Around Britain with a Paunch

Smoky Somerset Horsebit

2012-01-28T10:56:00.004Z

When we woke up we could see our breath billow out of our mouths as if we’d swallowed a smoke machine. Our bedroom windows were so cold they had silvery ice on both sides. And the horses in the stables looked out past icicles. The clear sky had invited the frost to paint its early morning picture and had left the grass twinkling in the light and crackling underfoot. At times like this winter is my favourite season.

After a bowl of raisin strewn porridge and some super-strong coffee I set off for a bike ride around the exhaustingly beautiful Somerset hills as part of my training for July’s Antwerp Half Iron Man. On days like this, cycling for a few hours in the clear English countryside air is a joy rather than a chore.

After forty or so miles I was almost home and treated myself to a trip to Lagan’s Farm Shop where I picked up some vintage smoked Somerset cheddar before buying a rye sourdough loaf from the excellent bakery At the Chapel in Bruton.

On my final few miles, as my fingers started to go numb as I passed the local hunt charging around on their horses, I tossed aside the thought of a simple ploughman’s and decided instead, to give the humble Welsh Rarebit a Somerset twist. With the combination of gooey smoked cheese, morcilla, horseradish, mustard, an egg and good bread, this was so much more than just cheese on toast. This was a Smoky Somerset Horsebit.

Ingredients:

2 thick slices of sourdough rye bread
200g of smoked cheddar
1 egg
1 dessert spoon of horseradish cream
1 teaspoon of strong mustard
Some crumbled smoked sausage (such as morcilla or chorizo)

Method:

Cut the bread thickly and toast.

Grate the cheese and mix together with the egg. Stir the horseradish cream, mustard and crumbled sausage into the cheesy-egg mixture and slather on top of the toast.

Grill for 5 minutes until the cheese has melted is starting to brown.

Serve with some chutney and a cup of tea.

The smokiness of the cheese and the horseradish elevate this from being just cheese on toast, to being something that you’d happily cycle all morning for. And the horseradish is a great way of jolting your body and mind back into life. The morcilla is optional, but it does help to make this a bit richer and more satisfying.

The Hardwick, Wales

2011-12-22T10:36:00.009Z

Cowie and I always try to steal a fleeting weekend for ourselves before Christmas as a way of fluffing ourselves into the festive spirit and as something to look forward to during the manic rush of London life in December. It’s a time of false deadlines, mounting workloads and indulgent parties that cries out for a healthy dose of rural relaxation.

This year we decided to follow up on the success of trips to Y Polyn and the Felin Fach Griffin in Wales and this time head to The Hardwick near Abergavenny. It gets a great write up in Diana Henry’s Gastropub Cookbook so we could barely resist.

Cowie booked us into a phenomenal BnB which is on the Glanusk Estate which is one of the corners of the world that when you discover it you want to simultaneously tell everyone all about it, but also put people off visiting because you want to hoard the experience for yourself.

Ty’r Chanter looks across at the Brecon Beacons and up at the Black Mountains, with the River Usk roaring past in the valley below so loudly that you could easily convince someone living in Reading that it was the M4. But, whilst the motorway may be spirit sapping, this is the sort of multi sensory experience that lifts the soul. The view below, of the snow capped mountains, is from our bedroom window. And if this isn’t amazing enough, we saw a kite swoop to pluck a pheasant from the field for supper. If you are planning to stay somewhere in this part of the country, you'd be mad not to stay here.

Inspired by the view and with a major meal ahead of us, we decided to head out for a run. There’s nothing like a thirteen mile yomp through the Black Mountains past fields full of sheep and along the river Usk’s salmon rich banks, teeming with waterfalls to build up an appetite. It’s like doing a spinning class in the Ginger Pig in order to stimulate your yearning for a juicy steak, or doing some pilates in the Fromagerie to put you in the zone for a cheeseathon.

So we arrived at The Hardwick with enormous appetites and even bigger expectations. And left with the former negated and the latter more than exceeded. For this is a seriously impressive restaurant.

After spending so much time next to the Usk and having seen so many pictures in our BnB of people proudly holding enormous fish, it would have been criminal for one of us to have their locally smoked salmon and confit salmon to start. Cowie adored it. Iridescent slices of salmon were served with beetroot crisps, a mild horseradish cream and pea shoots that matched with our Gruner Veltliner/Pinot Blanc to perfection. Whilst the confit spoke for itself with a demure confidence, its smoked sibling showed off like a diva glamming up for a performance. Bold and sexy it lingered in the mouth and teased us with whisperings about what was to come next.

My salt cod belly with creamy beans and chorizo was another hit. Everything about the dish screamed try me and I couldn’t resist. The beans were soft by full of integrity, whilst the mild chorizo added a salty stockiness to the sauce. But the star was the slippery morsel of flaky white cod that sat on top that has to rank as one of my favourite tastes this year. It was rustic to look and somewhat out of place on a menu in hilly Wales, but it worked brilliantly and helped to lift the menu to a new level without being pretentiously chefy.

We toyed with the idea of sharing Dear for Two and the Taste of Local Beef for Two, but having seen so many deliciously fluffy sheep on our run, it seemed only right for us to share their iconic Baa Baa Blacksheep sharing dish. It arrived with a satisfying thud on our table and a grin from our waitress – as if to say we’d made a good choice. It was a tour de force in how to cook lamb which demonstrated amazing skill that showcased the different aspects that make this meat so special.

The highlights were the surprisingly juicy merguez sausage; the unctuous neck; the light as a balloon faggots; the decadent shepherd’s pie; and the pressed leg that came like a sheepy schnitzel. The only element that could have been better was the loin that could have done with less time over the coals. But we’re just being picky. It’s hard enough to cook lamb well one way. Let alone creating a postmodern bricolage that showcases the multifaceted essence of this magnificently local sheep.

We finished with a jar of crackly lemon pudding with curds and meringue and were impressed to see the chef walk the room after his stint at the stove. This final touch may seem frivolous. But when you make an effort to try a chef’s cooking, it makes a big difference psychologically when they are actually in the restaurant. Thinking back to other memorable meals, it certainly made our meal more special when we spoke to Heston Blumnthal at the Fat Duck and also when we were given a quick tour of El Bulli’s kitchen’s by Feran Adria. It’s not that we have got a chef fetish, but seeing Stephen Terry did help to round off a memorable meal.

We are going to return in the spring to learn to fish on the Usk, cycle up and down the Black Mountains and most importantly to eat more of The Hardwick's soulful food.

Squash + Quiche = Squiche

2011-12-19T09:03:00.003Z

We hosted a big dinner party for Cowie’s birthday recently which involved us catering for 22 people. We decided on the menu about a month beforehand which had to balance taste, generosity and budget. A large joint of meat was an option, but with this number of people it would have been hard to have cooked it just right and have fun ourselves. So we opted instead, to have some X rated fun with the sausage maker.

My first batch of what I had termed Somerset Sausages, involved mustard, cider and sage. I thought they gave the mighty Cumberland Sausage a run for its money, but Cowie thought they smelled of sick. So we jettisoned the unfortunate sage and dialed up the thyme and added some chunks of apple and a slosh of cider brandy. The result was a rich, herby, apply taste of Somerset. All we had to do now was to make enough sausages for 22 people. Gulp.

And for our starter we popped down to Mere Fish Farm to collect a dozen trout which we planned to smoke over apple wood chips and serve with a horseradish crème fraiche sauce, slices of cooked beetroot and a handful of local watercress.

With the meat and fish courses sorted we sat down and smugly gulped down some coffee. But something felt wrong. Oh God. We’ve forgotten about our vegetarian friends! Having gone to so much effort with the starter and main course we had to cook them something on a par – at least in terms of effort – but hopefully from a taste point of view as well.

The punning side of my brain kicked in as it often does in times of crisis. How about we serve a pastry-less veggie strewn quiche inside a squash and called it a squiche? Bingo.

The dinner party went brilliantly and we have subsequently made a squiche for a midweek supper together which is detailed below.

Ingredients

1 squash – Butternut, Crown Prince or any other firm textured but creamy medium sized squash
5 eggs
150g of rehydrated wild mushrooms
2 garlic cloves
1 roasted courgette
1 flamed red pepper
100g goats’ cheese
100ml cream
50g mixed chops nuts
Tarragon
Salt and pepper

Method

Cut the squash in half and scoop out the brains. Smear with olive oil and sprinkle with chopped nuts and pop a garlic clove, still in its skin, into each squash half. Season. Roast for 40 minutes until the flesh is cooked but well before it starts to lose its structural integrity.

Then make the quiche mixture as you would do normally and feel free to meddle this combination of flavours. Roast the courgette in smallish pieces and blacken the pepper over a flame before peeling the charred skin off and cutting into small pieces. Then beat the eggs and add the cream. Then mix in the tarragon, vegetables and rehydrated wild mushrooms. Add a splash or two of the mushroom liquor which will add some woody depth. Then plop in goats’ cheese in chunks and give it all a good mix.

Remove the garlic cloves and pour the quiche mixture into the squash halves. You may need to find a way of balancing the squashes so they don’t topple over and cause chaos.
Season and cook in a medium oven for 30 minutes. The egg mixture should be firm to the touch but have some springiness to it. Serve whole or in slices with a watercress salad and lentils.

So if you are struggling for ideas of what to cook a vegetarian friend, or even are wondering how to cut back on meat whist still eating something interesting, give the squiche a bash. You could give it an exotic Moroccan twist by using cumin, chilli and a scattering of nuts… or keep it more simple and let the squash speak for itself along with some complimentary ingredients from the Flavour Thesaurus.

Gravetye Manor, Revisited

2011-11-27T09:23:00.005Z

The last time I visited Gravetye Manor, in the serene Sussex countryside, was nineteen years ago for my father’s 40th birthday party. My memories are as fuzzy as a well worn jumper, but my overall recollection is of old world charm and friendly sophistication. I remember trying to be patient during what seemed like a very long and grown up lunch and then being set loose in the garden where I was allowed to run around and hide in the flower beds whilst my parents and grandparents talked about the finer points of William Robinson’s gardening aesthetic.

It was a defining moment for me – as I have a very soft spot for country estates with ideas baked into them and good food. But it was more importantly a seminal experience for my parents. They clicked with Robinson’s English Natural Gardening style and Arts and Crafts period design which have inspired a fair bit of Mum and Dad’s garden at home.

So when Gravetye invited Cowie and I for lunch I said a nostalgic yes and enjoyed our brief tour of the garden which reconnected me with my previous experience. The garden and house tie together seamlessly with views from inside over ethereal and natural planting schemes. We loved the informal and relaxed way the plants wispily jostled with each other for position – as if telling the gardener where they should be rather than vice versa. And whereas many country house gardens pretentiously follow French and Italian formal garden design, Gravetye takes a more natural approach which pervades the whole experience.

The dining room is serene and civilised, with a gentle hum of old school conversations bumbling about rugby, art and travel. I suspect the same themes have been talked about in this room for generations and will continue to be repeated forever. The food is true to its setting, but also exhibits a modern flourish with supremely fresh and local ingredients – with some coming from the estate itself and the surrounding area.

I stated with a small tranche of pristine turbot that had been laid on top of some Dorset crab and then doused in a rich shellfish bisque. It’s not often you get a chance to commence a meal such a fine fish, but when you see it on the menu as a starter it seems rude not to indulge. The waiter sealed the deal as he explained that the fish wasn’t farmed like many turbot are these days, but instead was a stunning specimen that the whole kitchen were enthralled by. Needless to say, it was pretty special.

Cowie’s quail salad was a work of meaty and eggy art. Warm, rare, quail lay strewn amongst runny little eggs, beetroot salad leaves , baby leeks and a sauce gribiche. When you cook like this there isn’t any room to hide. But it had everything that Cowie seeks in a starter and it managed to keep her away from trying to steal too much of mine!

My veal fillet with a cep from the local woods and some horseradish cream was very special. I’m not an enormous fan of foams with main courses, but when the veal is cooked this well you could serve it with a bag of cement and I’d be happy. But the real highlight was a solitary cep which had been sliced in half and then roasted to bring out it deep fungal flavour.

Cowie’s sea bass came with a slick of mushroom sauce, a scattering of cute little girolles and some bacon wrapped fingers of oystery salsify. It brought back memories of Sweden – where we first encountered salsify at Kok & Vin – and worked brilliantly with the meaty sea bass. The combination of deep, brown flavours was quintessentially autumnal.

After such a savoury main course, I was drawn to the dessert menu like a mosquito to a juicy limb. My fig custard tart with gingerbread ice cream was one of the best puddings I’ve had in a long time. I even liked the marshmallows which I normally hate. Whereas some figgy puddings are cock teases with a sensual and seedy allure but no action, this little minx should have it’s own store on Brewer Street. The deep, sultry flavour of the fig kept you coming back for more.

