Paris: Le Pré Verre

I am back from holidays and a weekend in Paris with my friends. As always in another city finding the good places where to eat requires some effort but absolutely pays off in the level of satisfaction after.

Fab food and atmosphere at Le Pré Verre on Rive Gauche

Le Pré Verre is a lovely restaurant on a corner in the 5th Arrondissement a few steps from the famous Sorbonne University. This vibrant bistro is run by two brothers. The food is modern seasonal French with some Asian touch points.

The Sorbonne, not far from the Le Pré Verre

We had booked for 19:30 and there were people already waiting behind the closed door when we arrived. A good sign! We went for a walk around the block and took a couple of pictures of the University and surprise, surprise, in the little green oasis next to it  we discovered the sculpture of Romulus and Remus feeding on the wolf's milk, familiar from Rome.

Romulus and Remus next to the Sorbonne University in Paris

10 minutes later, back at the restaurant, there were more people at the door waiting to be seated and when we were studying our menus the place was three quarters full. The three waiting staff were busy and covered the floor almost running but we got enough attention and did not have to wait unnecessarily.

If you fancy great food in a relaxed atmosphere, I do recommend to visit Le Pré Verre. The staff was friendly, the visitors a mix of locals and tourists. It is best to reserve a table, we booked a week in advance.

Professors, students, people from the neighbourhood and tourists keep Le Pré Verre busy every night

Some information for the wallet: starters were around 10 €, the main courses around 20 €, desserts less than 10 €. A set menu that fills the belly with a starter, a main course and a dessert can be enjoyed for ca.30 Euros. The menu offers a choice between 4-5 starters, mains and desserts each ranging from a refreshing cold soup of lemon confit to veal liver served with sweet potatoes and a beetroot chip to marinated strawberries with dark green parsley ice cream. A nice bottle of dry white can be enjoyed for ca 30 €. The innovative use of ingredients (eg.aubergine ice cream) and combinations are guaranteed to stay in my taste memory bank for a long time.

One thing I noticed in Paris was that in several places the waiting staff did not deal with the payment. They brought you the bill, but the payment was done at the front desk.

If you have any great restaurant recommendations for Paris, please share...for my next trip.

Sous le ciel de Paris....

Wild Blueberry Soup with Fluffy Semolina Dessert

Estonian wild blueberries - in season in July

"Go to the forest!" or "Mine metsa!" is one of the expressions in Estonian language that is used to show annoyanceˇwith someone or to say "what nonsense!" or "stop bothering me!", an easier version of "go to hell". A colleague from Turkey recently reminded me of that. An Estonian friend had taught her that, among some other things that I will not repeat here. I am yet to find another nation who has a similar saying.

There is lots of forest in Estonia and a lot of people actually do go to the forest for more practical reasons to forage for wild berries and mushrooms or go for a run or a round of nordic walking on a foot friendly soft forest path.
There are sea/ocean people or mountain people or forest people - a main force of nature that draws certain people to itself . I belong to the latter. Every year during holidays I go and walk around the familiar forests and if the year is good, I might be picking wild blueberries, lingonberries or mushrooms.

Wild blueberries and chanterelles from the forest

Now is wild blueberry time and as I was reaching out for more I remembered two recipes from the past that I am sharing here today.
Wild blueberry soup has been around in the Estonian kitchens for centuries. It is popular and also served at Tartu ski marathon as a source of energy to those on the way to finish the 63 kilometer track. The first recipe of the fluffy semolina dessert that I have seen was published in 1965 in a recipe book that could be found in most Estonian homes. I don´t know where the name comes from, but my guess is that it has some links to German or Russian.

Wild blueberry soup with fluffy semolina pudding

Wild blueberry soup

Ingredients for 6
3.5-4 liters of water
ca. 1 liter of wild blueberries, slightly crushed
3 tbsp starch and 3-4 tbsp cold water
100g  sugar or to taste
Bring the water to boil. Crush the blueberries with a wooden spoon a bit and add the berries to the hot water. Cook for 15 minutes till all the berries break and let out the juice. Add sugar to your taste and mix. The blueberries are much sweeter than many other berries and therefore can be cooked with rather little sugar.
Mix the starch with cold water until smooth. When the berry juice seems ready add the starch slowly and stir until the "soup" thickens. If you like a thicker consistency, mix some more starch with water and add. Bring to boil and quickly take off the heat.
Set aside to cool.

