Vegetable Soup of Love or Hate, the Estonian “piima-aedvilja supp”

There are some foods or ingredients that one can either love, adore even, or hate, such as marmite, liquorice, coriander/cilantro,…, you know the kinds. The end of June, but mostly July is the time when families in Estonia either unite in praise or split at one summer soup. This is the time when the young vegetables strive in their adolescence. The fresh adult vegetables in August or September make a good soup too, but the very best is the “sweet sixteen” in the middle of the northern summer. This July I had the opportunity to once again sing the ode to this very special soup with my family. Fortunately all of us belong to the adorer group. I have friends who hate it. If you belong to the lucky ones with a functional hobby garden and can add the picking of the vegetables yourself to the cooking process, congratulations! In our family this soup is usually cooked in a relatively big pot and all of it gets eaten in one meal by the people around the table. This usually means more than one already generous helping...

Ingredients:

A bunch of young carrots

A bowl of new peas

A good palm full of new potatoes

A medium new cabbage or cauliflower or broccoli

Water to cook the vegetables in

0.5 -1 l of milk

Salt

Chopped dill and/or spring onion

Cut the carrots and potatoes into small bite size cubes and cook in the boiling salted water for 5-10 minutes, add the chopped bite size cabbage, cauliflower or broccoli and peas and cook until everything is soft but still with a bit of bite left. Assess the quantity of the liquid you wish to have in the soup. The final liquid should be roughly half water, half milk. If there is already too much water in the pot, take some out before adding the milk. Bring the soup to boil. Taste for salt. Finally add the chopped dill and/or onion greens. Serve immediately.

Estonian vegetable soup / piima-köögiviljasupp

Travelling Emotional Food

People have always travelled for food. Just think of the Great Famine that happened in Ireland  when the country’s potato crop was destroyed by potato blight disease and many people left to make a new living in America between 1845-52. Nowadays, in the more developed world, people travel for food on purpose for pleasure, to find new experiences, new tastes, learn about foreign cuisines. Many food blogs are created by people travelling and reporting their food adventures, TV programs are produced every year in many languages about food and travel.

My writing today about the emotional food that travels was sparked when I was reflecting about what I have seen my international colleagues and friends living abroad bring back to Switzerland from their trips to their home countries. I can say that over the years of my observations the popular items that people miss and bring from their home country to give them comfort, provide a home feeling in a foreign surrounding are actually quite basic: bread, sweets, beans, tea, cheese, tortillas, rice, more special items include chorizo or blood sausage. The tea in Switzerland is very weak and people who like black tea with milk must bring it from home or find an Asian food shop locally to stock up if they don’t want to drink a vague almost transparent brownish liquid pretending to enjoy a cup of tea. On top of the list of the South American sweets is a local basic like dulce de leche (Spanish). Some exchange students from Uruguay had packed at least 3 or more liters of it for their stay in Estonia. The locally available sweet condensed milk when boiled becomes a similar caramel sort of thing is clearly not the same. My Brasilian colleagues bring doce de leite (Portuguese) from their trips home. Also peanut based sweets from Brasil are very popular items to which I would add my own halvaa from Estonia. 

Another group of products are spices and sauces. Chiles and spicy sauces from Mexico, my elementary item of a certain type of Mayonnaise that always has space in my suitcase, occasionally Estonian mustard, sometimes flavour mixes that one used to like at home. A certain Chinese spice mix that a friend could not find in Switzerland, he had to bring from the UK. I also bring jams made out of Estonian berries, I have even brought green onions as I can’t find such ones here. Plus Estonian bread, either my Mom’s or my sister’s self-made bread or something new from the huge choice of breads from the country’s many bread makers.

Of course there is plenty of bread, sweets, or other food for that matter, here in Switzerland. It is just that special connection one has built with some foods and ingredients since childhood or simply grown to like them so much that the more or less similar substitute products in the foreign country fill the stomach but are incapable of satisfying the real craving. That little piece of dark brown rye bread with some butter and at best times with the Tallinna kilu (sort of spicy anchovies filet, but not quite) creates an emotional connection and a feeling of happiness thousands of kilometres away even if for just 10 minutes.

Now, it may seem that there is more import than export. Not true.

I can say that there is equally heavy traffic of food going out of Switzerland. Every time I go to Estonia I get a shopping list of things to buy and pack. Again the foods are not always specialty foods, rather simple basics like a certain cream cheese, a red pesto, tortellini, Allgäuer cheese. Since I have been making the Brasilian pão de queijo in my household and introduced my family in Estonia to it, the sour manioc flour travels with me. Not available to buy locally.

There is another type of food traffic developing slowly as the world globalizes and global sourcing through friends or international colleagues becomes possible. For example, I have a great supply of goiabada, the guava marmalade from Brasil. I have already got to know some different types of it. Or Arbuequina olive oil from my colleagues in Spain. The recent additions are a tamarind sauce and red chiles from Mexico and romesco sauce from Cataluña. Even if I don’t travel to these countries, I can still get to know them through food.