Cowie’s plate of banana desserts was spectacular too if a little OTT. Of the cake, cannelloni, tuile, popcorn and cream, it was the cylinder that was the most exciting experience. I was hoping that there might be a Bananaman badge in the bottom of the cake, tucked away like a ha'penny in a Christmas pudding.

Many country house hotels leave you feeling like an extra from Poirot and have trouble keeping up with menu trends. But not Gravetye. Without being aloof, stuffy or cringingly modish, it manages to offer a warm, convivial and special experience. You get the impression that it has a very loyal following of people who regard it as their unofficial club. It would make an ideal place for a celebratory weekend, a stop over before a honeymoon or simply as a great place to revel in an important birthday – just like my family did 20 years ago. Apparently 80% of the people who visit Gravetye come back again some point in the future. And I am sure we will too one day.

Many thanks indeed to Gravetye and Quintessentially for inviting us both for lunch – it was a very special afternoon and I wouldn’t have written about it, had it not lived up to the memories of my first experience there as a nipper. Find out more details about their rooms, rates and special menus by visiting the Gravetye Manor Wesbite.

Watercress Pesto with Fireplace Cooked T-Bone Steak and Polenta Chips

2011-11-22T08:34:00.003Z

We spent an idyllic week in September eating fresh figs, amazing cheese and indecent prosciutto in Italy’s Le Marche region. Our swish villa came with a communal veggie patch which generously yielded the tastiest tomatoes that have ever entered my mouth – they made the extortionately priced Swedish tomatoes I’ve tried to avoid for the last year and a half taste of gravel by comparison. Mini aubergines, sweet little peppers and not so sweet chillies were there for us to tuck into as well.

But best of all was an orchard full of cherries, damsons, and most thrillingly, fig trees. Ripe, sticky, swollen figs seemed to make it into every meal: wrapped in prosciutto, baked with honey and doused in goats’ curd – each one, more delicious than the last. Fresh eggs from the very free range chickens kept our coats nice and glossy and super thin pizza from the wood fired oven was spectacular. It was a rustically gastronomic week of cooking for ourselves that featured a classic caponata and back to back evenings of chargrilled turbot on one night and barbecued sea bass the next – all served with the freshest salads imaginable.

If you are looking for an idyllic and quiet spot for a relaxing Italian break, look no further than Casal dei Fichi where Ian and Bob will look after you like rock stars and even hook you up with gastronomic events where you can make your own olive oil or go truffle hunting.

When we went back to Cowie’s parents’ house in Somerset, we wanted to continue our Italian adventure, but with local produce. We visited Kimbers' excellent Farm Shop where a fabulous T-Bone steak gave me the eye from the chiller cabinet. When you find yourself flirting with a piece of meat, you know it’s going to be good.

We then went to John Hurd’s Watercress farm in nearby Hill Deverill. They don’t normally deal with walk in customers and tend to sell their organic watercress direct to Waitrose by the lorry load. But Simon Hurd, very kindly, gave us a tour of the farm and told us all about the ins and outs of watercress farming. It was great to meet such a passionate chap, who was so knowledgeable and proud about his produce. I loved the fact he sprays his watercress with garlic solution which keeps the bugs at bay and that the peppery mustard oil taste is nature’s way of protecting itself from being eaten. Amazingly it contains more calcium than milk and more Vitamin C than oranges.

We left with a box of watercress, Simon’s infectious enthusiasm coursing through our veins and a recipe booklet that was full of fun suggestions, including the idea of making watercress pesto which sounded like the ideal accompaniment to our steak.

We kept things simple and decided to cook the Kimbers' T-Bone steak over the fire place and to serve it with polenta chips and an emerald green watercress pesto - as a way of rekindling our Italian memories.

Steak ingredients:

T Bone steak
Olive oil
Rock salt and pepper

Watercress pesto ingredients adapted from John Hurd’s recipe book:

1 bag of watercress
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts
1 tablespoon of toasted walnuts
50-75ml olive oil
50g finely grated fresh Parmesan cheese
Sea salt and black pepper

Method:

Make the watercress peso first. In a large bowl, blitz the watercress with a hand blender, then add the toasted nuts and garlic and blend them too. Add the olive oil and continue to blend into a luscious green paste. Add salt and pepper and then the parmesan. Mix together and taste for seasoning. Pour into a sterilised jar and store in the fridge until you need it.

For the polenta chips, simply make some polenta following the on pack instructions and let it cook until it has formed a creamy sludge. At this stage mix through some chopped rosemary. Pour this into a baking tray and allow to cool and set. When this has happened cut the polenta into chip sized chunks, douse in seasoning and olive oil and roast in a hot oven until crispy.

Season the steak handsomely with rock salt. A Brazilian friend (hey Marco) taught me to coat the meat extravagantly with salt when cooking it over a flame. It helps to form a crust and guarantees an amazingly tasty steak - just make sure you bash the salt off before serving. Grind over some pepper and get your fire nice and hot. We decided to cook the steak over Cowie’s open fireplace which has the benefit of getting super hot, and a built in extractor fan, otherwise known as a chimney.

Once the flames have died down, simply grill the meat over the coals until rare on the fillet side and medium rare on the sirloin side and leave to rest.

Carve the steak so you get a nice piece of sirloin and fillet and serve with watercress pesto, polenta chips and a watercress salad. The watercress pesto has a strong, peppery tang that marries perfectly with the bloody steak.

A "Fungathlon" Brunch: AKA Wild Mushrooms on Toast

2011-11-07T09:01:00.000Z

We’ve all got traits that drive our other halves nuts. Some people leave the toilet seat up. Others are terrible washer-uppers. Some fail to ever take the bins out. Others fart in their sleep. Some snore. But the thing I do that drives Cowie nuts is to regard a run in the countryside as an opportunity to go mushroom foraging.

I’d like to think that I’ve invented a new sport called “Fungathlon” – where you have to complete a half marathon and also forage for mushrooms en-route. So when we were in the final stages of preparation for our Olympic Triathlon at Hever Castle and Cowie planned a 14 mile run for us around the gloriously undulating Longleat Estate, I saw it as a chance for some energetic foraging.

Cowie always sends me a map of our intended route to get my approval in the days before we go for a long run. I normally look at the hills and wince and then agree. But what she hasn’t realised until now is that I always check to see if we run through any woods. And if we don’t, I tend to suggest an alternative route that is more likely to yield mushrooms.

Within 50 metres of setting off we’d stumbled across a bank of chanterelles nestling in the undergrowth. Cowie ran on as I picked and inspected them. I wasn’t sure whether I should collect them and take them with me or whether I should just put down a marker so I could find them later. Common sense got the better of me and I spent the next mile catching up with Cowie who had forged on ahead.

As we ran, I dreaded someone else finding my stash of golden chanterelles. I was wracked with fear that a mushroom thief might strike. It spurred me on to run faster. Then after 10 miles, I spotted what looked like a cep winking at me from under some birch trees. Without thinking twice I vaulted a barbed wire fence and went foraging. Again, Cowie zoomed off, muttering something about “bloody mushrooms”.

As she ran off into the distance, I inspected what I thought was a cep. But I soon realised that it wasn’t quite the noble Karl Johan Svamp, but I had a strong suspicion it was an edible bolete of some sort. I quickly searched the surrounding area and found 4 or 5 more specimens, which I collected up and hid under a tree next to a discarded can of Coke with the hope that I’d be able to return later to pick them up.

I jumped back over the fence and sprinted down the hill to catch up with Cowie who was by now almost out of sight. It stuck me that this is actually an advanced form of interval training and in fact is the kind of thing they should recommend in Triathlon World magazine.

For the last 4 miles my head spun as I thought about what to cook with our haul of shrooms. I concocted mushroom and cider pates, mushroom ragus with polenta and mushroom soups in my mind as we closed in on the Bath Arms. I barely even noticed when we finished and was simply excited about picking up our mushrooms before any fungal bandit struck. We drove home via the mushroom drop zones and collected our haul which sat on my lap in the car with a reassuring covering of moss, twigs and excitable woodlouse.

We got home and, whilst Cowie showered, I checked the internet and my mushroom books to identify our collection and to check they were edible. It turned out that I was right about the chanterelles and that the boletes were in fact Birch Boletes which whilst not the very best, are regarded as being a tasty, if a little slimy.

By the time Cowie had returned from her shower I had cooked up my favourite mushroom brunch of the year. I simply sautéed the mushrooms and served them on sourdough toast from At the Chapel, in Bruton, and topped them with an egg yolk from Cowie’s hens which cooked in the residual heat of the mushrooms. And accompanied this with some invigorating watercress from John Hurd’s watercress farm which is just up the road.

It couldn’t have been more local. And it couldn’t have tasted any better. It was the most perfect brunch you could ever imagine. And left me beaming with delight for the rest of the day. It’s not often that you can combine fitness training, mushroom foraging and feasting all in one morning.

The Old Coastguard, Mousehole

2011-11-04T08:38:00.004Z

Mousehole is one my favourite places purely because of the name. A bit like Clitheroe – and a tiny village in Wiltshire, called Tiddlywink. I amused myself by insisting on pronouncing it as Mouse Hole, even though Cowie kept correcting me with “Mauzall”. The more she intervened the more childish I became and the more fond I am now of this spot that’s nestled in the Carribean waters of South West Cornwall.

Mousehole was 45 miles into our Land’s End cycle circuit, that had started at Penzance and climbed up through St. Just, so we decided to treat ourselves to a very well deserved lunch. Cowie used the lure of lunch at The Old Coastguard to keep me going – which had the result of us arriving there over an hour ahead of schedule. If I was ever to enter the Tour de France, you’d just have to dangle lunch at Pierre Gagnaire in front of me and Contador would be chasing my Lycra clad shadow.

We had been tipped off by the team at the Gurnard’s Head (their sister restaurant) that they were in a launch phase and were just warming up. So we arrived with an open mind, some very weary legs and an appetite of Chris Hoy proportions. We loved the setting, the large garden and spectacular view out to sea and settled in on the terrace for a very memorable lunch. If you’d told us that we’d just cycled to Trinidad I’d have believed you after a few more pints of Doombar.

It seemed rude not to have a couple of oysters which slipped down elegantly. I can recommend the shear sensuality of eating oysters whilst wearing nothing but Lycra: it seems to heighten the oystery pleasure.

A sympathetically dressed goat’s cheese and fennel salad was fresher than a student in the first energetic thrusts of university.

And a tomato and shallot salad with basil and balsamic vinegar was about as good as it can be in the UK, without access to intense Mediterranean sunshine. We loved the Hula Hoops of shallot whose intensity had been mellowed by the vinegar.

My crispy skinned hake with mustard béarnaise and fennel was just what my weary legs needed and is a dish that I’ll be attempting at home. The anise flavour of the tarragon in the béarnaise held hands with the fennel to create a dish that shows that the kitchen is going to be an exciting prospect when it is firing on all cylinders.

Things got even better when I asked whether there happened to be a good fishmonger nearby the waitress – with a straight face – asked whether I knew that Newlyn was the next door village, which she, helpfully, pointed out is home to one of the UK’s main fishing fleets. Whoops.

Whilst The Old Coastguard doesn’t yet have the same cosy warmth and charm as the Gurnard’s Head and Felin Fach Griffin in terms of pubby atmosphere, its setting and the well heeled locals mark this out as one to watch for the future. I can’t wait to return next summer – except maybe next time for dinner and not wearing anything quite so figure hugging.

The Gurnard’s Head - Revisited

2011-10-16T20:50:00.005+01:00

We had one of our favourite meals of all time at Gurnard’s Head back in 2009. It was only a light lunch of fish soup and grilled fish, but it was so perfect in its charm and flavour soaked simplicity that we left craving more. Inspired by our Cornish epiphany we went to The Gurnard’s Head’s sister pub in the Brecon Beacons called the Felin Fach Griffin and had an experience that was almost as good – it just made us want to return to the mother ship for more.

The Gurnard’s Head Inn is beyond St. Ives, not far from Land’s End and set back from a stunning stretch of Atlantic coastline. So it isn’t a place you can just pop along to on a whim. You need to build an entire holiday around it. So we decided to splash out on food rather than a roof over our head and found ourselves in Noongalllas's enchanting field between Penzance and St. Ives - where you rise from your tent to the sound of cows and the sight of a VW camper van selling coffee and croissants and go to sleep the sound of dropping pins.

We wanted to experience as much Gurnard’s Head goodness as possible so we walked down the National Trust coastal path with a picnic to explore the scenery. It turns out that The Gurnard’s Head itself is a rocky outcrop that stretches out into the Atlantic in the shape of a fish head, sheltering Treen Cove from the often ferocious sea. It’s been described as “one of the most striking and beautiful promontories in Cornwall” and is worth a visit with or without the brilliance of the restaurant.

The simply perfect 360 view, the roasting heat of the south facing natural sun deck and the cool breeze from the sea makes this outcrop our favourite bit of geography in the UK. After a perfect picnic we headed back to our tent to tart ourselves up and returned ravenously to the Gurnard’s Head for dinner.