Bubert, fluffy semolina dessert

(Serves 6)

1.5l milk
7-8 tbsp fine wheat semolina
5-6 eggs, whites and yolks separated
7-8 tbsp sugar
Vanilla (optional)
Bring the milk to boil and slowly add the semolina. Stir and cook until the semolina has softened and the milk thickened.
Combine the egg yolks with sugar and beat with a handmixer till foamy.  Take some milk-semolina mixture and stir into the egg-sugar mixture, then pour everything back to the pot. Stir till well combined and thickened. 
Beat the egg whites till stiff and slowly fold in the egg whites. Keep the pudding on the heat for one or two more minutes and then let cool.
Serve the blueberry soup with Bubert on a tender summer night in the garden. No words needed. The birds and grasshoppers and the dessert will tell the story.

A summer dessert from Estonia

For more Food from the forest see also:
Wild mushrooms
Wild Blueberry Ricotta Cake

Fresh Herbs Series: Sage Butter

Velvety leaves of sage

Some restaurants have the habit of bringing bread to the table while the hungry guests are waiting for their orders. The choice differs from place to place. Here are some examples:

-         just bread

-         slices of bread in a plastic bag (Why in plastic??)

-         various rolls

-         various warm rolls

Sometimes the bread comes with an accompaniment of some sort to make the waiting a bit more adventurous. The choice may include:

-         butter

-         olive oil

-         black olive tapenade

-         herb butter

-         a mix of the above

The places that serve fresh home-made bread or a variety of (mini)rolls are my favourite. The smell of the inside of the bread provides the clue. Dipping pieces of bread into olive oil while waiting for your plate of pasta may take the conversation to the olive tree groves, olive harvest, oil pressing, oil tasting, the debate who produces the best olive oil, why Greece exports so little, the olive oil “mafia”, who likes green or black olives, …

Any place that serves herb butter that makes my mind search in the taste bank somewhere in my brain guessing and looking for the name of the herb that has been used in the particular butter definitely raises the chance of a higher tip and verbal praise at the end of the meal.

One of my favourite herb butters is the one with sage.  I find it a real pity that the velvety touch of fresh sage leaves gets lost in any way of cooking and preparing sage.

There is no exact recipe, just use the ingredients as you feel is right for your taste.

As a guideline for a small portion of sage butter:

50 g butter

10-15 leaves of sage of all sizes

Juice of one slice of lemon

A pinch of salt

Bring butter to room temperature.

Finely chop the sage and mix the sage, lemon juice and salt with butter.

Place the herb butter into a small bowl or if making a bigger quantity form into a roll in the cling film. Refrigerate.

Enjoy with bread just like that or in a sandwich.

Herb butter with fresh sage (Est. salveivõi, Ger. Salbei Butter)

Kaiserlinge - Caesar´s mushrooms

Luxurious Caesar´s mushrooms

Amanita caesarea, Kaiserlinge, Caesar´s mushroos are egg-shaped when young, whitish with hidden orange, of size between a quail´s egg to bigger than a large hen´s egg…10 times more delicate than champignons, ridiculously expensive, luxurious…

Amanita caesarea, Kaiserlinge, the Caesar´s mushroos

The expert mushroom merchant at my fresh market was explaing to customers in his lovely French accent that the Kaiserlinge can be eaten raw or just briefly cooked.
The ones I bought from the market came from Italy, the ones sold at the top end foodstore Globus in Switzerland were of Bulgarian origin. Brief Internet research says that the caesar´s mushrooms can be found in the Mediterranean area in Europe. On my own mushroom foraging trips to the forests I have not seen such, but then again, Estonia is much further north.