I must confess that I have travelled just for food. I once took a holiday and travelled back to Luxemburg mostly just because to visit a rather small casual restaurant that had basically only king prawns cooked in oven with lots of garlic on the menu. The guests were happily breathing in an intoxicatingly strong garlic air and all tables were eating prawns and more prawns and more garlic. Unfortunately I know where the restaurant is (I hope it is still there), but I don’t remember the name. I guess I have to go back and look what it is called...

Here is a recipe of a substitute dish for the Estonian räim, a small fish that is bigger than anchovies, but smaller than sardine or perhaps the size of the small sardine. I can buy Italian sardines here and occasionally make the very traditional “Estonian” fried small fish.

Fried and marinated sardines as a substitute to Estonian räim

Remove the bones from the fish. Put some salt and black pepper on the filets, turn the fish in flour, then in the egg mixture. Fry in a pan with some oil for a few minutes. The fish is great just fried, so I eat if warm. Another way is to marinate the fried filets in a mixture of sliced onion, vinegar, sugar, salt, some tomato sauce or ketchup and a little water and eat the next day.

Carrot Pie with Chunky Parmesan

It is weekend and more time again for kitchen experiments. I feel I need something without meat or even fish. The whole week I have wanted something in the lines of a cake, a pie or something else baked but have resisted the temptation. A veggi pie today perhaps? So I hit the market.

It is June and the counters at the Farmers Market have made space for piles of orange fresh new carrots. These thin sweet roots are “knackig” (Ger.), crisp and juicy and best enjoyed raw. Somehow I suspect that the bigger thicker carrots further away that are not sold in a bunch and don’t have the green leaves but are equally bright orange, hard and clean of soil are from the last harvest. I am really embarrassed that I am doubting this…I should know this. My logic of the agricultural calendar says they must be from last year’s harvest but as a consumer it can be confusing as they look the same all year round. Old or new crop today is carrot time.

I’ve grown up with carrots. Carrots grow in the northern latitudes and are a common vegetable, besides potatoes of course, in Estonia. My Mom used to make carrot pies and my aunt, who had a real stove with an oven that was heated by wood, used to make small carrot pies that were juicy soft and looked like small shiny golden brown pouches. We call them pies, picture them as empanadas filled with carrot and egg and sometimes some bacon.

I buy my carrots, Italian flat parsley – onions I have at home – for the pie and some strawberries for dessert. I see some big free range eggs and get half a dozen. Somehow I’ve always thought that the eggs at the market are more expensive, but no. So I’m thinking that from now on, I will take my egg business to the market.

I made the pie dough with my sister’s recipe:

100g hard butter from the fridge

2.5dl or 250ml flour (white or wholegrain)

Salt (two pinch)

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon cold water

Chop the cold butter in the flour and salt mix into small pieces. A two pinch salt = a pinch between two fingers. Add the egg yolk and 1tbl spoon water. Mix all into a dough, wrap into the plastic foil and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Carrot pie filling:

500-600g carrots

3 medium-small onions

3-4 tablespoons olive oil

150g parmesan

3 eggs + egg white left-over from the dough

75ml milk

Thyme

Curcuma

Flat parsley, a good handful, chopped

Salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Clean and chop the onion rather finely but the fineness and equal piece size is not important at all. Peel the carrots and grate with the rough side. Very thinly grated carrot will lose the bite.

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion slightly. Add the grated carrots to the onion and cook for about 5 minutes till carrots are softer. Add some salt and pepper, chopped thyme, curcuma (about a three pinch) and as last the parsley. Taste for salt as the carrots have a natural sweet taste.

Chop the parmesan into small chunks. In this recipe I replaced the usually grated cheese with chunks of Parmesan to give the filling a crunchier texture.

Mix the eggs, add the milk and some salt.

Roll the dough into a thin layer and fit into a 24-26 cm diameter baking form that is fitted with baking paper to avoid sticking to the bottom and sides.

Layer on the dough half the carrot mix, half the chopped parmesan, then carrots again and on top parmesan chunks. Pour the egg-milk mixture on the carrots.

Cook in the oven for 30 minutes or until the filling is cooked and the cheese on top is turning golden brown.

Mouth-watering Carrot Pie with Parmesan Cheese

Enjoy warm or cold.

I was showing the pie on the Skype and the mouths were salivating on both sides of the camera in Estonia and in Switzerland. :-)

Peppery Strawberries

June is definitely strawberry time in Switzerland as the local strawberries are on the market. In Estonia the best time for local strawberries is July. The best are the ones picked from the garden on the first round of walk around in the morning. How many ripe red ones are there today? Going around and looking for the best of the best and eating straight away.

Strawberries with sugar, with whipped cream, with chocolate, with mint, in fresh desserts, with champagne, in cakes - the classics.

Sometimes unusual combination of ingredients can produce a delightful outcome.

If you are looking for a new taste experience try fresh strawberries with some freshly ground black pepper. A little powder sugar on top if you wish.

Spice your strawberries up with black pepper

….The soothing cool juicy sweet strawberry with a tick of spicy sizzle lingering on the tongue for a moment or two or three….help yourself to another! ;-)

Gravlax with lemon and dill

Dill (Fr. aneth) is a very popular northern herb. In Estonia it is traditionally used with fish, especially oily fish like salmon or trout, crab and almost inseparably with new potatoes. In the more southern countries dill becomes a rarity. In Switzerland one can still find it in the supermarket every day, but in the restaurants it is very rarely used. One of my favourite or perhaps the favourite restaurant in Bern Mille Sens is the only place that has managed to surprise me in the most positive sense with its use of dill.

