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

Dutch Delight: Mustard Soup

I visit Holland quite often.Reflecting on Estonia and The Netherlands three commonalities jump to mind:
- Everyone - children and grown-ups - drinks milk and/or sour milk. In Holland many companies even provide free milk and sour milk to their employees.
- Flat landscape: the highest points above sea level of the two countries are 318m in Estonia and 322m in the Netherland.
- Potatoes are widely grown and eaten.

Etymologically, I find the small Low Countries at the North sea highly complex: The official name of the country is The Netherlands, everyone calls this country Holland (official name of two provinces) and they speak Dutch. Three totally different words for something close in meaning. Compare to Estonia and the Estonian language (Eesti and eesti keel) or Germany and German (Deutschland and deutsch).

A brief summary of my observations of the recent trip is here.

1. KLM seems to be rather behind in serving healthy and fresh food to their passangers compared to some other airlines. On short flights (1.5h) they offer a choice of a sweet packaged biscuit or savoury packaged cheese wafer balls. My advice to them, please stop serving these cheese balls and rather serve nothing at all...or better a traditional caramel wafer.The fact that the balls with a type of wafer cover hiding a hardened fat mixture with some sort of cheese or milk powder, salt and basically nothing worth putting in your mouth are called Delicious Dutch makes it rather grotesque.
In comparison, Swiss offer sandwiches they claim are "made on the same day" and Finnair who despite their frequent strikes have put some effort in and changed to rather tasty and "green" airline food.

Dutch wafers with syrup or caramel. Leave one on a hot tea or coffee cup and enjoy!

Dutch soft raisin buns

2. There are many many traditional Dutch foods I like. This time I enjoyed soft raisin buns, croquetten (deep fried, made of mashed potato and pork), cheese with cumin seeds, mustard soup.

Cod with artichoke, mashed potato mousse, mustard condiment

3. Everything is very narrow in Amsterdam, streets, windows, doors. No wonder as more than 16 million people must fit onto an area smaller than Estonia. Estonia has only 1.3 million inhabitants. People working in the capital are moving further out where there is more space. Around Amsterdam there are a few newly built towns. I stayed at Lelystad and had a dinner in a small cosy restaurant or rather an eating house "Eethuisje de Gordiaan". One can find many good restaurants across Holland, also in smaller towns and villages, serving most wonderful very high quality food. The fresh cod with artichokes, mustard condiment and potato mousse made my evening.

Fair Trade breakfast jam: reduce the container size or serve from a jar

4. Another grotesque finding was a half-empty plastic container with a teaspoonful of breakfast jam from Fair Trade in it. Maybe going half the way is better than nothing ... wondering.

5. Here is my version of  mustard soup. Mustard soup is a traditional Dutch delight. (this one has been inspired by Carlton President hotel. Normally the soup is yellow.)

Makes 3 - 4 portions

1 onion, chopped
20g butter
1 Big potato
1.25 l water
a few cubes of frozen spinach (traditionally not included)
Salt
2-3 tablespoons of grainy mustard
2 table spoons creme fresh or fresh cheese
bacon strips
chives

Cook the onion in butter until glassy. Add potato cubes, sauté and stir a few minutes more. Add water and a pinch of salt and cook till potato is soft. Add spinach and mustard and cook till the soup is boiling, then take off the heat and purée into a smooth soup. Return to heat,  add crème fresh or fresh cheese and bring to boil stirring the soup.
Fry the bacon slices in a dry pan on both sides until crispy. Take out of the pan onto the kitchen paper to suck in the excess fat.
Serve it hot and garnish with chopped chives and bacon.

Mustard Soup with Spinach

Homage to Cranberry: Cranberry Dessert - Pink Semolina

My grandparents had 6 children. My Grandfather knew and got by in three languages without having studied the foreign languages at school. He just picked them up from newspapers and people around. Due to the political situation these languages that life presented to him were Estonian, Russian and German. A sentence spoken at the wrong time or in the presence of wrong audience brought him to prison and eventually my Grandfather was lost in the devastating hurricane of the war. I admire my Grandmother for bringing up her six children alone. These were not easy times.

No matter the hardship of the time or the (un)availability or (un)affordability of food, children always want something sweet. Here is how the cranberries come to play and why I would like to pay homage to this red berry from the moorlands.