Raw Caesar´s mushrooms

I am still looking for convincing evidence on the nutritional value of the mushrooms in general. I have seen views published that mushrooms barely have any useful nutritional content and only serve as stomach fillers or very recently that a chanterelle salad provides you with useful minerals and nutrients. Still deciding what to believe…

What I am sure of is that for those who love mushrooms it is enough to enjoy the different mushroom tastes, texture nuances and be intoxicated by the smells arising from cooking the mushrooms. The Kaiserlinge deserve to be cherished as a standalone dish without lots of additions. They are expensive to serve as a filling in a pot with other ingredients and don´t have a strong distinctive smell like say chanterelles to be used to give the mushroom note to a bigger dish. They are worth indulging on the pure taste of their own.

"Kaiserlinge" mushrooms are delicate and need very brief cooking time

Preparation:
Cut the mushrooms lengthwise into ca 5 mm slices. Heat some olive oil in the pan on medium and fry the musrooms 2 minutes on each side.
Serve just like that or add a few grains of salt, drizzle a few drops of lemon juice, thinly chopped parsley or pepperoncini oil to add a little spice.

Simple Breakfast: Pan con tomate or tomato bread

My tomato bread breakfast in Barcelona or Burgos

“Never go out in the morning without having eaten something.” My Mom used to say this and now I live by this credo of common sense. Thanks, Mom, for the habit of eating breakfast that helps me avoid the blood sugar and brain first aid kit of energy snacks.

I recently attended an Awards dinner where the company recognises the outstanding achievements in Making a Difference for people either within the company or in their communities. My colleagues from the UK won an award for establishing a charity that supports breakfasts for children in their community. A lot of children didn’t eat breakfast and were behaving badly at school, they were not paying attention and their learning suffered. Not only did their own results suffer, they also disturbed their classmates. A proper breakfast changed that. 

Roma tomatoes (the bigger ones) and date tomatoes (the small oval), cherry (the small round ones)

It is summer time in Europe and depending on where you live the tomatoes either are or will become ripe soon. My best holiday morning in Estonia would be to wonder around in the glasshouse and pick a few warm tomatoes (thanks, Dad, for all the hard work), smell the tomato leaves on the fingers and make a nice tomato sandwich with rye bread, butter and tomato with salt and pepper for breakfast. We call it “tomativõileib” or “tomato butter bread”. Like that…

Tomativõileib - tomato bread in Estonia

In Catalunya and Spain my favourite breakfast is equally tomato bread or “pa amb tomaquet”, “pan con tomate “. Tomato, olive oil, bread, that’s it basically. At home I use varieties with fewer seeds like Marzano or Roma.

A bit of fat is good with tomato. It helps the body to make use of the vitamin A from the tomatoes.

4 tomatoes

Pinch of sea salt

0.5 tsp sugar

Black pepper

3-4 tbsp olive oil

Take the skins off by cutting crosses into the top and bottom of the tomatoes, placing them into a bowl of hot water for a minute or two. Then drain the hot water and peel the skins off.

Grate the tomatoes on the side with the largest holes.

Season with salt, sugar, freshly ground pepper and olive oil.

Pa amb tomaquet in Catalan or Pan con tomate in Spanish

Serve with toasted bread. I prefer thicker more robust slices of bread to the regular toast. The slices of bread can be toasted in the oven or in the toaster.

A question on my mind: why is the tomato often very pale in the hotels in Spain where I have eaten pan con tomate? Is it because the less ripe, 2^nd class tomatoes are crushed for this dish or is there a special paler flesh variety they use?

Enjoy your breakfast, the most important meal of the day!

Fresh Herbs Series: Thin focaccia with tomato, oregano and fresh goat’s cheese

Thin focaccia with a crust

One’s own herb garden in summer – a bit of a cliché or a trendy fashion? One might grow a few pots of basil, rosemary or thyme on the windowsill or several garden boxes with a wider variety of herbs on the balcony or have the luxury of real beds of land and the choice that it allows. Regardless of the size and the species of one’s expert or beginner´s cultivation ambition undoubtedly the fresh herbs make a great deal of difference on the plate.

Take today, I wanted a light lunch that didn´t need a lot of time or any special ingredients that would require shopping. Some bread, some olives I still had from last week’s market, a few drops of Italian peperoncino olive oil that I got as a present from a friend for the Eurovision Song Contest party and a quick nip of some basil and thyme - et voilà. Apologies, I had to take a bite before I could take a photo.