Back to gravlax.

In this blog you can find some instructions how to make your own gravlax in one big piece - see under "Fish".

I am a great fan of gravlax and generally of raw fish. For more variety I made it in a different way and was very pleased with the result. Instead of curing the fish in one piece I cut the raw fish into slices and then added the marinade. After some curing time the salmon with all its good omega 3 and 6 fatty acids is ready to be served with bread or with boiled new potatoes and some butter. It is an indulgent weekend brunch dish to be enjoyed withour any rush.

It does not take a lot time and is cheaper than buying the cured fish. It is very simple to make and the taste can be varied by adding different ingredients. Next time, why not with either lime, orange, capers, horseradish, onion and/or mustard?

Ingredients:

250g raw salmon

Zest of 0.5 lemon

Juice of 0.5 lemon

0.5 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon sea salt flakes

Dill, chopped thinly

Cut the raw salmon into slices as thick as you prefer.

Wash the lemon. Peel off or grate off the yellow skin and chop very thinly.

In a bowl mix the juice of half the lemon, sugar, salt and the chopped or grated lemon zest.

Marinate the salmon with lemon juice

Gravlax - Dill gives the salmon a delicious northen taste

Put one layer of salmon slices into a bigger bowl or plate, sprinkle with some marinade and chopped dill. Repeat in layers until finished. Put the last dill on the top layer. Cover with aluminium foil and leave to marinate for 12 hours.

Classic rhubarb cake with strawberries

Classic rhubarb cake with strawberries (Est. rabarberi-maasikakook)

Whilst the rhubarb is a little earlier in season than the strawberries there are a few weeks when both can be harvested locally and so the classic rhubarb cake has another facette.
The base recipe is the same. Only for the filling add about 200g of strawberries cut into slices or cubes. Keep the cinnamon for more spice if you like it.
As strawberries are sweet less sugar can be mixed with the rhubarb.

Classic Rhubarb - Strawberry cake (Est. Klassikaline rabarberikook maasikatega)
Here the recipe again:

Base dough:

150g butter

100g sugar

1 egg

250g plain wheat flour

A good pinch of salt

0.5 – 0.75 teaspoon baking powder

Filling:

400g Rhubarb cut into pieces

6 table spoons sugar

Cinnamon, 0.5-1 teaspoon
200g strawberries, sliced 

Top layer:

3 large eggs (63g+)

3 full table spoons sugar

3 full table spoons flour, same as above

For the dough: Mix the butter with sugar with a mixer, add the egg and mix again. Add the flour, salt and baking powder and mix the dry ingredients together before mixing with the butter. Form the dough into a ball and leave to settle in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

Peel and cut the rhubarb into slices.Cut the strawberries into slices.

Heat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Roll the dough more or less into the size of the baking form and place in the form on the baking paper. Form the dough with your hands to fit and cover the bottom. Only cover the bottom, no need to have the dough cover the sides. Bake for 10 minutes until the dough seems cooked from the top and slightly brown from the edges. Pre-baking the bottom is good as the filling and top is heavy and juicy raw and the dough my remain uncooked - not so tasty.

Mix the eggs and sugar in a bowl until the egg forms almost white and very thick foamy mixture – ca 10 minutes. Take a sieve and sieve the flour into the egg-sugar mixture and stiring very carefully mix the flour with the egg.

Mix the rhubarb with sugar and lay the pieces on the pre-cooked dough.

Powder the rhubarb with a very light layer of cinnamon.
Add slices of strawberry on top.

Now add the egg-sugar-flour mix on top and bake for further 30-40 minutes until the top firms and turns light brown. I don´t recommend putting an aluminium foil on the top to avoid too quick browning as the cake raises and may stick to the foil. Instead, if you see the colour change too fast, lower the temperature to 150C.

Let the cake cool down in the warm oven with the door slightly open. Cover with powder sugar to give it a seductive visual effect.

Estonian classic rhubarb-strawberry cake

 

Green Asparagus and mushroom soup

Asparagus tastes good together with potato and goes well with mushroom. Why not have all three together? In a soup. This soup is an "antipode" of two pyramids. I explain.

Ingredients Pyramid:

3 medium large potatoes forms the base of the soup and gives it the thickness. In the middle is generous handful of asparagus (about 200-250g). On the top of the pyramid is 15g of dried porcini (cep) mushrooms (Ger: Steinpilz/ Fr: Bolets/ Est: puravik)

Taste Pyramid:

The most prominent taste comes from the mushrooms (base of the taste pyramid), the middle folds into the taste of asparagus and if you really look (ie. taste) hard you may detect the taste of the potato in a small triangle in the tip of the pyramid.

Makes 3-4 as a starter:

15g dried mushrooms

250ml warm water

3 medium large potatoes

200-250g green asparagus

0.5l water or vegetable stock

1 tablespoon of cream cheese or fresh cream (optional)

Put the mushrooms into warm water for ca 20 min.

Heat the water or stock in a pan. Peel and cut the potatoes into cubes and add to the boiling water. Cook until soft.