We arrived with high expectations and settled in for what turned out to be a memorable meal. Please excuse the grainy pictures and I hope I can do the food justice with a scattering of words.

Pigeon salad with game chips, lambs lettuce and a turbo charged berry gravy was Cowie’s idea of heaven. The flesh was pinker than a camp panther with Cowie’s only criticism being that she’d like to have it all over again.

My crispy pig’s ear salad with peas, pork belly and a sticky sauce is the kind of dish that excites you about the rest of the meal to come, like a shot of adrenaline before a rugby match – just as starters are supposed to. With a glass of dry sherry it ranks as my favourite starts to a meal of the year.

Cowie’s cod, which came with a mound of puréed beans, carmelised fennel and a waft of truffle, was epic. It was as if the chef had briefed a silk worm to create a cocoon for the fish to be cooked in. It’s rare to find fish cooked with this level of care and intelligence. The purée complemented the softness of the fish and the fennel’s distinct fronds mirrored the flaky nature of the flesh.

My hake with basil gnocchi and spinach was the best thing I’ve eaten all year. Crisp skin, flaking flesh and a rich fishy depth had me savouring each bite - whilst the gnocchi’s fondant texture and loud basil flavour added several layers to this sensual feast. I know I’m wanging on about this dish, but it was pretty good.

We shared some delicious ice cream for dessert and lingered over coffee to absorb the atmosphere and avoid retuning prematurely to our tent. We fell in love with a playful spaniel puppy that epitomised the pub’s bosom like atmosphere as he scampered between tables and rolled over to have his tummy rubbed. If I was forced to choose a final meal – there’s a fair chance that the Gurnard’s Head would be near the top of my list to rustle it up.

A Real Bastard in Malmö

2011-06-21T07:08:00.002+01:00

When I said I was going to Malmö for dinner one Swedish friend scoffed at the idea. “Why go to such a cultural backwater at all, let alone for dinner?” I find it odd how Gothenburgers are much fonder of Copenhagen than of Stockholm or Malmö, yet pretty much detest the very thought of Denmark. In fact many Swedes joke that they’d like to give the bottom portion of Sweden to the Danes!

So with these cultural tensions in mind, my sister and I decided to pop in for dinner at a restaurant called Bastard in Malmö on our way back to Gothenburg from Copenhagen. It had been recommended by Magnus as one of his favourite restaurants so we felt on firm ground despite the rather ominous name.

Bastard is the closest thing to a gastro-pub that I’ve found in Sweden, in terms of the style, menu, open kitchen and central bar that you can sit around. It’s a sort of bistro-cum-gastropub but without the cosy pubbiness and with a slap of St. John offal and a tickle of Italian sourcing and technique.

We sat at the bar and let our stomachs rule our heads, knowing that we had three hours on a train to snooze off our dinner. As we sipped an icy glass of Gruner we watched a Schindler’s List red meat slicer whirr through irresistible nuggets of cured pig and did the only thing that was right and gave in.

The pate, lard, porchetta and rilletes were superb. The only downside was that the charcuterie had been proudly imported from Italy, whereas I was very keen to sample something a bit more Swedish, Danish or dare I say it, homemade as it is at Björns Bar in Gothenburg or at the best pubs back in the UK. Skagenskinka is renowned for instance, for being a very fine smoked Danish ham and there is a strong tradition in Scandinavia for doing wonderfully naughty things with pigs. Whilst the "plank" was delicious, it seemed like Andreas Dahlberg may have missed a trick.

The star of the show was a beef heart salad with radicchio, rocket and Parmesan which left my sister and I fighting bitterly over the last sweet scraps. It balanced bitterness, saltiness, heat and meatiness perfectly. It transported me back to having a morsel of a friend’s grilled ox heart at St. John, which could hardly be higher praise. It was one of the best things I’ve eaten all year.

Ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta and doused in a fine butter sauce were splendid. Often they can be watery or, worse still like eating a snot filled hanky. But these were well made and generously filled without being the sort of thing you want to send a postcard home about or write more than sixty three words in a blog post about.

The other standout dish was a generous slab or pork belly topped with a chickpea puree and a fennel and pea shoot salad. Words such as glorious; sounds such as oink oink; and feelings such as mmmmm flood back as I look at the photo above. The pork was cravenly moist and depth-charged with flavour whilst the other elements added lubrication and lightness to offset the meatiness. It’s a thrill to find a new take on pork belly – and one I’m keen to recreate at home.

We waddled away from the bar feeling inspired by Malmö and snoozed all the way home to Gothenburg dreaming that Bastard might decide to move up the coast and grace the streets of Little London. For it offers something that Gothenburg desperately needs – imaginative, informal, top class cooking, but without the desperate need to compete with Stockholm, chase after a star or laboriously serve dainty tasting menus. In fact, it’s worth going to Malmö just to eat at Bastard.

Bastard
Mäster Johansgatan 11, Malmö
Tel +46 40-12 13 18
info@bastardrestaurant.se
Facebook page

Swedish Bread and Butter Kanelbulle Pudding with Bourbon and Bananas

2011-06-14T07:15:00.002+01:00

Gothenburgers are known as the jokers in straight laced Sweden. Whenever a cartoon character or film role requires an amusing protagonist, they always cast someone from Gothenburg. It bubbles up a lot at work with very few days passing without an email chain awash with Swedish puns that are so obvious that even I can spot them.

As a sign that I’ve gone slightly native, I’ve found myself creating recipes based on how good the pun would sound, rather than what the end result would taste like: truly a recipe for disaster. Whilst this might create entertaining fodder for a blog post, it doesn’t necessarily translate to deliciousness. I found myself creating a dinner party menu full of ideas that sounded funny but were duty bound to taste awful. Having got a laugh at the idea of Stromanoff (herring stroganoff) I changed tack and used salmon far more successfully instead. And even then I tried to ruin it by calling it “laxanoff”.

Whilst the punning is fun and dangerous, I’ve found it very liberating as it lets you combine ideas and flavours with more energy, such as inventing a Swaesar Salad. Which leads me to one cultural mash up that worked brilliantly. I was fumbling around the supermarket trying to rustle up a fun dessert that married British and Swedish cultures, when I stumbled across the idea of creating a Scandi version of bread and butter pudding. Given that the Swedes have a pudding and baking culture that would make Greg Wallace walk around with a permanent boner, it felt like it could really work.

One of Sweden’s most iconic culinary emblems is the kanelbulle – which is a swirled a cinnamon bun, sprinkled with crystalised sugar that is as prevalent over here as a doughnut would be in the USA. They are part and parcel of any casual “fika” which sees Swedes devour a cheeky little cake with a friend and a coffee. But fika isn’t just coffee and a cake – it’s a cultural institution that Henry James could have waffled on about as a follow up to A Portrait of a Lady.

So with the unlikely pair of Greg Wallace and Henry James in mind I dreamt up the idea of creating a kanelbulle-bread and butter pudding. It works with croissants and marmalade, so why not cinnamon buns?

To make it a bit more grown up and to add offer up another flavour to enhance the cinnamon I decided to supplement it with bourbon, bananas and sultanas. And with this thought process, the world’s first kanelbulle bread and butter pudding was born. Here’s how to make it.

Ingredients

1 large family sized kanelbulle, 5 normal kanelbulle or a bag of mini kanelbulle
2 bananas sliced
100g of sultanas
500ml of custard
50ml of bourbon
100ml of cream
50g of brown sugar

Method

If you’re lucky enough to have a large kanelbulle, cut it into a series of 1 cm thick slices. Otherwise just slice the smaller ones and make do. Layer the slices with the bananas and then sprinkle with sultanas in a baking dish. Douse with bourbon. Add another layer just like the first and arrange the slices so they make a nice pattern. Then unleash the custard and cream. Let the custard and cream seep in and then sprinkle some brown sugar on top.

Bake in a medium oven for 30-40 minutes and serve with ice cream.

It far exceeded my expectations and I am now looking forward to cooking it again on October 4th - which is National Kanelbulle Day in Sweden.

Thank you Christian for the photographs. And to Bengt Olof Åradsson / Wikipedia for the image at the top.

Swedish Lobster Safari – A Wild Lobster Hunt

2011-06-11T15:09:00.005+01:00

“Would you be interested in going on a lobster safari, Jonathan?”

This is probably the best question I’ve ever been asked in my whole life. It’s the sort of question that makes you want to walk out onto the street and hug people. The sort of question that makes you want to give every penny to charity. The sort of question that is overflowing with unfettered positivity.

I accepted the invitation from the lovely people at the West Coast of Sweden Tourism board quicker than you could say “hummer-bra”. Having enjoyed my experience on a Mussel Safari back in the Autumn along the idyllic West Coast, I wasn’t going to miss out.

After some cursory research and some energetic emailing it emerged that Sweden and Norway are renowned for being home to some of the world’s tastiest lobsters. Apparently the cold, deep waters encourage lobsters to grow at a glacial pace which makes them more flavoursome. The icy winter conditions and strict laws forbidding fishing for lobster during the summer spawning months makes them harder to catch. Given that food tastes better when it is more scarce, more expensive and when you have gone to more effort to catch it, it’s no surprise that Scandinavian lobster is so tasty.

We drove up the West Coast Highway to Strömstad where we caught a ferry to South Koster Island with the warning that the chilly April waters would mean that we would be lucky to actually catch any lobsters ourselves. The coastal scenery, as ever, was staggeringly beautiful. It’s worth visiting whether you are on a “Wild Lobster Chase” or not. Remote. Craggy. Elegiac. And a balance of soft and harsh textures that makes you realise why Scandinavians make such frustratingly natural designers. It’s not surprising that the Koster Islands, just a few miles from Norway, are both a protected nature reserve and a mecca for red and blue flagged yachts.

We arrived at our hotel in Ekenäs, to find rooms looking out over the mackerel hued sea and a small flotilla of charming staff who answered our excited cascade of questions about lobsters and ushered us towards some lunch to prepare ourselves for the high seas.

A very tender, but thin, beef stew with onions and potatoes was transformed by the addition of crème fraîche and gherkins. A rustic balance of creaminess, acidity, crunch, freshness and beefy depth.

More refined, although terribly photographed, was a “cooked to perfection” trout with a creamy roe sauce and braised greens. My fears that the trout had been overcooked couldn’t have been more wrong. The flesh Dita-von-Teesed away from the bone and the roe sauce added to the sensuality as it burst saltily in the mouth. Meanwhile, the cucumber and braised beans were so good that I’m going to insist on cucumber being cooked this way from now on.

With our loins girdled and our sea legs filled with ballast, we ventured down to the harbour to meet our Lobster Safari Ranger. Johan was everything you’ve imagined a Swedish captain to be: larger than life, grizzly, weathered, bearded and blessed with a sense of humour that twinkled brighter than a Catherine wheel.

With our expectations of catching lobsters set very low, we chugged out to inspect Johan’s 14 creels that had only been in the water for 3 days. The water was still so cold that areas had only just thawed, so the lobsters were still in hiding and not likely to have made the mistake of falling into our mackerel baited trap.

Johan and his assistant hauled in the first few pots, but to no avail. They weren’t just devoid of lobsters – they weren’t even filling up with seaweed! Sadly the story was no different than when we took over. I managed to net a starfish, but other than that it was more a case of checking to see if the pots were still in one piece.

Johan assured us that despite our pitiful haul, we’d still be in for a lobster treat for dinner. And with that reassuring message reverberating in our minds, I took over the wheel and guided us around the islands to enjoy the amazing scenery as Johan regaled us with tales about the fierce rivalry between North and South Koster. The animosity between the islands is so strong that Johan’s father from the south island, refused to step foot on the northerly rival which is seen as more developed despite having a population of no more than a few hundred. The islands’ history and folklore is almost entirely dominated by fishing.

We heard tales of one fisherman accidentally catching 10 tonnes of dogfish; of a crazy Scottish man who had invented a novel way to catch langoustine who is now farming snails for the Asian market; of prawns that glow in the dark; of mackerel schools that are denser than concrete; and of a lobster heist that saw 1million SEKs worth of shellfish being stolen from local creels that could become the plot for Ocean’s 14.

As we made our way back to the hotel’s pontoon, we marveled at the views which almost made up for the lack of lobster…

Craggy seafront of South Koster

Sea view towards South Koster

Classic harbour huts on North Koster Island

The chain ferry linking North and South Koster

Trio of houses in sunshine as we left the harbour

Trio of houses under cloud cover as we returned

Trio of houses in twilight before we went for dinner

The early April light licked the shores with golden beams one minute and cursed it with withering coldness the next. Whilst we hadn’t caught any lobsters, we had enjoyed a magical boat ride and got an exhilarating taste of what life is like on the Koster Islands. But as we prepared for dinner we worried that we’d be punished for our poor fishing performance by taking lobster off the menu. Luckily, our fears were unfounded. Johan had responded to our poor catch not by scuttling his boat or making us walk the plank, but by nabbing a couple of lobsters off a friendly fisherman.