Crostini with olives, thyme and basil

My summer trend, having different herbs at hand, has become focaccia. Focaccia is very easy to make despite the time it needs to raise. Yet, other than raising the dough, it is one of the easiest things to make.

Thin Focaccia with cherry tomatoes, fresh oregano and fresh goat’s cheese

Freshly baked tomato combined with the distinctive taste of goat´s cheese can be eaten when the tomato is hot, just out of the oven, still slightly warm or cold. The taste of tomato, especially the note of sour and sweet, varies with the temperature.

Ingredients

The dough:

1 packet of dry instant yeast (7g)

1 tsp salt

1tsp sugar

300g (3 cups) flour or (100g whole grain flour and 200g plain flour)

2dl (1 cup) water

2 tbsp olive oil

Mix the dry ingredients and then add the water. Mix everything and half-way add olive oil and mix again all into dough. Use a wooden spoon, a dough mixer or hands and fold for 5 minutes until all ingredients have combined into smooth dough. Form a ball. Lift the ball of dough out of the bowl and sprinkle some oil into the bowl and on the dough. This will help to get the dough out of the bowl easier later. Cover the bowl with cling film and a tea towel and leave for 1 – 1.5 hours in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size. Avoid draft as it does no good to your dough.

Set the oven to 200°C.

A colourful focaccia topping of tomato, cheese and oregano

 

Topping:

1 shalotte onion

A pinch of salt

More olive oil to drizzle on the dough

A good handful of cherry tomatoes (ca 200g), cut in half

leaves of fresh oregano

Fresh goat’s cheese

Flaky sea salt

Slice the onion and rub it with a generous pinch of salt between your fingers. Drain the liquid.

When the dough has doubled in size spread the dough on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Use slightly wet hands to smooth it. Drizzle some olive oil on the dough and arrange the tomato halves, onion, some goat’s cheese and oregano on the dough and sprinkle with sea salt.

 Bake for ca 15-20 min until a crust has formed.

A feel good snack or an appetizer at a party table

The Luxury of Travelling For One Meal: Giant Garlic Prawns

Yes, I have done it. Since the sustainability and food miles and all the media about how bad the air traffic is for the planet I have carried a bit of a bad feeling in my conscience. The primary reason for the trip was to experience one more time a pleasure of one single meal and introduce this most pleasurable and hopefully equally unforgettable experience to my friend. I got to know this restaurant during one of the business trips and that evening left a haunting impression in my food memory bank.

The second trip was taken under a considerable risk. I did not know and could not find the name of the restaurant. At that time in the early years of the 21^st century not all searches on the internet gave results. I knew from memory that it was down at the river and they had just one specialty. 

This all happened during the time when Estonia was not yet part of the European Union and Schengen agreement and it was not uncommon to be asked for the reason of the visit by the entry guards at the airports. And so did the border guard at Luxembourg airport. I answered: “Holiday” and the guy in the uniform looked suspicious. It was probably unusual that Luxembourg, a tiny country with a Duke and lots of banking and steel industry and some European Union/European Commission sessions going on, attracted tourists. I wonder if the border guard would have been less or even more baffled if the answer would have been “A meal in the restaurant down by the river that serves big scampis with copious amounts of garlic”?

Garlic Scampis

The air in the restaurant was hazy with the thick smell of garlic like in the past places used to be grey from cigarette smoke, the fact that almost everyone in the restaurant was eating the same thing and the meaty prawns dripping with garlicky oil got me hooked for life. They were brought to the table flaming in the baking dish. Now I have two very clear memories from that place. We have a saying that two will not stay without the third…I am so hoping for that to be true.

I was relieved, to an extent, when I saw that the editor of the Food & Wine Magazine in the May 2012 edition declares that she took a trip to Copenhagen just to eat at Noma. Makes me feel a bit better. I do think this is luxury and am grateful for having been able to do this.

Where have you travelled for the ultimate food experience?

