Carrot soup with courgette and salmon

Carrot soup with courgette (zucchini) and salmon

It finally hit my brain when I was walking around the farmers´market that the summer is gone. All signs were there: quince had appeared on some counters, the choice of tomatoes had more than halved, winter cabbages like cavalo negro and kale were on sale, at one stand I heard the saleswoman explain to a puzzled customer that "the season for basil is over"....How did it happen that the basil season totally passed this year before I had stocked up with fresh pesto? Oh well, the supermarket sells basil all year round and that will get me through winter ...probably at the cost of a higher carbon footprint.

Quince, an autumn and winter fruit

The shoppers were trying to fit under the roofs of the stands with their umbrellas and apologising to the other dripping customers. It was pouring for hours and the amount of daylight stayed below 5 on a scale of 10 the whole day.  I was looking forward to a lazy afternoon in front of the telly and the 5-DVD set of a Danish thriller I borrowed from my friend last weekend.

Kale, only available in autumn and winter at the market

At that dismal, sort of Wagnerian Melancholia market I was thinking Soup! Something bright and orange. I had bought 2 kilos of bio carrots at a good deal earlier in the week. Perfect starting point for my new favourite soup of this autumn. A bowl of carrot soup with courgette and salmon is a low fat but belly filling option for lunch or supper for the days when you just wish for a soup that you can bite into. I am a great fan of smooth cream soups, but equally on other days the soup just needs to be a bit more solid.

And a little fat must be. I am glad that fat helps me to get the vitamin A out of the carrots into my body but more importantly the small golden shiny bubbles that glisten on the surface act like a promise of a great meal and produce zillion of happy hormones before I have even taken a bite. The soup is ready in about half an hour. I can manage that after a long working day and still have a freshly made great tasing meal.

Carrot Soup with courgette (zucchini) and salmon
Ingredients for 2

500g carrots, cut into cubes
0.5l stock (or water + 1 cube bouillon)
1 whole yellow peperoncini or a chilli pod
0.5 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 medium courgette, cut into cubes
250g fresh salmon, cut in 2 cm cubes
2-3 tbsp fresh cream

Bring the water to boil, add the bouillon, carrots, peperoncini and grated ginger. Cook on medium heat until the carrots are soft. Take a few table spoons of carrots out and put aside for later. Remove the peperoncini. Purée the carrots. Taste for salt and spice. Add the courgette cubes and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the salmon and cream. Continue cooking on low -medium heat for a few minutes. Be careful not to cook too long as the salmon will become chewy and courgette too soft.

If you don´t have fresh fish, try frozen white fish filet. Cut into cubes and add to the carrot purée before the courgette but still be caucious not to over cook the fish. Adding the frozen fish would cool down the soup, so bringing it to boil and then adding the courgette for a few minutes more on the heat would be about right.

Carrot-courgette & fresh salmon soup

Related posts:
Caldo Verde, an autumn soup
Buying carrots

Manor Food Store in Geneva

Sourdough bread with raisins from Manor Food department store, Geneva

People develop favourites among restaurants they want to visit again and again, even go as far as taking a flight to another country to repeat a memorable eating experience. Likewise there are some food stores that appeal more than the others. For me one of those is at Manor department store in Geneva. That is the shop that I always try to visit, even if I am short of time. I wonder if it actually is the store with the widest choice in Switzerland.

Most food shopping in Swiss cities is done in two big retailers Coop and Migros. Many of my friends say that they have to shop at both as some things are not sold or are better in one, others better in the other store.

There is also Globus department store with a food floor that is upmarket and holds a range of more gourmet taste ingredients. David Lebovitz has described the Globus experience well.

I crave to wonder around the Manor Food store. It is like a drug, just a walk around has a healing and stimulating effect to the food side of my brain.

Their fresh bread assortment is rich with sourdough breads, rolls, baguettes, loaves of all sorts. Every time I visit I MUST buy the pain au levain with raisins. The freshly baked warm loaf is close to a meter long and weighs several kilos. You can show how long a piece you would like and they cut your "loaf" for you. Similar sourdough breads, all freshly baked, are also available with figs or apricots.

Pain au levain aux raisins

There was fresh octopus carpaccio sliced and packed in appetizer size portions. I´ve not seen that sold anywhere else in Switzerland. The fresh meat offering ranged from numerous sorts of birds in different cuts or whole birds, ribs that seemed to have enough meat on the bone for juicy rib roast or BBQ. People who enjoy liver and other inner organs would find at Manor whatever the recipe requires. Even brain, I saw.

For the sushi lovers there is now an even bigger counter for sushi, freshly made at the store. Dim sum and other Asian bites can be bought there too.