To our delight our meal started with a magnificent cold boiled lobster from less than a mile away. Served with aioli and mayonnaise it was everything you want from the king of the sea. Rich, tender and imbued with the sort of salty depth that makes you want to regurgitate each mouthful to enjoy it all over again.

Next came a second lobster that had been removed from its armour, poached in butter and anointed with a sauce made reduced lobster bisque. It came with a piece of soft claw meat, some lavishly buttery mash and a scattering of beans. It was every bit as decadent to eat as it looks and sounds. The only way it could have tasted better would have been if we had caught them ourselves.

As we finished the evening with lashings of rum and whisky, we reflected on our lobster odyssey and drank our final dram with a warm feeling of deep satisfaction. If Carlsberg were to offer fishing trips, this is how they’d do them.

This trip took place on the 9th April, towards the end of the lobster season which finished on the last day of April. It was set up and funded by the wonderfully generous people at the West Coast of Sweden Tourist Board.

The lobster safari is part of a series of fishing safaris that they organise up and down the West Coast. They also do oyster, mussel, prawn and crayfish safaris which you can find out about here. The lobster season starts again in September.

Sublime Smørrebrød at Aamanns in Copenhagen

2011-06-06T07:56:00.003+01:00

Copenhagen is now officially one of my favourite cities. Not because of the snazzy design shops. Not because of the Wild West feel of Christiana. Not because it is home to Noma. Not because of the unforgettable meal we had at Geranium. Not because of the architecture. Not because of the crazy café culture that makes you want to while away the hours with an IV drip of latté and a good book. Or even their amazing hot dogs. But because of a sandwich shop called Aamanns.

Aamanns serves some of the world’s finest open sandwiches. They are mini works of art, like tiny installations at the Chelsea Flower show. They aren’t just tasty and well made, but are architectural flourishes of breathtaking beauty.

The Danes are well know for their open sandwiches which are locally known as smørrebrød which translates as butter and bread. They are a relic of the Medieval “trencher” which saw stale bread used as an edible plate and can be found in various forms across Scandinavia. But it’s commonly accepted that Denmark is their spiritual home. The team at Aamanns have mastered the art of balancing flavour, texture, appearance and whimsy to create a spread of sandwiches that makes you want to kneel down and do a Wayne’s World.

A venison tartar with crisps, watercress, capers, crème fraîche and gherkins was truly magnificent. The rye bread added a sweet and sour note that brought out the richness of the silky meat whilst the crisp crunch of the precarious toppings elevated this to “favourite sandwich ever” levels.

An egg and cress sandwich with prawns and a rich mayonnaise was a classy riff on the classic M&S sandwich. Whilst a bit bland, it was beautiful to behold and was still in a different league to normal sandwiches.

A smoked haddock number with caviar, shallots, chives, dill, game chips and crème fraîche was magnificent. It looked like a latticed Viking sailing boat being sent out to ravage a northern European rival. Again, the textures were as important as the flavours as the crisp game chips, crunchy shallots, soft fish and poppy caviar playfully charmed their way to greatness.

Rare roast beef with piccalilli, shaved horseradish, deep fried shallot shards and parsley wasn’t half bad either. It makes a standard roast beef sandwich look incredibly average by comparison.

And a cod sandwich with a poached leeks, crisped onion sprinkles and a pea puree was an unexpectedly delicious delight. The soft, pure textural experience of the fish contrasted with the sweet jaggedness of the crisped onions and mellowed with the cool leeks. And all dialed up to the next level by a smidgen of mint and tarragon

This quality of sandwich experience doesn’t come cheap. But, at about £7-8 a sandwich, you can nip into Aamanns for one of Denmark’s most iconic culinary experiences and walk out feeling like you’ve won. Aamanns is a high class bargain in a city that's far from cheap. For there can’t be anywhere in the world that serves sandwiches as majestic as these.

Aamanns captures the spirit of Copenhagen that I’ve fallen in love with. It is down to earth. It marries form with function without making a big deal about it. It’s considered. It’s international. It’s the best it could possibly be. But above all Aamanns excels at what Copenhagen excels at: elevating the humble to the glorious.

Swedish Salmon Stroganoff

2011-06-01T08:31:00.008+01:00

Swedish food culture is hard to articulate – for it doesn’t follow an easily digestible narrative. At first glance it seems healthy and fishy, but the more you dig into it, the more intriguing it becomes. So far I’ve detected three strands that compete and overlap.

The first area is that of the Nordic Diet which I have written about a fair bit, which sees meat and heavy carbs replaced by root vegetables, fish and slow release grains. Whilst it might seem like all Swedes eat this way, that isn’t very close to the truth. The reality is a bit more stodgy.

The second is Sweden’s native food culture, which isn’t that far off the hearty fare we know and love in Britain. Rich stews, lashings of potatoes, creamy sauces and overcooked vegetables are part and parcel of the Swedish cuisine that is called Husmanskost, or in other words, rustic homecooking from yesteryear. Like in Britain, this traditional and heavy approach to cooking has taken a back seat as daughters failed to pick up skills they would have otherwise learnt at their mother’s apron strings. But it is now making a comeback with Leif Mannerström at the helm.

The third strand is the way that Sweden has imported and bastardised many dishes from elsewhere such as Kåldolmar, much in the same way that we have done so with Indian food in the UK and the Americans do with Mexican food. They also love to slap doner kebab on pizzas and cover them, cravenly in burger sauce. Interestignly, one of Sweden’s most popular dishes is Korv Stroganoff, which sees beef fillet replaced by sausage. I made the mistake of mocking someone’s sausage stroganoff at work, only to find out it’s a cultural classic – up there with pickled herring and meatballs. So I wondered, could I bastardise the bastard to create the most illegitimate lovechild Sweden has ever seen. What if I replaced the sausage, which replaced the beef, with fish?

And lo, Swedish Salmon Stroganoff was born. I switched the shallots for fennel; the mushroom soup for lobster bisque; the parsley for tarragon; and kept everything else the same.

Serves 6

Ingredients

6 salmon fillets with the skin on
500g of button mushrooms
500ml of shrimp stock (or if desperate a can of lobster bisque)
300g of crème fraiche
Tarragon
Parsley
3 fennel bulbs
1 can of mushroom soup
Fennel seeds
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Lemon
Serve with roast courgettes and rice

Method

Slice the fennel up into slithers, season and sauté with the fennel seeds until soft. Then do the same with the mushrooms until cooked. Combine the two and then add the shrimp stock which you want to reduce by half. Once this has reduced, add the mushroom soup, tarragon, parsley and the crème fraiche.

Meanwhile, season the salmon fillets and sear the skin until crisp.

Then pour the fennel and mushroom sauce into a baking tray and position the salmon so that the skin sits clear of the liquid and bake in a medium-hot preheated oven for 10 minutes until the salmon is only just cooked.

Serve with rice, roast courgettes, a grating of lemon zest and a segment of lemon. Then garnish with parsley and tarragon and let everyone tuck in. It’s great with a glass of fresh white wine such as a Sauvignon Blanc or a dry German Riesling.

Thank you to Christian for the atmospheric action shots from a recent dinner party where this dish made its debut. And thanks you to Sofia, Magnus, Nina, Anna and Leah for being such fantastic guinea pigs. But most importantly thanks for persuading me not to call this dish “Laxanoff”!

Generational Cooking Article for Fire & Knives

2011-05-25T19:41:00.002+01:00

Many of you I am sure have either heard of, or indeed already subscribe to Tim Hayward's excellent Fire & Knives journal that's dedicated to off-beat food writing. For those of you who haven't, I am sure you'd love it and I implore you to sign up for a subscription.

I recently wrote an article for the 6th edition, which rather geekily uses Strauss and Howe's Generation Theory to explain our relationships with the food writers Britain has cyclically cherished during the 20th century and looking forward to predict how things will evolve in the future.

It argues that Elizabeth David was a product of the GI Generation; how Delia Smith was the embodiment of the Silent Generation's traits; how Keith Floyd was Boomer to the core; how Jamie Oliver couldn't be more Generation X if he tried; and offers some thoughts on who might emerge as the Millennial Generation's foodie darling.

If you read it in Fire & Knives I'd love to know what you thought and if you haven't, jump onto the website and order yourself a spanking fresh copy.

A Superior Swedish Shrimp Sandwich

2011-05-08T09:04:00.002+01:00

Piercingly clear air. Baskingly warm sunshine. An almost un-Scandinavian feeling of camaraderie. Smiling faces sipping coffee. Children let loose from their reins. Beseandled feet. The most enchanting day so far of 2011.

I rarely get a weekend to myself in Gothenburg. So when they pop up I tend to try to indulge in all the things I love about this city. After a stimulating swim and sauna I tend to head to the fish church to stock up on seafood for the week ahead.

I always have my eye out for something a bit different and today an array of corral red shrimps caught my eye. They made the standard prawns look beige by comparison. The fishmonger explained that they were Scandinavia’s version of the King Prawn (Kungsräkor), from the deep chilly waters off the West Coast of Sweden and Norway. He said that they aren’t much known about and have a more lobstery taste than standard prawns. Interestingly, they very proudly display their provenance – indicating that these were from the waters around Styrsö and were caught at a depth of 280 metres. For those of you who thought that prawns were prawns, think again. They take their shellfish so seriously over here that they don’t just tell you where they were from, but also how deep they were caught.

Feeling more than a little bit giddy about the thought of eating my Kungsräkor (King Prawns) I quickly decided that they would make the perfect jewels in a regal shrimp sandwich. I picked up some glasört (samphire) and then headed off to my favourite café and baker (Da Matteo) where I found an exquisite loaf of rye sourdough that seemed to weigh as much as an ingot of gold. A slurp of their amazing cappuccino and a naughty chocolate croissant restored my energy levels and sent me speeding back on my bike to my apartment.

I inspected my Swedish Shellfish bible by Leif Mannerström and found a recipe for Shrimp Sandwiches. I loosely followed his advice but broke two of his golden rules – I switched the homemade mayonnaise for crème fraiche and tossed aside his dictat to only ever consider using soft white bread. I also added samphire and avocado to make it more indulgent. But the rest of the recipe isn’t far off. And it Is in line with his simple, rustic and honest approach so I am sure he wouldn’t shot at me too much. And to appease him further I kept the shells as he implores and made them into an incredibly rich stock.

Ingredients:

500g of Kungsräkor with roe
3 slices of rye bread
3 tablespoons of crème fraiche
3 radishes
½ avocado
Wedge of lemon
Salad leaves
Handful of blanched samphire
Salt and pepper
Method

Method:

Peel the prawns and chuck the shells into the pan you’ll make your stock in later. Plop the roe into a separate bowl. It’s a bit fiddly because the shells are thinner and more clingy than normal prawns, but it’s quite therapeutic.

Slice the rye bread and smear with crème fraiche. Lay the samphire on top and then create a layer of prawns that look as though they are spooning each other. Arrange some salad leaves around the outside, lob on a few slices of avocado and radish. Then finish it off with a smattering of lemon and a gung ho scattering of salt and pepper. Then anoint with the crimson roe.

In Sweden you can barely move for shrimp sandwiches. But it's hard to find a really good one. Too often there's too much mayonnaise and the prawns are tasteless. But not so here. The rye sourdough added texture, sweetness and acidity which helped to make the special shrimps taste even more of themselves. And the radishes and samphire, inspired by our trip to Aamanns in Copenhagen, turned this from being a standard shrimp sandwich into a superior shrimp sandwich.

Smoked Mackerel and Beetroot Speltotto

2011-05-01T23:26:00.006+01:00

As regular readers know I am partial to a risotto. But with my loose adoption of the Nordic Diet, which spurns simple carbohydrates, I’ve not been able to enjoy them as freely as I’d like to. Trina Hahnemann instead suggests using whole grain risotto rice, but I’ve struggled to find it in Sweden – and even struggled to lay my hands on any on a recent trip to Florence. So instead, like a heroin addict trying to find a cure, I found solace, not in cough medicine, but in spelt. Sure, it doesn’t give you quite the same smack as a true risotto, but it packs twice as much protein and less sugars, so is better for you, without being too worthy.

In Sweden spelt is called dinkel, which is a name I rather like. Partly because it reminds me of Claudia Winkleman, but also because it just sounds so innocent. I bought a packet of dinkel grains from a brand called Saltå which I can’t recommend highly enough. Now, when I look on my shelves, I see a line of beautifully designed packages, replete with an iconic, lino cut image of an old fashioned mill, stamped onto reassuringly thick brown paper. I’ve got their whole grain spaghetti, their spelt flour, their red rice, their quinoa, their amazing porridge oats and now their spelt. Many of their products are bio-dynamic, most are organic, all are superbly made and none have ever let me down. They’ve managed to make the terribly dull world of goody two-shoes carbs, just a little bit sexy.