After picking cranberries drying on a towel. Easier to clean out the dry debris

Firstly, picking them from the nature was and still is free.
Secondly, they are easy to preserve. Since sugar was less available in the first half of the last century it was not always possible to preserve berries and fresh fruit in jams and marmelades as these required a lot of sugar. There weren´t any freezers around like now to store fresh berries for months. Cranberries are easy to preserve in glass jars (3 liter, 5 liter or even 10 liter jars) in water in a cellar.
Thirdly, cranberries are full of vitamin C and massive other useful elements.
Fourthly, most importantly, cranberries make an excellent dessert that is very popular in Estonia. It has many names: "jõhvikavaht" (literally cranberry foam), "mannavaht" (semolina foam), "roosamanna" (pink semolina), "roosapuder" (pink porridge), got to be more... Given that the Estonian language is not extensively rich in synonyms (unlike the English language for example) the fact that this dessert has more than one or even two names speaks for itself.

To add to its popularity I have to mention a tool that existed in the old days and was used to make this dessert and maybe also to beat eggs or something else. It was called "püürüs" in the South Estonian dialect. "Püürüs" is a stick with three or four "branches" at the bottom, made of wood, suitably from a branch of a tree. Yes, a whisk, as it would be known now. The one that my other Grandmother who lived in the countryside had and made the cranberry foam for my father and his two siblings still exists in the "family museum".

So this dessert was one that was inexpensive, could be made fresh also in winter when no cranberries were available from the nature, and did not require a lot of sugar, but still provided the much desired sweet joy and happiness to the post war children.

Measuring cranberries - 2 large handfuls for 1.5l water

This dessert has stood the test of times and has not gone out of fashion. It is well loved by Estonian children and grownups. The real foodies and fans of fresh home cooking still go and pick the cranberries themselves in the moor in autumn. The easy alternative is to buy the cranberries on the market or in winter in the frozen form. It can even be bought ready made portion-wise in the supermarket.
This dessert is best served with cold milk poured on top of the pink semolina foam.

Cranberry Dessert  - Pink Semolina Foam Recipe
1.5 liters water
300-400ml cranberries (two large handfuls)
280-300g sugar
80-100g fine wheat semolina

Heat the water in a pot, add the cranberries and cook until the cranberries start to pop open. Use a lid to avoid spillage on your apron. Cook for about 10 minutes. When the berries are soft use a wooden spoon to press them against the side of the pot to get out as much juice as possible.
Pour the juice through a sieve and again press the berries against the sieve.
I put the skins back in the pot and bring to boil with a little water to rinse them through once more.
Sieve the second juice as well. Discard the empty and dry skins and return all the juice into the pot.
Add the sugar, let it melt. Taste. If not sweet enough add more sugar.
Slowly spoon the semolina into the juice stirring all the time. Bring to boil, then turn down the heat. Cook till the semolina has thickened the juice. It should be medium thick (slightly thicker than liquid honey).
Taste again.
Take off the heat and let it cool to luke warm. If you are in a hurry cooling the pot on the balcony or in a cold water bath will help speed things up.
Now take the hand mixer (electric is best or you need strong hands to make the next step with a whisk) and mix it until the semi-hard semolina porridge turns its colour from red to creamy pink, sometimes even almost whitish, the volume doubles and it takes a thick foamy consistency. (I had to stop and cool my mixer a couple of times)
Leave to cool (in the fridge) overnight or at least till completely cold. When it is not cold it tastes more sour. Serving it with cold milk is the traditional way, but could be eaten without milk should you be allergic to it.

 Cranberry Dessert: Pink Semolina Foam With Milk  (Jõhvika-mannavaht)

Frightening figs? ......Fresh figs with feta cheese

When the fresh figs started to be more freely available for me in countries further north from Turkey I hesitated for years before I was ready to buy them. Not sure why exactly. The figs were foreign, not a normal fruit for me. Perhaps one of the reasons was that I was not sure if the skin was edible or not. I knew that the dried figs were eaten as whole, but somehow the fresh fig looked different, delicate under the dark skin. At one point I got over my fear of raw figs and dared to try.
Or maybe it was the awe towards the act of cutting that strange fruit. Taking a fig that seems kind of alive due to its softness, setting the knife to the fruit and making the cut into it feels like performing a surgical procedure. Cut into the purple-brown skin and you are facing an amazing dark pinkish red "muscle", cut deeper into the moist and succulent flesh...
The fig with sweet seedy inside and the smooth neutral cool thick skin makes it a perfect ingredient in desserts as well as in savoury pairing with cheese or thinly cut cured ham. Dared to try and the fresh figs have become a desirable treat whenever they are in season and I see the ripe bulging fruits on the shelves of good food stores.

Fresh Figs with Feta Cheese, a Very Simple Recipe
For a light lunch or a starter per person take 4-5 ripe figs, cut into quarters.
Cut 100g of feta cheese into cubes,
season with oregano and/or thyme and add some olive oil to the cheese.
Let the cheese rest in the oil for 15 minutes to take up the flavour from the herbs.
Serve with crusty bread or toast. 
Parma ham, jamon iberico or any cured meat tastes good in combination too.

Fresh Turkish Figs with Feta Cheese