Cut the asparagus into pieces. (No need to peel the green asparagus.)

Drain the mushrooms and add the mushroom water into the pan for more taste.

Add the asparagus and mushroom to the soup and cook for 5 minutes or until the asparagus is almost soft.

For visual effects and more bite you may want to take out the “heads” of the asparagus spears now.

Purée the soup with a mixer or blender. Taste for salt and thickness. If the soup is too thick add some more water.

If you want add some cream cheese or fresh cream to the soup.

Add back the asparagus “heads” and serve.

Asparagus - mushroom soup

Asparagus salad with new potatoes

 Asparagus consists of ca 90% of water and has a significant amount of Vitamin C. Asparagus was known in the ancient Greece. The English word originates from Latin and that from Greek. It is remarkable that according to some sources the old Egyptians laid boxes of asparagus into the tombs.

In my recent research among my friends and colleagues in different countries on which asparagus people preferred the green one seemed to be the winner. I have tried now to understand the white asparagus more. Both white and green when not overcooked taste good, however I have found a reason why I personally like the green one better. Namely in the mouth the white asparagus seems to break lengthwise when biting into it and the green one easily across or in any direction that I want . Therefore the white one is more difficult to bite into pieces.

While the asparagus season lasts here is another recipe. This time combined with the new potatoes that are in season at the same time and available from the local producers.

The quantities here are just indicative. Making your own mix adding more of one or the other ingredient is the way to make this salad.

For 2 I took:

2-3 medium new potatoes per person

250g white asparagus

250g green asparagus

50g mangetout or sugarsnap peas (Ger:Kefen/Zuckerschoten/Est:peenikesed hernekaunad)

6 cherry tomatoes

A (small) handful of salad spinach

Sauce:

1 teaspoon mustard

1 tablespoon salad vinegar

0.5 teaspoon sugar

Salt and pepper (10 turns from the mill)

1 tablespoon milk

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

The new potatoes have a very thin peel and can be eaten with the peel. Bring the water to boil add salt (1 teaspoon) to the cooking water and boil the potatoes as usual.

Prepare the asparagus by peeling the white asparagus thoroughly. The green asparagus has a soft skin and no need to peel it.  Cut the spears into 3-4 cm long pieces.

In a separate pan bring water to boil and add some salt to it. First blanch the mangetout (2min) or sugarsnap peas for about 3 minutes. They should be cooked, but not too soft. Take out into a bowl of cold water to stop them cooking further. Now add the white asparagus into the same boiling water and cook for ca 2-3 minutes. Add the green asparagus and cook for 1 minute. Take them out into the bowl of cold water.

Halve the tomatoes. Cut the still warm potatoes into slices as thick or thin as you prefer. Add the washed spinach leaves, asparagus and the mangetout into the salad bowl and mix with the sauce.

For the sauce mix all ingredients together and leave for 10 minutes before adding to the salad.

The vegetarian version

Enjoy as a stand alone meal or a side dish. If pure vegetarian is not your cup of tea, try with a couple of pieces of fried bacon to add a meaty taste to it.

With bacon

The Cambridge Chop House

Vis-à-vis The King´s College in Cambridge, UK, is The Cambridge Chop House. Chopsticks or lamb chops? This historical spot in the university town is specialising in traditional English food. A cosy bar on the ground floor to meet with friends or just watch the professors, students, Deans, librarians, university press publicists or tourists walk by. The dining rooms form a little honeycomb labyrinth downstairs. People taller than 1.75cm watch out for the low doorways if you don’t want to have your eyebrow stitched.

The service is very friendly and competent. One can see that they know the menu, have tried the dishes and are proud to serve the food.

If you happen to visit on a Tuesday you better be a meat lover, because Tuesday is Steak Night. The portions justify the special evening. In any case the menu has sufficient choice to cater for different tastes.

To whet the appetite while you are waiting for your food they offer pork cracklings with apple mousse or ½ pound of prawns that one can shell should the conversation be slow.

Starters: The starter list has 5-6 dishes to choose from.

The four scallops with black pudding and leeks is a surprisingly fresh taste combination between the succulent scallop, the spicy tingling of the black pudding and the oniony leek present in the background. A gastronomic delight for some 7£.

I followed on to calf’s liver with potato-horseradish mash, bacon, greens and a dark sauce with marinated red onion. To the credit of the kitchen I asked for medium and I received the right pink medium. The steak next to me was served with the same right doneness. Mixed grill promised and delivered a rich plate of different steaks, bacon and house-made sausages. Main courses, also steaks, are around 16-24£.

The connoisseurs of the English pudding tradition, knowingly and mentally (because physically it is a challenge) leave some space in stomach for, right … the pudding. I was sceptical to try any mainly because I had already eaten sufficiently, but when in Rome do as the Romans do. The decision is not to be regretted: their house made sticky toffee pudding is a master class amongst the desserts. The warm, almost hot spongy sticky toffee pudding served with a cold vanilla ice-cream indulges the palate with a perfectly complementing contrast…for a while. I recommend eating as slowly as the ice allows to prolong that while. The only minor criticism would be to have the fresh mint leaves slightly smaller and give them a chance to be part of the dessert rather than the huge leaves as the decoration. This pudding has made it to my top 10 restaurant desserts. The price £5.50.