Garlic tiger prawns

Ingredients: (makes 2)

Olive Oil (a few knobs of butter optional)

1 head of garlic

3-4 tiger prawns per person

Sea salt

Wedges of lemon

Crusty bread and/ or fresh green salad

Heat the oven to 230°C. Cut the crust lengthwise with scissors on the back side up until the tail. Then cut the meat lengthwise for 2/3 into the depth to make the butterflies. Crush the cloves of the head of garlic with a pinch of sea salt with the mortar and pestle.

Crushing the garlic with sea salt

Spread garlic on prawn butterflies

Place the prawns in the baking dish and spread the garlic on the prawn butterflies and generously cover with oil.

Bake in the hot oven for ca 10 min. Be careful not to overcook to avoid the prawns become chewy.

Serve with wedges of lemon, crusty bread and a green salad.

Tiger prawns with garlic in oil

The restaurant in Luxembourg is Chez Bacano. They serve steak as well but if you truly love garlic and scampi I recommend you try this flagship dish. If you do not like garlic and scampi I suspect the steak would not taste what you are expecting and the whole garlicky experience may possibly not provide and equally positive unforgettable experience. The atmosphere is casual. Be prepared that you smell garlic in your clothes for some time.

Fresh herbs series: Rosemary and Thin Focaccia

 

Rosemary plant at the market

The slowest growing herb in my herb garden now is rosemary. All ten others have put on between a couple to a dozen centimetres of growth in two weeks but Rose and Mary don’t seem to be doing so well. Perhaps it is just a matter of adjusting to the new environment and I should be more patient. A gardener on a TV show said that patience is the most important thing and sometimes it takes years to see the desired change in your garden. Time will tell.

Despite the immediate growth problems the culinary aspects of the rosemary seem to be in place and that’s what counts. This herb that has been around for centuries and is an irreplaceable ingredient in seasoning Mediterranean lamb dishes deserves to be the protagonist because of its powerful character.

Slow growing rosemary on the left

I was in Edinburgh in Scotland this week and we ate at an Italian restaurant that combined local Scottish ingredients like meat and fish with the Italian ones and served dishes made with Italian techniques.

I am used to season lamb with Rosemary, but the English and now obviously Scottish tradition, calls for mint to go with lamb. (That is unusual for me.) So on the menu there was lamb with mint pesto. The mint pesto was great, I don’t think I detected any rosemary there.

The rosemary made a strong opening entry on thin focaccia bread as we were waiting for our meals. I could have swallowed my tongue. It was soft and fresh and warm with the olive oil and the amount of rosemary was just right to give the focaccia strong enough flavour.

Rosemary on thin focaccia bread

Ingredients:

1 packet of dry instant yeast (7g)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

300g (3 cups) flour (or 100g whole grain flour and 200g plain flour)

2dl (1 cup) water

2 tbsp olive oil

More olive oil to drizzle over the dough

Flaky sea salt

Rosemary, only the leaves of 1-2 sprigs

Goat’s cheese cut in slices

1-2 garlic cloves, sliced

Mix the dry ingredients and then add the water, mix everything and half-way add olive oil and mix again all into dough. Use a wooden spoon, a dough mixer or hands and fold for 5 minutes until all ingredients have combined into smooth dough. Form a ball. Lift the ball of dough out of the bowl and drizzle some oil into the bowl and on the dough. This will help to get the dough out of the bowl easier later. Cover the bowl with cling film and a tea towel and leave for 1 – 1.5 hours until the dough has doubled in size.

Focaccia topped with rosemary, goat´s cheese and garlic

Thin focaccia bread made with wholegrain flour

Set the oven to 200ºC and cover a baking tray with baking paper. When the dough is ready place it on the tray and smooth the dough into a thin layer on with your hands. You could roll it as well, but I don’t bother. Go over the dough with wet hands once to give the focaccia a crust when baking. Place the rosemary leaves and the goat’s cheese on the dough, drizzle some olive oil and sprinkle some salt on it. Add the garlic slices either straight away or after 5 minutes baking to avoid garlic getting bitter. Bake for 15-20 minutes. 