Not knowing quite what to do with my spelt I consulted Twitter and was sent in the direction of the Sharpham Park website which suggested using pearled spelt as a risotto rice substitute. I’ve shamelessly stolen the term “speltotto” from the chaps at Sharpham, although maybe Dinkelotto would be more fitting. As ever, my beetroot fetish continues unabated and it always goes well with smoked mackerel, a splodge of goat’s curd and a sprinkling of chives. Previous experience of making beetroot risottos has meant that I’ve given their recipe a sharp tweak to get the maximum beet-impact.

Ingredients

100g Dinkel / Spelt per person
1 smoked mackerel
1 finely chopped shallot
1 glass of white wine
Goat’s curd or goat’s cheese
4 beetroot
Chives
1 litre of stock
Olive oil
Butter
Salt
Pepper

Method

Peel the beetroot and dice them very finely. Then add them to a pan, cover with the stock and simmer until the beetroot is tender. Reserve the liquid, for this will be your ruby red stock. Sharpham Park suggest grating, but if you do this, I think you miss out on texture and colour.

Fry the shallot until tender. Add the spelt as you would do with risotto rice. Then after it has crackled for a minute add the wine. Let it huff and puff like a thirsty dragon and then add the crimson beetroot stock and reserve the beetroot solids. Continue until the spelt has absorbed the liquid and has softened which could take anywhere from 20 minutes to 50! (You can reduce the cooking time by soaking the spelt overnight). Add the beetroot pieces towards the end.

Then when the spelt is cooked beat in some butter and season with gusto. Integrate the smoked mackerel and goat’s cheese. And finally, sprinkle over some chopped chives.

It’s an earthy, toothsome, beast, so works well with something piercing to offset the deep flavours – a decent glass or two of dry German Riesling would hit the spot. My final piece of advice, aside from not wearing white, is to make a big batch and enjoy it for lunch the next day and also as alarmingly coloured arancini.

Triathlon Training at The Greyhound, Stockbridge, Hampshire

2011-04-27T09:24:00.004+01:00

Food tastes so much more vivid when you feel like you deserve it. We discovered this on our epic cycle trips for lunch which took us to Wild Garlic in Dorset, Bills in Lewes, The Horse Guards Inn in Sussex, The Hole in the Wall in Cambridgeshire and the awful Albany in Thames Ditton. It was a great way of making Cowie’s triathlon training fun for both of us. Circumstances have changed since then, with Cowie’s bike being pinched and now it’s me that’s in training whilst living in Sweden. So in light of this we decided to preface our dinner at The Greyhound in Stockbridge with a cheeky half marathon through the Hampshire countryside.

We arrived in Stockbridge on a glorious late winter’s lunchtime, donned on our running kit and spent the next 110 minutes marvelling at the stunning countryside, whilst gasping for breath. Our time would have been considerably quicker had I not kept on darting into the bushes to look at mushrooms! It’s fair to say that our run acquainted us with the pub’s “terroir”, or whatever the less poncy English equivalent would be. And more importantly left us famished. I was hoping that on our return to the pub that we’d be treated like London Marathon runners – but with the free Lucozade and power gels being switched for pints of ale and pork pies.

The Greyhound is one of the feature pubs in Diana Henry’s Gastropub Cookbook, which from past experience is normally a cast iron recommendation. The menu is pleasingly short and full of hearty options with the odd hint of flair, whilst the wine list offers a far more interesting range of wines than you’d expect. The cosy dining room with soft lighting and nude wooden tables is the perfect balance of rusti-city.

After bingeing on not terribly impressive bread, Cowie’s plump Scottish scallops with Jerusalem artichoke puree, chorizo and sweet potato crisps were very welcome. The superb cooking and beautiful presentation ensured this archetypal modern British starter didn’t slip into cliché territory. Cleverly, the crunch of the sweet potato crisps made the scallops taste even more of themselves. It was a cracking multi-sensory plate of food that drew you in to its warm embrace. The only thing it lacked was a sharp element, but in fairness a glass of Sauvignon Blanc picked up where the food left off.

My soft boiled duck egg croquette with smoked salmon and herb aioli was exactly what my aching muscles were yearning for. I adore duck eggs but unfortunately they have a rather gassy effect on me, which meant that Cowie almost disowned me for ordering them. In fact, this petty act of rebellion made it taste even better. The thin, crisp batter around the soft egg was perfectly executed. The smoked salmon was very good too, without being phenomenal, but the real highlight was the way that these rich elements combined with the peppery salad leaves to elevate this to a higher plane.

Cowie’s venison was beautifully crimson and sauced with a slurry of savoury, rural flavours. The earthy spinach, beetroot and venison tasted like an artist’s impression of the run we had just been on. Good solid stuff.

My tower of pork, crackling, fondant potato, fennel rillette and cider velouté, looked and read a bit like a Gordon Ramsay dish from 2003. Whilst it looked a bit Esher, it tasted of Exmoor. Aside from the name and look, my only criticism was the slightly dry meat and overly salted crackling which felt like it had been hanging around a bit too long. Is it just me being a snob, or are stacks of food a bit naff these days?

Puddings were from the comforting end of the spectrum as you’d hope from a pub. Illicitly creamy rice pudding with rhubarb compote was one of the best I’ve had and Cowie’s pear tatin was decent without being anything to get too excited about.

We dragged our weary bodies up to our sloping, but very comfortable bed and reflected on our well deserved evening of indulgence. Over an excellent breakfast we picked apart our meal from the previous night. We agreed that the food had been very well cooked. But we wondered whether it would have been more interesting had the food reflected the surroundings more. What if Mr. Smidgens from Longstock had smoked the salmon? What if Farmer Geoffrey from Stockbridge had provided the duck eggs? What if the venison had come from the New Forrest? What if the menu had been written in plain English rather than borrowing the occasional fancy expression from French? What if the menu had been studded with a few Hampshire classics? And does any of this even matter?

When we re-read the menu it could have been from any fancy pub in the UK – whereas our favourite country pub experiences have had a more obvious and attractive connection with their location; all the meat at Y Polyn was from local farmers and the sea trout was caught by a coracle fisherman; at the Wellington Arms the game is provided by a local huntsman; and at the Kings Arms in Strete all the fish is from the local harbour. The fact that Scotland featured three times on the menu in the form of mussels, scallops and beef and the local area only twice with cheese from the Isle of White and pork from Greenfield farm, isn’t a big deal, but it would have been great to feel like you are eating the best food that the local countryside has to offer. Likewise, there’s something reassuring about seeing offal and slow cooked dishes that turn pigs ears into silken purses, but “loin”, “breast”, “fillet” and “rib-eye” occupied the expensive shallow end of the taste spectrum rather than the powerful deep end of ox-tail, belly, cheeks and trotters that make me want to dive in off the top board.

In short, whilst the food was delicious and we’d recommend it warmly, we didn’t think it quite lived up to the top billing it gets in The Gastropub Cookbook. The food is safer and more restauranty than we were hoping for and lacking that thrilling punch of offal, slow cooked meat, imagination and local soul that are part of the best gastropubs’ DNA.

As we drove back to London we wondered whether Diana Henry’s books, which we’ve loved, are beginning to show their age. The first version is now seven years old and I imagine many of the chefs have moved on – as is the case with The Greyhound – and pubs will have changed hands. And the gastropub movement has evolved dramatically since then. Maybe it’s time for a new edition? If Diana Henry wants a sidekick to help with this arduous task, Cowie and I would love to help!

Chilli con Oxtail

2011-03-26T23:56:00.004Z

With Gothenburg’s drawn-out winter coming to a welcome end and the sun melting away the iced over canals I find myself looking forward to BBQs, grilled fish and summery salads. But whilst the sun is warm when it’s out the thermometer struggles to get above zero in the shade. Such chilly evenings mean that Stewie Griffin – my slow cooker – has still got a role to play. Although I suspect this Mexican oxtail stew is probably his last outing for many months. And fittingly, he’s gone out with a bang.

Stewie has dealt with many a chilli. As I go to sleep he takes over and nurses his tough, sinewy contents into soft, savoury, spicy, unctuousness. I love waking up to the smell of slow cooked stews. There’s something very reassuring about knowing that you’ve got a delicious week ahead.

I guess you could call this chilli con carne. But I’d like to think it’s a bit more interesting and layered than that. I never use mince and normally use shin, flank, blade or brisket. But this time I managed to get my hands on some Swedish oxtail which turned out to be quite a sensation. I've no idea how authentically Mexican this is, but I do know that I like eating it.

Ingredients

1 whole oxtail – cut into portions by the butcher
4 onions
4 cloves of garlic
2 tins of pinto or black beans
4 cartons of chopped tomatoes
2 dessert spoons of fennel seeds
1 stick of cinnamon
4 dried Chipotle chillies
4 dried New Mexico Red chillies
300ml water
1 beef stock cube
Dark chocolate
2 dessert spoons of smoked paprika
2 tablespoons of sunflower oil
Pepper
Salt

To serve

Avocado
Smoked salt
1 Fresh red chilli
Natural yoghurt or sour cream

Method

Soften the onion in the sunflower oil. Then add the garlic. And then add the paprika. Allow to sweat and then add to the slow cooker. Add some water to the pan to get out all the lovely flavours and add it to the pot.

If you can be arsed, colour the oxtail in a frying pan having dunked the pieces in seasoned flour. If you haven’t got time, don’t worry, and add the oxtail pieces to the slow cooker. Then tip in the chopped tomatoes. Then rinse the beans and add them too. Lob in the dried chillies, fennel seeds, stock cube, water and cinnamon. Turn the slow cooker on and cook on low for 6-7 hours until the meat is soft.

Leave to cool. Then skim off the layer of fat and pick out the oxtail. Remove the meat from the bones. It’s a messy job, but essential. Boil up the bones in some water in order to extract the awesome gelatin from the bones. And then add this back to the mixture along with the meat. Give the bones to a deserving dog and take the cinnamon stick out too.

Leave to mature and then spoon some of the, now very solid, mixture into a pan and heat it up. Squirt in some tomato sauce (secret ingredient), add a square of dark chocolate, ample seasoning and add some finely chopped fresh red chilli. Heat it through and if it is a bit too liquid reduce it over a high heat stirring regularly. Serve with some brown rice, a sliced avocado and either some sour cream or some natural yoghurt. Sprinkle with smoked salt and tuck in.

It's a rich, smoky, spicy dish with layers of heat from the 3 types of chilli. The chipotles give it a smoky tang whilst the Mexico Reds add some fruitiness and the fresh chillies give it an abrupt kick. Brown rice, yoghurt and avocado make it pretty healthy.

One of the great things about making vats of delicious slow cooked food is the fun of transforming it into different meals over the days that follow. The mixture is also great in tortillas alongside avocado and sour cream, would make a sensationally rich filling for a pie, would be knockout as a filling for a Mexican sandwich called a torta and with the sun starting to emerge would make a mind blowing topping for a burger.

Plaice stuffed with smoked salmon, horseradish and dill

2011-03-24T00:15:00.003Z

I was dead set on buying some artic char from the fishmonger for dinner. But when I saw that plaice (or rödspätta in Swedish) was a quarter of the price the decision to spend £2.50 rather than a tenner was an easy one to make.

So out went my idea of gorging on artic char with a horseradish crust and instead I was left with a large flatfish and a desire to do something more interesting than just smother it in butter and bake it with white wine and dill. My search for interesting Swedish plaice recipes yielded a handful of recipes couldn’t have been more dull, so I turned instead to an idea that I spotted on Jamie Oliver’s website. He suggests stuffing flat fish with prawns, parsley, lemon and onions. I didn’t fancy the recipe, but I loved the technique. So I switched things around and stuffed my plaice with a Swedish combination of smoked salmon, freshly grated horseradish and dill – all mixed together with plenty of butter, pepper and lemon zest. It’s cheap, super tasty and looks rather fancy for plain old plaice.

Serves 1

Ingredients

1 good sized plaice
100g of chopped up smoked salmon (trimmings are fine)
An inch of horseradish, grated
40g butter
1 lemon
2 sprigs of dill
Glass of white wine
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method

With a very sharp knife slice the plaice along the central bone from just below the head to the tail on the upper side. Carefully slice along the bone so that the fillets flab backwards to reveal a cavity. If this seems complicated watch this.

Mix the butter, horseradish, smoked salmon, dill, pepper, salt and lemon zest. Form it into a ball and stuff it into the cavity. Lay the fish in an oiled baking dish and pour in a slug of white wine. Season with salt and pepper and scatter in a few cloves of garlic and wedges of lemon. Cook in a very hot oven for 4 minutes and then baste the fish with the juices. Cook for a further 4 minutes and then, if done, serve as it is or with some plain boiled potatoes and guzzle a nice glass of Grüner or Sauvignon Blanc.