A digestive walk, admiring the centuries old historic city where the colleges still follow the old rules and tradition, attempts to balance the bodily satiation with some mental academic aura.

On the scale of 1-5 (5=Excellent, 1= Unsatisfactory):

Food: 5

Service: 5

Ambience: 4

Value for money: 5

(I ask not to let the quality of the pictures taken with my phone diminish the quality of the food)

Beetroot Baked With Goat´s Cheese

For those who appreciate strong distinct tastes.

Beetroots are great autumn-winter vegetables,undeservedly out of the mainstream cooking.The main variety is dark red but also yellow and white-pink striped beetroots are available in supermarkets or farmers´ markets that carry a wide choice. Beetroot has a sweet taste that goes well with vinegar, garlic or goat´s or other strong cheese.

This dish can be enjoyed as a stand alone vegetarian meal or eaten to lamb or pork chops. Since the goat´s cheese and olives add salt to the dish, there may be no need to add any extra salt. The tomato neutralises the strong cheese and compliments the sweet beetroot and the acidity.

Main course for 2 or side dish for 4:

600-700g of raw beetroot

1 medium eschalotte onion

2 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

50ml white wine

250ml / 1 glass vegetable stock or water

2 tablespoons vinegar

A small handful of black olives, without seeds

1 bigger tomato, deskinned and deseeded

100g grated hard goat´s cheese

Cut the onion lengthwise into thin slices. Do the same with garlic.

Peel and cut the beetroot into 1 cm thick slices and cut into sticks across the slices.

Heat the oil in a pan, fry the onions for a couple of minutes till they turn glassy, add the garlic. Cook for 1 minute. Add the beetroot sticks and cook for 4-5 minutes stirring from time to time.

Add a splash of white wine and let it evaporate completely. Now add the vegetable stock (or water) and the vinegar. Simmer at medium-low temperature for 20-30 minutes until the beetroot is almost soft and the liquid has been cooked almost dry.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Take the skin off the tomato using the hot water method, take out the seeds and cut the flesh into thin slices and then lengthwise into similar „sticks“ like the beetroot.

Cut or slice each olive into 3.

Place the almost soft beetroot into an oven dish, spread the olive and tomato slices and the goat´s cheese on top.

Cook in the oven for 20 minutes or until the cheese has melted and takes slightly brownish crust.

When serving add fresh black pepper from the mill.

Vazio Studios

clássico / 1 on the Behance Network

Fantastic food pictures to help the appetite or inspiration. Under this link you can also find a download link to a recipe book "Desculpas para cozinhar". (Un)fortunately it is in Portuguese - in addition to the cooking benefits I can learn Portuguese!
http://www.behance.net/vaziostudio/frame

Saturday: Farmers´ Market

Some of the best time on a Friday evening I spend picking up some cookbooks, magazines or looking through my list of things I want to cook this year, playing with the ideas and  possibilities and deciding what I want to cook on the weekend. Then in preparation for the next morning making the list of the ingredients for Saturday and Sunday cooking that I want to get from the market .

Most Saturday mornings I go to the farmers´ market in the middle of the normally laid back slow Swiss capital. But on a Saturday morning it is a different world, a magnet for a food afficionado. The arcades and the Bundesplatz (Parliament Square) are filled with stands of fresh vegetables, fruits, herbs, mushrooms, cheeses, meat, fish, breads, flowers and more. The smell of the market is tickling my senses and tempting to buy things I did not plan. Sure, if you dont like the smell of the cheese, you may need to hold your breath in some areas, but for me it is addictive. Breathing in the busy market morning…long deep inhalations, long deep exhalations.

Over the years I´ve become to know most of the people at the stands by face. Some of them have different ways of keeping their customers, be it a little gift of a carrot, an onion, the small-talk or more dramatic presentation.

There is a cheese counter with lots and lots of fantastic cheeses. The producer/seller is Mille et Un Fromage – 1001 Cheeses. Their Gorgonzola is so rich, their brie cheeses are softly melting, the harder ones have very attractive holes in them. I have discovered the fresh Tomme cheese that is similar to the Minas cheese in Brasil or the Burgos white cheese and so I have found a cheese to eat my Brazilian goiabada with (For more context see „Just Like Any Other Normal Fruit“ in this blog). My favourite cheese from this producer so far was Pavé d´Affinois, an amazing square piece of soft white mold cheese. The first time I ate this, it felt like heaven. …Today there was a white brie type of soft cheese that was about 10cm thick and looked so  creamy, so full of promise….Following it´s call it tasted like Paradise, or at least I think this is what paradise of cheese must taste. It was like a thick pile of whipped cream that just melted in the mouth in a few seconds, the rind of the white mold so soft and the inner slightly harder part of the brie so perfectly unresistent. Whilst the cheeses at Mille Et Un Fromage are delicious, the salesmen seem to be really serious. Probably making these brilliant cheeses is hard work or because they speak French and I normally don´t they don`t want to smile to the non-French. Anyway, I know what I will buy next Saturday. :-)

Sweet Curd Balls – Kohupiimapontshikud (Est)

A snowy winter Sunday. Having returned from a ski trip across the lake with my sister and father the feet are burning from the cold as we are warming them up on the heater. We are tired but happy with the expectation of soon we will be enjoying the sweet curd balls that Mom is making in the kitchen. We hear how the dough balls are dropped into the hot oil and start to sizzle. As soon as the burning needles have left the feet and we get back the feeling we bounce to the kitchen our faces still hot and healthy pink. We are ready for the treat – bring on the Kohupiimapontshikud, Mom!