All foodies, Manor Food and department store is five minutes from Central Station at:
Rue Cornavin 6
1201 Genève

Related posts:
Sourdough bread, a beginners experiment 

Food from the forest 3: Wild Mushroom Picking in Estonia - Mushroom Schnitzel

Pine forest in South Estonia

Back in the forest! Every autumn (and late summer) there are people in Estonia waiting impatiently for the peak season. The feeling is totally comparable to the feeling that people in Switzerland experience for the ski season.  The weather conditions are being discussed at length, the prospect of the season, any issues and successes shared with friends and family.

The national sport of picking wild mushrooms is part of the culinary year that culminates in September. The mushroom season gets a fair portion of media coverage in the newspapers and national TV through interviews with mushroom experts, commentary from the national forestry office, numerous new mushroom recipes get published, even the weather man in the morning wake up program started his weather talk about how he spent the weekend picking mushrooms and showed a couple of proof photos. Lots of fun and a topic that always guarantees a good feeling, even in a poor crop year that leaves you with a story about how someone walked around for hours and came home with 3 mushrooms to tell in the following year , khmm, I mean years...

2012 is a year of plenty in volume and in diversity of different kinds of mushrooms.

Rosites caperata (Lat.), Kitsemamplid (Est.)

Young Kitsemampel

 

One of them is called "Kitsemampel" in Estonian, its Latin name is Rosites caperata. The name is made of two parts: the first - kitse - means a goat's, the second - mampel - is a type of mushroom, (my current knowledge does not know how to translate this). Perhaps goats liked this type of mushrooms too.
Some mushrooms can be eaten simply sautéed like chanterelles or champignons or kitsemampels, others require pre-cooking in boiling water. Kitsemampel suits well for "schnitzel" or escalope.

Large Kitsemampel is good for schnitzel

Mushroom schnitzel
Ingredients for 2-3 portions

8 Bigger size flat shape mushrooms, Kitsemampel is a classic for this dish
1 large egg
0.5-1dl milk
0.5 cup plain flour
salt
pepper
frying oil (eg rape seed)

Lightly beat the egg with milk.
Clean the mushrooms from debris and sprinkle with salt and pepper and leave for ca 20 minutes. This brings out some liquid and that is useful to stick the flour to the surface. So, pat the mushrooms in the flour on a plate and then dip them through the egg mixture.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and place the mushrooms on the pan. Fry on medium heat until the mushrooms soften and the "schnitzel" takes on a nice golden colour, ca. 10-15 minutes. The frying time depends on the size of the mushrooms.

Serve with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, with sauteed potatoes or other vegetables or as a burger in a fresh bun.

Schnitzel from Kitsemampel mushrooms

More stories on Food from the Forest:
Estonian mushroom salad, spinach & chanterelle soup, Estonian mushroom burgers
Wild blueberry & ricotta cake, wild blueberry & banana smoothie
Wild blueberry soup with fluffy semolina dessert
Estonian cranberry dessert - pink semolina

Preparing for winter: Plum jam with black pepper

      

Home made plum jam with black pepper

If I had a choice of just one spice for the rest of my life it would have to be black pepper. Salt and black pepper for the savoury dishes and I could live with that. Assuming I could additionally have sugar for desserts that would leave room for an exciting playground. For a couple of years now, on and off, I have been flirting with black pepper in sweet combinations with great success to my taste. If the presence of chilli in a dessert would be recognisable as a striking soprano, then the black pepper has rather a lower voice, like alto, to perform in the choir.

I would characterise the black pepper in a dessert as deceptive in the beginning, luring around the corners and then explosive like a New Year´s fireworks, or in case of Switzerland rather like a 1^st of August fireworks. The Swiss National Day in the capital of the country ends with great privately sponsored fireworks in 6 scenes accompanied by special arrangement of music on a local radio channel. People gather in best viewing places, some bring their radios. But back to pepper, the mouthful of the dessert starts sweet followed by a flash of “what was that?” and the surprise kicks the palate at the end leaving the eater open eyed thinking let me try again to see what just happened, again and again...

Plum Jam

Plum jam with black pepper

1.2 kg plums, remove the stones and cut into small(er) pieces (Zwetschgen in Swiss German)

1 kg of sugar or special marmalade sugar

1-2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper or vary to your taste

Wash and prepare the fruit, bring to boil with sugar and boil for ca 5 minutes until fruit is soft. Follow the instructions on the pack if using the special marmalade sugar.

Remove the foam. At the end stir in the black pepper.

Fill the glasses and close with the lids while still hot.

Related posts:  Peppery Strawberries