The horseradish, smoked salmon and dill proved to be a punch stuffing which really livened the plaice up. Having tried it once, it’s a technique I’m keen to repeat with some other innovative stuffings. I imagine chipotle butter might be fun.

Chicken Livers on Toast with Lingonberry Jelly

2011-03-18T23:08:00.004Z

Good food needn’t be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. And a quickie can be as satisfying as a three hour gastronomic romp. Chicken livers are one of the cheapest morsels of protein available and are every bit as tasty as the rest of the chicken so long as you’re not eating them on a daily basis. At roughly a tenth of the cost of a chicken breast they’re amazing value that I am keen to take advantage of more often.

Apart from chicken liver pate, the only other recipe that has caught my attention has been Mark Hix’s chicken livers on toast – which only just qualifies as a recipe rather than a composition. But it’s bloody tasty. Especially if you go a bit off piste add a dollop of still warm super-rapido-lingonberry-jelly.

Ingredients

Handful of chicken livers, cleaned and roughly chopped
50g butter
1 big shallot or half an onion
1 small clove of garlic
Salt and pepper
Sourdough for toasting (I used a couple of slices of a great walnut sourdough)
Cress
Handful of frozen or fresh lingonberries
100ml water
Dollop of honey

Method

Bring the water to the boil and add the berries. When they have simmered and softened pass them through a sieve to remove the skins and pips. Then return to the pan and reduce to a syrup and add the honey as necessary to temper the tartness. It’s best to do this stage before you start with the livers. It doesn’t take long but it gives the syrup time to cool and jelly-ify.

Fry the shallot and garlic until soft. Then season the chopped and cleaned livers with plenty of salt and pepper and then fry in the butter for around 4–5 minutes until they are still pink but cooked.

Remove from the pan and then attack with your best cook’s knife until the mixture is finely chopped. Then taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary. Keep the livers warm whilst you make your toast.

Butter the toast and dollop the mixture on top. Sprinkle over some cress and dress with the lingonberry syrup which will probably have turned to a runny jelly by now. Grind over some pepper and sprinkle over some smoked salt and tuck in.

This recipe came from Mark Hix’s Oyster and Chop House book, which I will be taking inspiration from for a few posts in the near future. The lovely people at Quadrille sent it to me a while ago.

I’m keen to experiment with chicken livers and move beyond smearing them on toast, so if you’ve got any great ideas which don’t involve making it into a pate please let me know! If they are Scandinavian recipes you get a special mystery prize.

De-vine Kåldolmar

2011-03-08T16:43:00.012Z

Since moving to Gothenburg I’ve tried to learn about Swedish culture and language through the medium of food. It seems to be the best way to uncover the truths about what makes this country tick. The more you read and eat the more you encounter the paradoxes and culinary riddles that slice through Swedish culture. My latest lesson involves 18th century battles, a town named Bender, a king called Karl and the Swedification of the classic Turkish dish of stuffed vine leaves into cabbagey kåldolmar.

The story of kåldolmar dates back to the early 1700s and offers a glimpse of Sweden’s once mighty past and tetchy relationship with its bellicose northern European neighbours. Apparently, King Karl XII, after losing the decisive Battle of Poltava in 1709 to Russia and their Polish and Norwegian allies, went into exile in a Turkish town called Bender. Whilst he was there, living off the generosity of his Ottoman allies, he spied on their warships and returned home to Sweden several years later with blueprints for a rejuvenated navy and more importantly a taste for dolmas.

Battle of Poltava (1709) painted by Denis Martens the Younger in 1726

The linguists amongst you will know that “dolma” means “stuffed thing” in Turkish which highlights the versatility of this dish. You’ll find different varieties of dolma across the old Ottoman Empire with fillings ranging from ground meat, to aubergine, courgette, peppers and rice, but typically the shell is a vine leaf. It’s hard to know which particularly style of dolma was Karl’s favourite, but from my experience of Swedes I’d guess that it was at the meatier end of the spectrum.

Dolmas from Norwichnuts on Flickr

In the chillier climes of Sweden, vine leaves were hard to come by, but Karl and his followers still hankered after the exotic taste of dolmas. So being the creative and practical nation that they are, the Swedes adapted the dish to use cabbage instead of vine leaves as a sturdy casing for the minced pork. They also switched carbs away from the rice you’ll find inside dolmas and now serve these meaty parcels with boiled potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jelly. For a decent recipe for classic Swedish Kåldolmar look no further than Annes Food.

One of my frustrations since moving across the North Sea is that the trend for smuggling enchanting tastes back from the Middle East, started by King Karl, doesn’t seem to have continued, despite the large and vibrant Middle Eastern population in Sweden. Fine, you can get donner kebab on your pizza, and plenty of curious spies in your meatballs, but so far, I haven’t found anywhere that expertly grills spiced meat over charcoals like Antepliler in Manor Park or any of the middle eastern delights you’ll find on the Edgware Road or Yottam Ottolenghi’s delis and books. Where’s the Turkish, Iranian and Iraqi version of Tayyabs in Gothenburg?

One of the most interesting recipes in the Nordic Diet cookbook sees the classic, meaty, kåldolmar given a healthy, fishy update. Trina Hahnneman kicks out the pork and replaces it with plaice, mustard, leeks and courgettes.

I gave them a twist of my own and have found the process of wrapping fish in blanched cabbage to be a very therapeutic process. The technique is pretty simple and is the basis for a wide range of healthy and delicious variations.

Smoked Mackerel Kåldolmar with Pototto (Potato Risotto)

Inspired by Marcus Sameulsson's excellent Aquavit cookbook and Trina Hahnemann's Nordic Diet

Serves 2

4 cabbage leaves
4 smoked mackerel fillets
Dijon mustard
400 grams of waxy potatoes – diced into 8mm cubes
Vegetable stock
Horseradish
Dill
1 onion
Olive oil
Butter
2 glasses of white wine
Salt and pepper

Blanch four cabbage leaves in salted water and refresh in running cold water. Allow to cool and then remove the tough stem which acts as a structural spine. This will make the leaves more foldable.

Place a mackerel fillet in the centre of each leaf and smear with a dollop of mustard and anoint with lemon zest and ground black pepper. Then wrap them up like you would with a burrito. For guidance take a look at Cheryl Marie’s blog.

Finely dice the onion and sweat in olive oil. Then add in the 8mm cubes of potato. Add a glass of white wine and then ladle in stock and stir, as you would do with a risotto. It won’t take very long to cook so keep an eye on it. Add some thyme or tarragon as you go depending on what’s to hand and what you feel like. Beat in some butter at the end and keep warm.

Place the cabbage parcels in a baking dish and pour in a glass of white wine. Cook for 10 minutes. And then serve on top of a bed of posotto with plenty of seasoning, a sprinkling of grated horseradish and a scattering of dill.

Fish parcel wrapped in cabbage from Trina Hahnneman’s Nordic Diet

Serves 2

4 cabbage leaves
400g of white fish fillets
1 courgette
1 leek
1 red pepper
Olive oil
Lemon zest
Salt and pepper
1 glass of white wine

Blanch and refresh the cabbage leaves in the same manner as the first recipe. Place a 100g piece of fish in each parcel and then add a spoonful of diced courgette, red pepper and leek. Then add a dab of butter, a dusting of lemon zest and plenty of seasoning. Then wrap them up and place them in a baking dish with a glug of olive oil and a glass of white wine.

Bake for 12 minutes until the fish is just done and serve. I partnered it with fregola, roast peppers and tomatoes which gave a sweet, red counterpoint to the savoury greens.

It works just as well with minced fish and langoustine tails. When I next have a load of langoustine or crayfish, I’ll formalise it into a recipe. Roll on "Kåldolmens dag" which celebrates the Cabbage Roll on 30 November.

Salt Roast Beetroot with Orange and Ginger Sauce

2011-02-15T21:18:00.006Z

My beetroot fetish is getting out of control. Like an alcoholic slipping a slug of vodka into his orange juice at breakfast time and a dash of whisky into his coffee on the way to work, I’ve found beetroot weedling its way into burgers, meatball, salads, gnocchi and souffles recently. When I wake up with beetroot ice cream slathered over my chest I’ll know it’s got the better of me.

One of my favourite discoveries since moving to Sweden has been a very stylish cookery book called Aquavit by a Swede called Marcus Samuelsson with an Ethiopian background who now lives and cooks in New York. It’s full of imaginative ideas that set the mind thumping and photographs that make you want to tear off the page and serve it for supper. His recipe for roasted beets in an orange and ginger sauce set off my beetroot radar and wouldn’t let me go until I had cooked it.

Roasted Beets in Orange-Ginger Sauce – from Aquavit cookbook review on Amazon.

Serves 4 to 6

“Roasting beets on a bed of salt keeps them moist and flavorful (you can do the same with baked potatoes). Garlic roasts alongside the beets, then the soft garlic pulp is added to a tangy citrus sauce flavored with traditional Swedish seasonings.

Ingredients

About 2 cups coarse salt
8 medium beets, trimmed and scrubbed
2 heads garlic
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 cup Chicken Stock
1 tablespoon honey
1 3-inch piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped
4 cardamom pods
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

2. Spread a layer of coarse salt on a small baking sheet and place the beets and garlic on it. Roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the beets are fork-tender and the garlic is soft enough to squeeze out of the skin; the garlic may be done before the beets. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly.

3. Meanwhile, combine the orange juice, stock, honey, ginger, and cardamom in a medium saucepan, bring to a simmer, and simmer for about 30 minutes, until reduced by half. Strain the sauce into a saucepan and set aside.

4. When the beets are cool enough to handle, peel them and cut them into 1/2-inch dice. Put in a medium bowl. Separate the garlic cloves, squeeze the garlic pulp out of the skins, and add to the bowl.

5. Reheat the sauce over low heat, stirring a few times, and pour the sauce over the beets. Garnish with the tarragon and serve.”

I roasted some chicken legs along side the beetroot and boiled some cracked wheat to add some ballast. It was healthy, tasty, creative and slaked my beetroot thirst for another day. The tangy orange and ginger sauce is incredibly moreish and would be a great complement to a pork chop or duck breast. And having discovered roasting beets on a bed of salt from Marcus Samuelsson, I've not cooked beetroot any other way since. It keeps them moist, full of flavour and stops them losing their colour.

Swaesar Salad™

2011-02-10T01:19:00.005Z

One of the reasons Brits get on so well with Gothenburgers is a shared love of the risible pun. Folk from Gothenburg will chortle with rosy cheeks and mischievous grins when they slip a cheeky double entendre into a punishing business meeting. It’s one of Gothenburg’s defining characteristics and sets it apart (so I am told by locals) from the rest of straight laced Sweden.

Whenever cartoons call for a comic character they always have a Gothenburg accent, whilst the posh protagonist tends to be from Stockholm and the rural dim wit inevitably hails from southern Sweden’s farming region. It seems like every country has their own version of the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman joke.

Another of Gothenburg’s defining characteristics is a love of herring which is called “sill” on the West Coast and “strömming” on Stockholm’s East Coast. So it’s quite fitting that one evening after a long day at work I had the “sill-y” idea of creating a Gothenburg version of the Caesar salad which switched the increasingly overfished anchovy with plentiful herring. To my glee it worked far better than I had imagined and I’ve got a feeling that you could bottle this stuff and sell it up and down the West Coast to pun loving Swedes. So here is my Swedish Caesar Salad – AKA The Swaesar Salad™. I adapted a herring themed caesar salad recipe on Canada’s Food Network website.

Ingredients

Dressing

2 table spoons of minced pickled herring without the liquid
2 cloves of garlic
2 egg yolks
Juice from half a lemon
100ml of sunflower oil
50g of hard Swedish ewe’s cheese – like Pecorino
Salt
Pepper

Salad

1 Iceberg lettuce
100g of lardons
100g of böckling (hot smoked herring which isn’t unlike kippers or more accurately bloaters)
2 slices of pumpernickel cut into small squares
Swedish sheep’s cheese or alternatively Pecorino or Parmesan

Method

Begin by whisking the egg yolks with the garlic, herring and lemon. Then add the salt and pepper. Then, as if making mayonnaise pour in the oil, in a thin, slow stream. Whisk as you go until it thickens. Taste for seasoning. It will be quite salty from the herring so don’t go mad on the white stuff. Plus you are going to add salty bacon and cheese. Put the dressing in the fridge and then when you are feeling hungry assemble your salad.

To do this cut the flappy leaves away from the lettuce and concentrate on the crunchy leaves in the centre. Give them a wash and then fry your lardons in a heavy bottomed pan along with the cubes of pumpernickel. This won’t take very long. The chocolaty brown bread will add some sweetness and crunch to the salad and give it a much more interesting flavour than the normal white bread croutons.

Dress the leaves with the Swaesar™ sauce in a large bowl and then grate the hard sheep’s cheese on top. If you can’t find a suitable Swedish cheese then Parmesan or Pecorino will do. Add the lardons, pumpernickel and chunks of bokling and tuck in.

