad leaves.

Double Baked Potatoes

 Try also a mushroom filling, any mushrooms are good. Sauté the chopped mushrooms in a pan, add some salt and mix with the baked potato, cheese and chives like above with baked pumpkin and bacon bits.

Mushroom Risotto Recipe

There are two mushroom stands at the farmers´market in my town. One sells local Swiss and French mushrooms, the other one sells imported mushrooms and locally grown mushrooms (eg champignons). One can find cheaper Lithuanian chanterelles (French: girolles) at the second stand whilst the local and French prices are often 3-4 times pricier. If you are after very high quality, the local mushrooms, even though expensive, are really top and the variety in the best mushroom season is sufficient in 6-8 different types.

Wild yellow chanterelles (German: Gelbe Pfifferlinge)

A handful of a mix of wild and industrially grown mushrooms, another of yellow chanterelles and perhaps one of black chanterelles? Well, the black ones I did not get any more since the two ladies before me bought the last ones of the season. How unlucky! Now I have to wait till next year.
Despite different information that is around about the nutritional value of the mushrooms ranging from none at all to mushrooms contain some useful elements they do taste wonderful and look nice too.

Mushroom risotto

Mushroom risotto for two

200g mushrooms, as whole if smaller in size or sliced, but not into a thin mash
a knob of butter
salt


2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
200g risotto rice (Carnaroli) (I measure ca. 5 handfuls)
1dl of white wine
1 l of bouillon
50g parmesan
20g butter

Heat the oil in a high pan and cook the onions for a few minutes until glassy. Add the rice to the onions.Cook and stir for another few minutes before adding the wine. Let the wine evaporate. Turn down the heat to medium. Keep the hot bouillon close and start adding it to the rice in small quantities. Let the liquid cook away before adding another small quantity. Stir and keep adding the bouillon slowly ladle by ladle. Taste to see how done the rice is. It should still have some bite and not become too soft. Al dente is the appropriate donness, usually after 15-18 minutes of cooking.

In the meanwhile when the risotto is cooking take another pan, place the cleaned dry mushrooms on the pan and cook at medium-high heat until the mushrooms let out the water. When the water has evaporated add a knob of butter and some salt and sauté the mushrooms for 5 minutes.

To finish the risotto add the parmesan and the butter and stir vigoroulsy till the butter has melted. Serve hot.

Wild mushroom risotto