I did not count, but makes ca. 30-40

250g curd (kohupiim in Estonian/ Quark in German)

4 table spoons sugar

2 eggs

8-10 table spoons milk

400g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 l frying oil (sunflower or rape seed oil)

Mix the eggs with sugar, add the curd.

Mix  the baking powder with the flour and add 2/3 of the flour to the egg-curd mix.

Add the milk spoonful by spoonful together with the rest of the flour. The dough should be quite firm, not liquid. If it feels too liquid, leave some milk out.

Heat the oil in a pan that is not too wide otherwise the oil will be in a too thin layer and it is difficult to fry. You need 7-10 cm deep oil in the pan.

Make balls from the dough, wet the palms a little with cold water to avoid the dough sticking to the palms. Fry in the oil. Stir around, you may notice that most of the balls will turn by themselves in the oil and will fry on both sides. Keep an eye on the process, help the ones that are not automatically turning and take out when the balls are golden brown. Dry the excess oil out on the kitchen towel.

To serve try some powder sugar on top to add a little appetising twist to the balls.

They taste best warm when the crust from frying is still fresh..

Classic Rhubarb cake – Klassikaline Rabarberikook (Est.)

This is a retro recipe cherished by many generations. Ask an Estonian and they would know this cake and they would smile picturing it in their mind.

The below recipe is for a cake form of  25cm x 38cm.

Base dough:

150g butter

100g sugar

1 egg

250g plain wheat flour

A good pinch of salt

0.5 – 0.75 teaspoon baking powder

Filling:

400g Rhubarb cut into pieces

8 table spoons sugar

Cinnamon, 0.5-1 teaspoon

Top layer:

3 large eggs (63g+)

3 full table spoons sugar

3 full table spoons flour, same as above

For the dough: Mix the butter with sugar with a mixer, add the egg and mix again. Add the flour, salt and baking powder and mix the dry ingredients together before mixing with the butter. Form the dough into a ball and leave to settle in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

Peel and cut the rhubarb into slices.

Heat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Roll the dough more or less into the size of the baking form and place in the form on the baking paper. Form the dough with your hands to fit and cover the bottom. Only cover the bottom, no need to have the dough cover the sides. Bake for 10 minutes until the dough seems cooked from the top and slightly brown from the edges. Pre-baking the bottom is good as the filling and top is heavy and juicy raw and the dough my remain uncooked - not so tasty.

Mix the eggs and sugar in a bowl until the egg forms almost white and very thick foamy mixture – ca 10 minutes. Take a sieve and sieve the flour into the egg-sugar mixture and stiring very carefully mix the flour with the egg.

Mix the rhubarb with sugar and lay the pieces on the pre-cooked dough.

Powder the rhubarb with a very light layer of cinnamon.

Now add the egg-sugar-flour mix on top and bake for further 30-40 minutes until the top firms and turns light brown. I don´t recommend putting an aluminium foil on the top to avoid too quick browning as the cake raises and may stick to the foil. Instead, if you see the colour change too fast, lower the temperature to 150C.

Let the cake cool down in the warm oven with the door slightly open. Cover with powder sugar to give it an appetizing visual effect.

Tastes great with a glass of cold milk.

For a variation of this classic cake add strawberries cut into thin slices or small pieces and place on top of the rhubarb.

Green Asparagus with fresh tomato

This recipe is among the favourites in my kitchen during the asparagus season. It is extremely simple and in its simplicity amazingly tasty. The asparagus and tomato get only very brief treatment and stay crunchy and fresh. I like a little sweet-sour taste with the more neutral asparagus.

For a light main meal just double the quantity.

The quantities here serve as a starter for 2:

8 spears of green asparagus, slimmer ones if you have a choice

1 small to medium (shalotte) onion, finely sliced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 table spoon vinegar, balsamico or salad vinegar

0.5 teaspoon sugar

Salt, pepper

4 table spoons olive oil

12-14 cherry tomatoes, halved or cut in quarters.

Prepare the asparagus by rinsing the spears in cold water, cutting or breaking off the tough ends (ca 2cm at the bottom). Dry the asparagus in a kitchen paper or towel.

Take a small pan and heat 2 table spoons of oil, add the finely sliced onion. When the onion is starting to turn slightly glassy add the chopped garlic and cook for 2 minutes.

Add sugar and some salt and pepper to the onion-garlic mix, stir and cook for another minute till the onions and garlic are soft. Take off the heat. Add the vinegar and mix.

Cut the tomatoes depending on their size into 2 or into 4. Mix tomato with the onion and garlic mix but don´t cook.

Take a grill pan and heat 2 table spoons of oil. Add the asparagus and cook the spears for about 3-4 minutes, when they start taking brownish colour on one side turn the sides and briefly fry on the other side too till it starts to take some colour  for another 3 minutes.