Thin focaccia with a crust

Fresh herbs series: Lemon Thyme

At farmers market: Plenty of herbs to choose for balcony gardens

Lemon thyme, one of the over 100 thyme varieties

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme… and lemon thyme are a few of the herbs that are growing on my balcony this season. I decided to grow my own herbs again for three reasons. Firstly, sometimes when I buy a bunch of herbs I don’t use it all and they wilt and go to waste. Now I can take just as much as necessary. Secondly, it is cheaper and thirdly, the urge of touching a rosemary leaf or a basil leaf or rub a little thyme spring between your fingers and then smell...know that feeling? Besides the colours are equally worth looking at.

I am a bit concerned about how long I can keep them totally healthy because I have seen a couple of small flies on the soil coupled with a slight fear from the past experience that the herbs may get infected by a grey layer of mould or something. But so far so good, the herbs are growing and I am snapping the basil or parsley or today - the lemon thyme.

Lemon Thyme, Zitronenthümian, sidruntüümian, (Lat.Thymus citriodorus)

The lemon thyme not just smells but also tastes a lot like lemon. And because of that it goes well with fish or chicken or other dishes that call for lemon and thyme. I used the lemon thyme to give flavour to poached salmon by placing one swig at the bottom and one swig on top of each portion of salmon with some sea salt and wrapped the salmon individually in the alu foil. Too much thyme will suffocate the taste of the fish, so better not overdo it. The trick is to keep the water just simmering, not to boil and to simmer ca 10-15 minutes to keep the salmon soft. Too much or too long cooking turns the salmon hard and it loses the moist succulence. Drizzle with olive oil and a few drops of lemon or lime juice and serve with some vegetables or fresh salad. (More poached salmon ideas here.)

Poached salmon with a touch of lemon thyme

Thyme and lemon thyme can also be used for herbal infusion tea. Thyme is said to have healing qualities against respiratory sufferings.

I took 3 sprigs per mug of boiling water and let it infuse for ca 10 minutes. Sweeten with some honey if you like sweet drinks, but the lemon thyme has already a strong citrus taste and can be very well enjoyed just simply like that.

Lemon thyme herbal tea

Changes in the food world across two centuries and "kilupirukad" (small salty oily fish pastries)

There are fundamental changes happening in every area of life at a fast pace. The changes around the food and eating burst emotions left and right like a metronome. We find things that never existed before, that are genius and on the other hand see things that make perfect sense disappear or nonsense flourish. Here is a short list of observations that I have lived through or experience at this very moment.

End of the last century: Estonia
Few cookbooks
Every household had at least one handwritten recipe notebook
Simple food… still my favourite
Eaters were much closer to food production (neighbours helping neighbours at potato harvest, own food grown on allotments)
Less packaged food, often food was weighed in the shop according to your order, often packed in paper, very little plastic packaging
People carried a shopping bag, plastic bags were expensive and even not available

Less allergies
Less food regulatory laws (I used to walk by a bread factory that had its windows open to the street, the smell coming out was heaven. Loaves of bread used to be sold unpacked in shops. Nobody died of dysentery coming from the bread they had bought that wasn’t individually packed)
Less E-ingredients, the big money wasn´t in the food research
Shorter life expectancy
A lot of food was very local

Recycling of milk bottles, cream and mayo jars, other bottles (there wasn’t much other packaging to recycle)
Deficit of exotic fruit, coffee, other ingredients (eg to cook a Thai curry at home in 1990 was unthinkable)

Home made jams was a common way of preserving

Estonians loved “Tallinna kilu”, small oily fish spiced and preserved in cans (see photo)

Tallinna kilud have stood the test of time

21^st century: Estonia, Switzerland, Europe
More packaged foods
Fashionable to take a plastic bag each time – fortunately this trend is reversing
Less knowledge about where food is grown or how –  fewer children have seen, let alone touched, an animal whose produce they eat, TV programs showing children guessing how peas, cabbage, brussel sprouts etc grow… a tragic comedy
Better agriculture
New varieties of produce are higher yielding and stay fresh longer (sometimes at the expense of smell or taste)

Hydroponicly grown strawberries flown across Europe in March
More allergies
People live longer (combined with progress in medicine)
Long aisles of ready made meals

Food wasting increases massively

Smart mobile phones – internet saves the work of writing down the ingredient list
Food magazines have a booklet with shopping list for ingredients
Thousands of food blogs
El Bulli, Heston Blumenthal, molecular cuisine
Nordic chefs winning the French culinary competitions
Frozen food, big freezers at home allow storing fresh food, great to have fresh berries from your own garden in winter

Celebrities´cookbooks

Celebrity chefs acting on TV People talk about food miles, local, seasonal food
Estonians love “Tallinna kilu”, small oily fish spiced and preserved in cans. “Tallinna kilu” is awarded “Recognised Estonian Taste” Award in 2001, 2003, 2008.