It’s not very Swedish to speak about yourself let alone your own achievements, but I’m very proud to say that this is one of my favourite creations to date. The sauce tasted authentically like Caesar dressing but with a noticeable Swedish flavour of subtle herring which arguably makes it even more savoury than the classic dish. The pumpernickel along with the lardons does a great job of giving the dish a sweeter note that stands up to the more savoury aspect. The böckling’s smokiness then gives the whole plate an extra level of sophistication.

Pollock Yassa – A Blast of West African Sunshine in Icy Gothenburg

2011-01-31T23:53:00.004Z

The weather in Sweden right now is about as grizzly as a vagabond bear. The snow has temporarily melted leaving behind a palimpsest of grit, dark ice and illicit glimpses of pavement. In many ways I prefer Gothenburg when it’s properly cold rather than just in this manky in-between phase. Bleak conditions whip up cravings for warm memories.

One dish that never ceases to bring me comfort is Poulet Yassa, which I first had on a scorching hot day in a ramshackle restaurant in Accra. The memory of the sticky-sweet-sour, onion, lemon and mustard sauce that coated the charred chicken flesh makes my stomach smile just thinking about it. It’s the polar opposite to the taste of Gothenburg’s wintry blues.

Poulet Yassa apparently originates from the Portuguese region of Senegal, Casamance, and can be found on menus and plates across Africa from The Republic of Congo to the Gold Coast. It supposedly hails form either Portuguese or French colonialists who used the acidic lemon juice to tenderize the tough local chicken flesh and the Dijon mustard to counteract the sharpness. It offers a welcome sweet and sour tang in contrast to some of the more savoury dishes you encounter West Africa.

I decided to experiment with pollock rather than chicken and was very pleased with the results. The flavour of the sauce is gargantuan, so pollock comes into its own. And rather than rice, I thought some bulgur wheat would give the dish a more Swedish feel. The recipe below is adapted from the Congo Cookbook which is without question one of my favourite recipe websites. If you have a moment, I encourage you to lose yourself in the astounding collection of stories and recipes. But don't blame me if you stumble across some dishes requiring hippo or elephant meat.

Ingredients

1 piece of pollock
2 onions roughly chopped
Juice of 3 lemons
2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
1 dessert spoon of honey
1 dessert spoon of fish stock
2 cloves of garlic
Splash of cider vinegar
Salt
Red chilli minced
Bulgur wheat
Sunflower or groundnut oil

Method

Sauté the onions slowly until they softened. Add the minced garlic and chilli once the onions have turned translucent. Sweat for a bit and then add the mustard, fish stock and juice of 3 lemons.

Heat and stir until it thickens and resembles a sauce. Add the honey, salt and cider vinegar to taste. You are looking for a sweet, sour, spicy amalgam that makes your mouth come alive.

Boil the bulgur wheat and take the sauce off the heat. Season the fish skin and sear flesh side up in a very hot pan. Once the skin has crisped up turn the heat down and add the sauce to the pan. Cook the fish in the yassa sauce until the fish is on the verge of being done. Then slosh it all on a plate and tuck in with a bottle of Star Lager. Bliss.

All it was missing was a side order of chilli fried plantain otherwise known as kelly welly. You can also add olives and switch the fish for either chicken thighs or some fatty pork.

Nordic Beetroot Burgers with Goats’ Cheese and Walnut Salad

2011-01-23T17:52:00.002Z

I’ve developed a bit of a beetroot fetish since moving to Sweden. I find it’s always on my shopping list and seems to leave its scarlet mark on almost every dish I cook. I love the muddy flavour and mellow sweetness and would be very sad if there was ever a world shortage of beetroot. One of the reasons I like it so much now is that I used to hate it when I was younger. I’ve got bitter-sweet memories of hating the overly pickled taste of my grandmother’s beetroot but loved the fact that it came, covered in sandy soil, from their kitchen garden. Now, whenever I eat beetroot I remember my grandparents and their staggering vegetable patch and hanker after having one of my own one day.

Veggie burgers have a very bad press. They normally fall apart and taste more of old oil than of anything pleasant. It strikes me as a shame to mush up lots of lovely vegetables and then muddy the fresh flavours in search of the juicy glory of a really meaty burger. But the beauty of beetroot burgers is that they are singularly focused on one vegetable that responds very well to being “burgered up”. I guess it’s a combination of their vivid flavour and colour, but also the fact that beetroot’s starches caramelise nicely when seared, much like meat does.

This recipe for the burgers is from Trina Hahnemann, but without any ghastly rapeseed oil and rather than a barley salad is paired with a goats’ cheese and walnut salad instead. My only question is what are the mystery seeds in the photo from the book at the top of this post because they don’t appear in the recipe?

Ingredients:

For the beetroot burgers:

500g red beetroot, grated
100ml porridge oats
3 eggs
1 shallot, very finely chopped
4 tbsp finely chopped dill
2 tbsp finely chopped thyme
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tbsp vegetable oil, for frying
Crème fraiche and dill dollop

For the salad:

Mixed leaf salad including beetroot tops
Goats’ cheese
Toasted walnuts
Honey, mustard, olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dress

Method:

Peel the beetroot and then finely grate. If you have a Magimix I’d suggest you use it as it saves a lot of time.

Mix the grated beetroot with the eggs, porridge oats, herbs, seasoning and shallots. Get your hands dirty and work it all together. Then chill in the fridge for an hour or so. This is important as it allows the mixture to mingle and means that the burgers have more structural integrity.

Form the burgers into patties and fry until they are crisp on the outside and then finish in the oven for 20 minutes.

Assemble the salad, and whisk up the dressing whilst the burgers are cooking through and serve with a dollop of dill crème fraiche.

I’ve got a feeling they would also work well as “beet-balls” but I’m not sure yet what sauce to slosh on top of them. If you’ve got any ideas, let me know.

Delicious. Healthy. And different. Well done, again, to The Nordic Diet.

This post is part of little series dedicated to The Nordic Diet cookbook which was sent to me by Quadrille.

Chicken with Baked Rhubarb and Cucumber and Radish Salad

2011-01-09T13:21:00.004Z

I love the way rhubarb unfurls out of the spring soil to display a Mateus flushed shard of swollen stem and tough, poisonous leaves. I love the ritual of forcing rhubarb in darkened conditions to beat your neighbours to serving the first rhubarb of the season. I think back longingly of my grandmother’s hit or miss rhubarb fool that was always delicious, if a little stringy. And will almost always order a rhubarb dessert if I see it on the menu. Unfortunately, we don’t eat much rhubarb as a family because the acid gives us all joint ache. But it’s worth the discomfort.

Up until now I’d not thought too much about rhubarb (shocking I know). But the more I read, the more interesting it becomes. For starters who knew that rhubarb is actually a vegetable and is in the Rheum family and is therefore closely related to sorrel? Or that in America it is legally a fruit because a judge said so in 1947? Or that it originated in Asia and has only been cultivated in the western world for the last two or three hundred years? Or that the roots can be dried and used as a tonic to cure constipation and circulatory issues? Or, more importantly, that this enigmatic stem is amazing with chicken?

Trina Hahnemann’s recipe for “chicken with baked rhubarb and cucumber -radish salad” immediately stood out from her Nordic Diet cookbook, partly because of the stunning photograph but more significantly because of its weirdness.

But when you think about it, the idea makes a lot of sense. Chicken is great with lemon and other acid driven accompaniments, so long as it is balanced by something sweet to take the tartness away.

Ingredients

Chicken legs
2 stalks of rhubarb
A few spoons of honey (she uses raw sugar – but I prefer honey)
Salt
Pepper
1 Cucumber
10 Radishes
Yoghurt (preferably goats’)
1 clove of garlic
Chopped mint

Method

Season the chicken legs and roast for 30 minutes. Meanwhile chop the rhubarb into 2 inch long batons and lightly coat in honey. After 30 minutes add the rhubarb and cook for a further 15 minutes.

To make the salad finely slice the radishes and de-seed, then finely slice the cucumber. Mix with just enough yoghurt, a finely minced clove of garlic and the chopped mint. Season.

Serve the chicken with the salad and garnish with a sprig of mint. It’s a great way to use up a glut of rhubarb in late spring or as a way of causing a bit of Steingarten-esque debate about the differences between fruit and vegetables. I think it is a fantastic idea and am looking forward to experimenting further. I wonder what a rhubarb-ified version of honey lemon chicken would be like?

Further reading

Other rhubarb chicken recipes on Rhubarb Compendium including roast chicken stuffed with rhubarb and the psychopathically named chicken smothered in rhubarb

Rhubarb as an accompaniment to fish in the Independent

Mackerel with roasted rhubarb from Nigel Slater

Savoury recipes for rhubarb on Chowhound

Jeffrey Steingarten’s Man Who Ate Everything (including a spellbinding chapter called Ripeness is All about the differences between fruit and vegetables)

Trina Hahnemann’s – The Nordic Diet on Amazon

The science of rhubarb poisoning

This post is part of little series dedicated to The Nordic Diet cookbook which was sent to me by Quadrille.

Super Healthy Fish Cakes

2011-01-04T23:23:00.006Z

If meatballs are the indulgent Yin then fish cakes must be the healthy Yang in Scandinavian culture. In Sweden, fish cakes are called “fiskbulle”, which literally translates as “fish patty”, which is a rather unpleasant sounding expression that doesn’t do them justice. They are so ubiquitous that you can buy them in tins and there are as many fish cake recipes over here as there are for sausages back in Blighty.

In my experience fish cakes are normally heavy on the stodgy potato and light on the fish which yields one of the most bland mouthfuls you will ever come across. They’re a great way of padding out a pub menu and making a few quid out of some iffy leftovers. But these prejudices were shattered when I tried Trina Hahnemann’s recipe for fish cakes in The Nordic Diet cookbook.

She switches mashed potato for porridge oats, grated courgette and carrot which lightens the texture and adds colour and moisture. I took the recipe a bit further by trying Niamh’s trick or coating the patties in breadcrumbs which created a crisp coating if you are feeling a bit more indulgent. And I can’t stand rapeseed oil so used sunflower oil instead. The book suggests pairing the fish cakes with potatoes and asparagus which would have been great but all I had was some barley and kale which was a shame.

Ingredients – makes 6 fishcakes

500g of minced fish – a mixture of salmon and white fish such as pollack, coley or ling
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp porridge oats
2 egg whites
2 finely grated carrots
1 grated courgette
Pinch of thyme
Sunflower oil for frying
Knob of butter
Japanese panko breadcrumbs
Pepper

Method

Choose your fish judiciously and have it minced. You don’t want anything too classy or endangered like cod or haddock. But try to include some salmon as much for colour as flavour. In Sweden they are very happy to mince your chosen fish in front of you in the fishmongers and very often have it pre-minced in pre-weighed bags. But in the UK you may want to finely mince the fish with a sharp knife or give it a very brief pulse in a food processor.

Add a generous pinch of salt and a grind of pepper. Then add the egg whites, porridge oats and grated veg and mix thoroughly. It should all come together and not fall apart. If it’s too dry add egg white. If it’s too wet add oats. Leave it to chill in the fridge for an hour or so.

When you are ready for dinner remove the mixture from the fridge and form into patties. If you are feeling indulgent pour breadcrumbs on a chopping board and press the patties into them so they stick. Then fry until golden.

The fish cakes were moist, lightly textured and full of fishy flavour. Not cloying at all and far lighter than their cousins from across the North Sea. The substitution of potato for carrot and courgette makes them far better for you as well according to the principles of The Nordic Diet. I had them with a minty yoghurt sauce and nutritious but very dull barley and kale splodge which is all I had in the fridge.

The yoghurt was a good match but the greens and grain were anything but. A fennel and caper salad would have been a much better platefellow. You could also experiment with adding ginger, chilli and lemongrass to the mix to give them an oriental aspect and pair them with some steamed Chinese cabbage and stir fried vegetables. But whatever you do, don’t think you can substitute fresh fish for tinned mussels and smoked mackerel, courgettes for Swede or consider using rapeseed oil because I’ve tried it and it tastes pretty gross!

This post is part of little series dedicated to The Nordic Diet cookbook which was sent to me by Quadrille.

Now ThaT's What I Call a Burger Joint - But what's it doing in Watford?

2010-12-16T23:26:00.008Z

I’ve got a soft spot for Watford having lived there for a year whilst studying for my advertising course in spite of its grey complexion and distinct odour of dilapidation. We whiled away entire afternoons in Riley’s potting one in every twelve attempts during the day and I struggled to sleep at night because my bedroom overlooked the ambulance depot that services the M1 and M25. The ambulances would very graciously not use their sirens but they didn’t think twice about blasting their flashing blue lights through my moth eaten curtains. And the fact that each and every one scraped its undercarriage on the sleeping policeman directly outside my flat just made things even better.