Taste to ensure that the thicker end is cooked but still crunchy. Don´t add salt when cooking the asparagus. 

When the asparagus is ready add the onion-tomato mix to the same pan  and cook together for about 1 minute. Don´t let the tomato to boil. Only very briefly mix everything together and take off the heat. Taste at the very end and add a few flakes of sea salt if necessary

Serve straight away. Tastes good also luke warm. Serve with some fresh bread to help soak up the tomato sauce.

Asparagus: a) simple and b) with Gruyère cheese baked in oven

In order to experiment with both white and green asparagus and get clarity whether I really don´t like the white asparagus I took a mix of both green and white asparagus. A lot of controversy exists which one is better. The white asparagus is considered in Europe to be the delicate and elegant one and highly prized. However a lot of people I know like the green better. Both are the same plant, the white one grows under the soil, does not get any light and does not build any clorophyll. Hence the white colour. The green one grows on the ground.  

a) The very simpe basic recipe to cook asparagus is to peel the thick ends and cut off the very bottom 2 cm. Do peel the white spears well as the skin can be really tough. It may not be visible raw, but you will notice it when eating. Then blanch them in salted boiling water for a few minutes. Drain and adding a knob of butter cook till the butter melts, stir and add black pepper and/or grated nutmeg. Serve hot straight away with prociutto, salmon or potato. The slimmer green spears do not need peeling (so much) and can be cooked in a grill pan with a little butter for a few minutes et voilà, ready it is.

The white spears tend to grow quite thick, the green is generally slimmer. The white produces more waste when preparing through the thick peel and cutting off more of the ends. Therefore also more costly.

If not overcooked the white asparagus can be equally delicious, even though the optics of the green version are more appetising.

b)  Baked in the oven with Gruyère cheese

My advice would be not to blanch the asparagus in this recipe at all to avoid it becoming too soft and slimy. If you have very thick spears like a big handed man´s thumbs a brief 2 minute blanching would be fine.

Makes 4

750g asparagus, a mix or just one type (I took 250g of white and 500g green asparagus)

30g butter

70g bacon or prociutto

100g gruyère cheese, freshly grated (other well melting stronger cheese can be used)

5-6 large eggs

A few roughly cut small chunks of parmesan

Freshly chopped flat parsley

Pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Peel the white asparagus and green if you think the peel is tough and cut off the coarse woody ends. Cut the spears diagonally into 3cm pieces. Take a gratin dish and butter the bottom of it a little. Put the asparagus on the bottom.

Cut the bacon or prociutto into smaller pieces. I pre-fried the bacon to get out some of the fat for a healthier option. Layer the bacon on the asparagus. Add the grated Gruyère cheese.

Mix the eggs in a bowl and pour on the asparagus. Add the chopped parsley and the parmesan on top.

Bake for 30minutes till the cheese forms a slight crust.

Asparagius with gruyere cheese

Asparagus gratin, best with gruyere, but other melting cheese is fine too

Less plastic around the bacon

A new packaging of portioned packaged meat, charcuterie, has appeared in the supermarket.
Instead of plastic trays the cuts are packed on a brown paper. Not having the full CO2 footprints available the paper version does seem to be more environmentally friendly, from renewable raw material, better recyclable and personally less hassle for me to manage the garbage. We like that, more please.

„Gazpacho-Guacamole“ variation

This is a cooked tomato based soup. Many studies say that the nutrients and all the good things residing in tomatoes can be obtained better from cooked tomatoes than from the raw ones. This soup can be eaten hot or cold with more or less calories. Make your choice by the weather outside, your mood or the numbers on your scale in the morning.

For 3-4 you need:

1 medium onion

20g butter

2 tablespoons plain flour (not overly full)

700g tomatoes (ca 4 big fleshy ones)

500g cucumber (ca 1 long salad one)

500ml vegetable broth

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt and black pepper

1 ripe avocado

50ml fresh semi cream  (12-18% fat)

2 thin slices of bacon per person

Chopped fresh chives, a handful

Chop the onion.

Peel and deseed the tomatoes (for instructions see recipe "Cold Tomato Soup with Poached Salmon Mousse" under Soups in this blog). Cut into smaller pieces of 1-2 cm.

Peel the cucumber, cut out a bit of the seed section if the cucumber is very seedy and less fleshy, cut into similar smaller pieces.

Heat the butter in a larger pan. The size of the pan should be enough for the whole soup to fit in. Fry the onions till they start to turn glassy and start to take a slightly brown colour. Add the flour and mix together. The flour and the butter will become quite solid together. Add the tomato pieces and mix with a spoon or wisk quite fast to get the flour mixed with the liquid from tomatoes and not clump.

Add the cucumber, mix shortly and add the vegetable broth. Add the sugar, some black pepper, ca 10 turns from the pepper mill and taste for salt. Simmer at medium low temperature for 20-30 min. Do check on the soup every now and then and stir it to avoid the flour to burn at the bottom.

Using a blender, food processor or a mixer purée the soup into a smooth consistency.

Return to heat and mix in the cream.

If you want to eat the soup cold, cool it down and add the avocado into the cold soup.