The fillets of "kilu", little anchovies type oily fish, is canned with salt and spices

Go figure what will happen in the future. On one hand there are propelling new techniques, the unimaginable has become a reality, on the other hand the old common sense of eating what the nature provides with the farmers´ wisdom and the mothers´ common sense of eating a variety of foods is fighting for existence while the blasts of new diets of the month in the media feature one or the other “magic” ingredient or nutritional nebula.

For sure the changes and the extremes will continue. In one way or the other the world will keep a balance.

Future: the world
People live even longer
Genetically modified food will feed the billions
People will migrate for water, flee the famine
Better (=less) usage of water in agriculture
Better fertilisers
Globalisation - more imports of non-local ingredients, fruits and veg
More eating seasonal produce – the sustainability mentality will continue
Growing vegetables vertically, on small space (eg on roofs), on hydroponics
Food blogs will stay for a while
Recipes on Internet, printed books will become rare
Cooking lessons - part of survival education at schools
More people can afford a fridge

Households producing energy, connected to the grid, kitchen appliances using less energy
Asia going through the bad western diet fashion of more fat and sugar as more business is done in Asia and people demand/can afford new, more expensive ingredients

Fast food and slow food revolution

Estonians will love “Tallinna kilu”, small oily fish spiced and preserved in cans

Kilupirukad: small oily fish pastries or empanadas

These pastries or small pies are made with small oily fish that we Estonians call “kilu”. They resemble canned anchovies. Both are quite salty, however “kilu” are softer than the anchovies and mostly canned as whole fish. One can also buy fillets, if you don’t want to spend time cleaning the fish off the heads and backbones.

Ingredients:

Puff pastry (ca 25x 40 cm)

12 fillets of “kilu” or anchovies

12 leaves of parsley

4 boiled eggs, cut in quarters

1 egg, beaten

Fold "kilu" or anchovis fillets with egg in puff pastry. Add dill or parsley for taste.

Heat the oven to 200°C.

Take a sheet of puff pastry and cut it into squares of 10 x 10 cm. place a fillet of fish, a leaf of parsley or some chopped dill, a quarter of a boiled egg in the middle and fold the diagonal edges across. Brush each pie with some beaten egg.

Cook in the oven for 20 minutes until golden.

Golden fish pies: Estonian Kilupirukad

Cima di Rape, Simple with Orecchiette and Polenta

I will get to cima di rape in a minute, but before I’d like to share a thought about cooking is simple and a recipe is often there just for inspiration or guideline. 

Cima di rape makes a variety of great dishes

I got a DVD with Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers from a foodie friend for Christmas. I don’t know if it is the warm yellow light in his kitchen, the sunlight in his garden when he goes around and picks the vegetables or herbs that grow in the pots or what but it is an absolute beauty of a program. It is of course his very nice English too pronouncing all the words perfectly without eating the endings. The greatest thing is that there are no real recipes with grams, decilitres or millilitres to mess about. It is really simple and anyone can adjust the recipe to their taste with more of this or less of that.

My first encounter with Nigel Slater was when years ago I had ordered some books on amazon and when the order arrived instead of what I had ordered I found a recipe book with lots of recipes and no photos by some chap called Nigel Slater. I had never heard of him then. Well, a lot of meals have been cooked and eaten since and Nigel Slater has become a famous cookbook author. I am eyeing his “Tender” in the bookshop now. If not before, then perhaps for Christmas…

Cima di rape or broccoli rabe at the market

For a few weeks I have noticed an interesting green vegetable at the farmers market. It has small broccoli like flowery heads between the deep green leaves. The appetite for the rich leafy greens in the spring time is itching my winter bored stomach and seeing all sorts of new edible greens appear on the counters is like salt and pepper to any meal. Such joy!

So I grabbed a bunch of cima di rape that in English might also be known as broccoli rape, broccoli raab or rapini, in German Stängelkohl and is popular in Southern Italy. It is grown in Switzerland to an extent and even the common supermarket is selling it, strane that I had not noticed it before.

Here are two simple recipes for two, both done in 30 minutes. Freshly cooked meals and the recipes here are really just for inspiration. Whilst most savoury recipes can be experimented with, the exceptions are cake or more complicated dessert recipes where it is useful to follow the number of eggs or grams of baking powder.

Orecchiette with cima di rape and pancetta

200g oricchietti pasta

Olive oil

500g cima di rape, chopped into 1-2 cm pieces

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1-2 peperoncini, thinly sliced

(Lemon juice of a quarter of a lemon, optional)

Salt and pepper

100g pancetta

Bring enough water to boil, add salt into the pasta water and cook the pasta till al dente.

Heat some olive oil, sauté the cima di rape with some garlic and peperoncini for ca 15 minutes until the stem bits have softened. Add the lemon juice if you chose to use it.

Add the pancetta slices and mix with the leaves. Mix the pasta with the vegetables and drizzle a little good olive oil on top. 

Orecchiette pasta with cima di rape and pancetta

Polenta with cima di rape and champignons

Ingredients:

6 dl water + 1 cube bouillon or fresh chicken stock

125g polenta

10g butter

2 tablespoons grated parmesan

0.5 dl olive oil

500g broccoli rape, cut into 1-2 cm long pieces

250g button champignons, halved or quartered if necessary

1 peperoncino, thinly sliced

1 clove of garlic or a small bunch of ramsons (green wild garlic), sliced

Salt and black pepper

Bring the water to boil with the bouillon cube and add the polenta. Turn down the heat and cook under low heat stirring often for ca 20-30 minutes until the polenta is al dente soft. At the end add the butter and parmesan and stir well to create a creamy consistency.

In the mean time in another big pan heat the oil and add the sliced garlic and peperoncinio and broccoli rape. Cook at high heat for a few minutes. Add the champignons and mix with the broccoli rape. Turn the heat to medium and continue cooking for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve the vegetables on the polenta, hot.

Sautéed broccoli rabe with champignons on polenta bed

Easter Farmers´ Market – goat’s cheese or chèvre chaud on spring greens salad

Tulips in the market

The time of the year calls that bunnies, coloured eggs both real and fake, chicken from feathers, clay or cloth, hens of every possible colour, tulips and heaps of greens have conquered the April market.

 

Easter eggs

Onion peel for colouring the eggs, 2 francs a bag

Easter Bunnies

Two new cheese stands have also sprung out of somewhere this spring. In one of them there are lots of interesting goat’s cheeses, however their selling methodology seems a bit uncoordinated with four people behind the counter and only one visibly engaged in direct selling activity. The others are trying to make way past each other bumping into each other from left to right and the other way round with pieces of cheese in their hands. It seems like Brown movement of molecules in slow motion. After waiting in line for 5 minutes without any particular movement on the other side of the counter and listening to one of the sales force talking to himself most of the time and asking pointlessly who was next and doing nothing about the answer I left and turned my steps to another small cheese stand.

I was after some goat’s cheese for my lunch and just as to turn around the bizarreness of the other stand I had disappointedly left behind there was a most beautiful kind of Romanesque young man as friendly as one can imagine and I got exactly what I wanted immediately – the last piece of the round goat’s cheese that I was looking for.

Cicco rosso

Among the things that I could eat anytime are the grilled goat’s cheese bruschettas or grilled slices of bread with melted goat’s cheese on top. On a bed of fresh portulac, rucola or rocket, young cicco rosso and verde leaves mixed salad the chèvre chaud makes my belly smile. A salad dressing made from some orange juice, olive oil, salt and pepper gives the salad and the goat’s cheese the necessary fruity note.

Chèvre chaud - grilled goat´s cheese salad

 Bruschettas with goat cheese persimmon