If you prefer it hot, halve the avocado and take out the soft part and mash a bit with a fork, mix into the soup.

For a heartier version put a pan on the stove at medium-high heat, when the pan is hot put the halved slices of bacon on the pan and let the fat soften and melt out, turn the bacon to the other side, cook till it turns crispy. Pat the bacon dry with the kitchen paper to get excess fat off.

Serve the soup with with chopped chives and slices of bacon on the top and fresh bread.

For the healthier version you can leave out the bacon and /or the cream.

Is food turning into soap?

In the last century the soap did usually not bring along thoughts about food. The fragrances of the washing products were often flowery – roses, lilacs, water lillies. About a decade or two ago some food ingredients like apple, almond, vanilla, mint, olives, citruses found their place in the shampoos, shower gels and creams.

Also some geographic relevance has been and still is widely used by the soap industry. Examples are Florida Sunshine, Japanese Cherry Blossom, Morrocan Rose. And why not an Estonian Spruce or Estonian Forest Dew shower gel as 50% of the country is covered with trees?

I walked into a store to buy some shower gel and was rather astonished looking at the choice I had. Hmmm, cucumber and mint, watermelon and eucalyptus, lemon and thyme, fig and rosemary, pear and lemongrass, apricot and basil….most of them I use in my food, not necessarily in these combinations, but all relevant for savoury or sweet dishes. The products actually contain the extracts of these ingredients. I ended up buying a Cucumber and Mint as well as a Lemon and Tthyme.

What makes the food now so strong in the choice of the body products? Do they want me to become hungry, are they playing on the association of the ingredients triggering a feeling of satisfaction or perhaps craving?

By now my mind was hooked on why are the food ingredients so dominant also in the soap manufacturing. I visited more stores and found that the most popular seem to be the citruses: grapefruit and bambus, citrus and melisse, lime, sweet lemon, etc. Sometimes a catchy name is achieved through alliteration like Vitalising Vitamins or Paradisiac Pink Pepperpod, even a triple one, the latter.

The funniest shower gels that caught my eye that day were a Mojito shower gel from foods and Energizing Seamoss from non-foods.

By chance I had cucumber, mint, lemon and thyme at home and I actually tried both combinations. Not so sure about the cucumber and mint, but the lemon and thyme are nice, I have had it with some white fish before.

This trend is either all an advertising trick on the unconscious or we are moving towards the era when the food nutrients can be obtained by the immersion through the skin, a way to fight obesity  but I doubt that it would satisfy the hunger to experience the actual taste in your mouth.

Lime or Lemon - what´s the difference?

No other pair of food ingredients are more intriguing and fascinating than lime and lemon, somehow the same, but all so different. Here is why.

Depending on where you come from the understanding of which is which may differ completely. Some examples:

UK: lemon is yellow, lime is green

Portugal: limão is yellow, lima is green

Brasil: limão is green, lima is yellow, (the opposite of Portuguese!)

Mexico: limón is green, lima is sweet, smaller with a colour between the green lime and yellow lemon.

Estonia: Sidrun is yellow, laim is green

Germany: Zitrone is yellow, Limette is green.

Lime or lemon? Limón -lima? Limão - lima?

Citrus fruit is said to have originated in South-East Asia and spread through Middle East to the Mediterranean (Greece, Sicily, Spain) and from Spain to Americas. That helps to understand the origin of the words.

Lime: origin in English is from French/Portuguese/Spanish and before that from Arabic līma, līm collectively meaning the fruits of citron kind.

Lemon in English originates from Middle English lymon coming from Spanish limón, Portuguese limão, Italian limone from Latin limō, before that Arabic laimūn from Persian līmūn.

In some languages the word root comes from the Latin citrus, (eg German Zitrone, Estonian sidrun coming from German Zitrone like many other German loan words). One of the types of yellow lemon is called Citron, perhaps that was widely grown and spred from old Romans to the Germanic areas.

It seems that in Latin and South America the colour of the fruit is often the other way round to the European concept. No wonder if in Mexico a European asking for some lemon would get the green fruit. Even better, a Portuguese in Brasil asking in their same language for limão thinking yellow and gets a green fruit.

Despite the fascinating etymological and cultural aspect limes and lemons are also an indispencable part of nutrition and cooking.

Both are rich in vitamins, especially vitamin C, calcium, potassium, magnesium, antioxydant flavonoids, and more.

The green limes known in Europe are Persian lime, also known as Tahiti lime or Mexican lime. The lime juice is the key ingredient in popular dishes like ceviche, aguachile, guacamole or in Margarita cocktails.

Key limes widely known in the US (from the Florida Keys) are smaller than the Persian/Mexican lime. Famous is key lime pie with condensed milk.

The yellow lemons are used in classic recipes like lemon tarte, lemon sorbet or in drinks like lemonade, in Europe gin and tonic is usually served with yellow lemons. The famous Italian lemon liqueur limoncello is made of Amalfi or Sorrento lemons that have exceptional aroma and flavcour and, I´ve read, are even protected under some legislation.

The juice of limes and lemons serve well as emulsifiers in salad sauces. Both go well with fish, shellfish and some chicken dishes.

Notes of interest:

The capital of Peru is Lima

Lemon and lime = Cockney „Crime“