So with these tainted memories it took the promise of a fantastic burger joint to drag me back and temporarily reprieve me from the Nordic Diet. ThaT Burger is fairly shamelessly stolen from Five Guys who have a reputation for serving some of the best burgers across the pond. A few years ago they rose to international fame by serving Barack Obama and haven’t looked back since. ThaT Burger has reformulated this model and brought it kicking and screaming to Watford.

Their burgers are of the thin and fried variety and can be stacked as high as you want, with the record currently standing at a heart stopping 14. You can customize your burger with a range of awesome toppings including proper bacon, sautéed mushrooms, onions, four types of cheese and any number of additional patties. You can even add a chicken breast if you are feeling particularly de trop. The soft brioche-y bun, scattered with a handful of sesame seeds effortlessly absorbs the copious amount of grease and remarkably has far better structural integrity than you’d imagine. They also excel at onion rings and have a range of dips that would make Right Said Fred very proud.

The classic cheeseburger with a slice of American “cheese” thrived in its mirrored wrapper. At £3.90 for a single meal deal it really isn’t bad value. Especially when you consider the quality of the salad, the hand made-skin-on-fries, the quality bun and that it is cooked fresh to order. Each additional patty will set you back an extra 70p whilst cheese costs between 20-35p a slice and more luxurious toppings such as mushrooms, bacon, jalapenos and guacamole will relieve you of 60-80p per item. Our only minor gripe is that the burger itself could have been tastier, but that comes with the territory of frying rather flame grilling.

We pushed things a bit further with a Double ThaT Burger with Swiss cheese. Whilst the single cheeseburger was tasty and relatively restrained this chap was about as understated as Moose Malloy. They don’t hang about with the toppings here and you wonder whether Switzerland is now suffering from cheese rationing as a result. If you are being picky the down side is that the flavour of the beef isn’t given a chance to shine through.

The highlight was a Double ThaT Burger with Swiss cheese, sautéed mushrooms and thick slices of bacon. Whilst it probably needn’t have been a double, you’ll struggle to spend less than the £6.20 this cost on a better burger, fries and drink. I had to restrain myself from using my straw to guzzle the meaty juices that settled in the foiled paper.

The fun didn’t stop with the burgers. The quality of the lightly battered onion rings (£1.50 regular or £1.95 for large) had us wondering whether they had imported a Japanese tempura master especially for the job. Dunked into a chilli-cheese dip they were a meal in themselves. I can't think when I have had better.

BBQ Buffalo wings (£2.75 for 6) were fine, but lacked any wow factor apart from the novelty of serving them in a paper cup. Maybe the peri-peri would have been more of a thrill.

Their fries (£1.25 for regular or £1.75 for large) are hand cut on site and are some of the best you’ll find in a high street fast food joint and the skins give them the charming illusion of being healthy! But given that we were dipping them in garlic mayo, the self deception wasn’t quite powerful enough. If you were worried that you hadn’t had enough calories, they also serve a small range of deadly milkshakes that are either strewn with Madagascan vanilla or chunks of chocolate.

Aside from the surprisingly good food and shakes (with half a mark taken off for fried burgers), they’re also pretty smart with their marketing. They’ve taken to social media like a burger to cheese and bacon. Glowing Facebook comments adorn the walls in smart black frames and a large flat screen with a live feed from their Facebook page keeps you up to date with whatever is being said about them online. You can sit at your table and leave a comment and seconds later it is up in lights both in the restaurant and shared online. They are also very good at listening to their customers and responding to advice – for example they asked their Facebook fans whether they preferred their fries with skins on or off with the result that skin on fries now grace the menu.

The main problem with ThaT Burger, apart from the erratically capitalized T, is that they have decided to open their first burger joint in Watford. Sadly the local population just walk on by to the extent that the owner jokingly commented that he can get people to come from London for a burger but not from Watford itself! And whilst the food is great and the social media marketing is cute the atmosphere inside the restaurant is somewhat sterile. It used to be a Pizza Hut and they haven't really succeeded in stamping their identity on it, which can be the danger of being a bit of a blank slate where you let consumers make the decisions for you. A little glance over at the way that Byron have established their identity and then engaged their fans only confirms this.

They’ve recently announced that they are looking to open another franchise, so if you want to give it a crack and put your stamp on ThaT Burger get in touch with Justin at burgers@thatburger.co.uk. Current suggestions are for them to open in Rickmansworth, but surely somewhere like Balham, Farringdon or Gothenburg would be better? But in the meantime, give it a try especially if you live in Watford.

15/17 The Parade
Watford, Hertfordshire WD17 1LQ,
United Kingdom

Telephone : 01923 803 600
Delivery : (Ring of Delivery) 01923 888 000 (from 6pm onwards)

Embracing The Nordic Diet

2010-11-29T00:44:00.003Z

One of the things that strikes you when walking around Gothenburg isn’t the stunning beauty of the city, or the overwhelming sight of gorgeous Swedes. It took me a while to work it out. It was an absence rather than a presence. And then I realised as I bumped into a fat person. Fatties are rare in Sweden. So much so that you land up staring at them and joking about whether they are Americans! Sure you see some big people. But they tend to be big boned Vikings rather than lardy layabouts.

A confluence of events spurred me into changing my diet to be more Scandinavian – my shirts were uncomfortable, I found myself wearing jumpers the whole time and I saw a sickening photograph of myself on a beach. And then, as if the fat Gods were watching, a nice person from Quadrille sent me a copy of The Nordic Diet. Initially I was sceptical and scoffed at the idea of a book with the word “diet” in the title. But then I did some background reading and cooked a couple of recipes… and now I am scoffing at myself for scoffing in the first place.

The Nordic Diet, by Trina Hahnemann, is inspired by the fact that the Nordic countries have very low levels of obesity. It stands to reason, therefore, that the dietary patterns of this part of the world might play a role. As you can imagine there’s plenty of debate because it is so hard to prove, but it is being championed by Arne Astruo from the University of Copenhagen who have put £12million behind it. Nutritionists are touting it as a more suitable alternative for Brits than the rather expensive and tricky Mediterranean diet which calls for lashings of olive oil, tomatoes and fresh fish. The Daily Mail says, “Nutritionists even predict the Viking diet could be to the 21st century what the Mediterranean diet was to the 20th.”

The Nordic Diet echoes the Mediterranean Diet’s slow approach to eating but takes things a few steps further by suggesting that we cut down our meat intake and instead eat more lean game, berries, brassicas, fish, vegetables and ancient grains that release their energy stores more slowly and provide more fibre.

Given that meat is expensive in Sweden and that the fish is so fresh, I’ve found myself naturally synching with this Nordic approach to eating. It’s left me feeling healthier, a stone or two lighter, less impoverished and far more appreciative of good meat when I eat it. It’s also led to me discovering new dishes and has encouraged me to experiment more with vegetables and grains like beetroot, kale and spelt. The only weird thing about it is that none of my Swedish friends have ever heard of it!

Trina Hahnemann’s book is an inspirational foundation for living a healthier, more balanced life. The opening section explains the nuts and bolts of the “diet” which is as much about lifestyle as it about hardcore nutrition. The book then continues to offer ideas for salads, soups, fishy and meaty main courses as well as puddings and solid advice about Scandinavian baking. I’ve tried many of the ideas in the book such as delicious beetroot burgers, roast chicken with rhubarb, fabulous fish cakes and fish wrapped in cabbage leaves and will be sharing these dishes with your shortly.

My only criticisms are that there aren’t enough recipes and that every now and again they aren’t quite as exciting as they could be. But that’s the flip side of a diet book I guess. But I can’t criticise the amount of flavour the recipes deliver given the simple ingredients they involve. So as well as sharing my experiences with Trina’s recipes I am also going to give a few ideas of my own that are based on the principles of The Nordic Diet but with a few twists. In the meantime, if you are feeling a bit podgy and are keen for a culinary adventure rather than lots of cut backs, then join me in embracing The Nordic Diet.

Thanks to Quadrille for the book and for helping me fit into my old wardrobe. And I hope these photos of the book's wonderful photos aren't some horrific breach of copyright!

Further reading:

Collection of Nordic Diet links on my Delicious feed
Trina Hahnemann's Scandinavian Kitchen on Amazon
Trina Hahnemann's The Nordic Diet on Amazon

Speedboat Saunas and Cured Fish at Salt & Sill

2010-11-24T20:00:00.002Z

What better way to spend a gloriously sunny Sunday with Cowie than to drive for an hour or so up the idyllic West Coast from Gothenburg and enjoy a smorgasbord of pickled fish and a sauna in Sweden's only floating hotel?

Salt & Sill means “salt and herring” in Swedish which is rather appropriate given that Klädesholmen, where the hotel is based, is also known as “herring island”. They've been catching and preserving herring here since the fifteenth century. In fact half of Sweden's pickled herring comes from this island. So if you're going to gorge on pickled herring it makes sense to do it here.

On Sunday they serve a smörgåsbord from lunch time to early evening with an emphasis on the fishy end of the spectrum. Feeling exhausted after an early morning 10km run through a frosty forest, we found ourselves making an indecent number of return visits to the buffet table which saw me eating 12 types of expertly cured fish!

Whilst the hot smoked salmon with a pepper crust and the cold smoked roasted salmon were excellent, it was the mackerel that stole the show. The hot smoked mackerel put the stuff you get in a vacuum pack for a quid to shame. This was robust, flaky, moist and meaty. It was so good in fact that it made three appearances on my plate! The lemon pickled mackerel (far left) with a crumbed coating was very unusual, but delicious. It was like eating honey lemon chicken from a Chinese take away. Except a lot better! The prawns were very good too but let's ignore the dried out mussels that probably aren't the wisest of choices for a buffet lunch.

The cold smoked salmon and gravid lax were both good without being thrilling. But it was the strömming and quenelles of herring, potato, crème fraiche and dill that were the stars of this particular plate. The strömming (Swedish name for pickled herring from the East Coast) had been pickled in lemon and garlic and had a very meaty texture and pleasantly metallic taste. The quenelles were soft, and moreish - like the sort of potato salad that continental Europeans would love and children would gag on at a picnic.

We couldn't have left with our heads held high without trying their award winning pickled herring. I know the thought of pickled herring makes a lot of people feel a bit queasy, but if they just tried these beauties they may well change their minds. Until I moved to Sweden I had no idea that there were so many flavours of pickled herring other than vinegar and dill. We went for the full range from traditional at the top, lemon and garlic at 1 o'clock, roe at 3 o'clock, mustard and whisky at the bottom, lobster at 8ish and blackcurrant at 10 o'clock.

The caviar and crème fraiche cure was deliciously creamy with little bubbles of roe that popped yet more fishiness into your mouth.

The lemon and garlic cure was the most herring-y of the lot and none the worse for it. But any more than two small pieces and you'd start to feel like a seal.

The blackcurrant cure tasted like cassis making it a bit like having a fishy glass of Kir Royale! But our favourite was the mustard and whisky variety which recently won Sweden's best pickled herring award!

Feeling like engorged whales we waddled out to the jetty for some fresh air and a James Bond-esque stint on their sauna boat. Sadly it was moored so we didn't get a chance for a 15 knot sauna and a drink at the bar… but a 20 minute blast at 85'c followed by an icy shower was a fine alternative that left us feeling purged and blissfully relaxed.

As we walked back to the lounge we admired the stylish floating hotel which is the only one of its type in Sweden. Apparently they've built a lobster reef with the rubble generated from the construction and are installing a mussel filtration until underneath the pontoon. It's just another example of how they've managed to balance luxury, their environmental principles and a commitment to the wonderful fruits of this very special stretch of coastline.

We couldn't have had a more quintessentially Swedish experience. 12 types of cured fish, a floating sauna and enough Sven look-a-likes to manage all of England's deluded and cash rich non-Premier league football clubs. If you are keen to visit, then take a look at the special deal that starts in January where you can enjoy a lazy Sunday like we did and stay in the floating hotel (like we didn't) for a reduced rate.

Or if you visit in the summer then we've heard it's fun to cycle around the island on the hotel's complementary bikes. Or better still, pay the Astol Rokeri (smokery) a visit on the island of Astol which can you reach from Ronnang harbour. They have a reputation for serving the finest smoked fish on the West Coast and for looking after their guests like long lost friends. I'm looking forward to it already.

Many thanks to the West Coast of Sweden Tourist Board for laying on this excellent experience.

Mussel Soup - Cooked in a Coffee Machine

2010-11-17T22:03:00.013Z

I’ve had some surreal experiences whilst writing this blog – from having the most disturbing massage of all time in India, to eating ortolan to cooking in a bathtub. And I can now add my afternoon cooking mussel soup in a coffee pot in Lysekill to the list!

The team who had organised the Mussel Safari had arranged for me and my new Swedish food blogger friends to compete in a live cook off in front of the whole town of Lysekill and on local radio. It was far bigger deal than I was expecting involving a gospel choir and some very groovy dancing to get people in the mood before we took to the stage!

I was very fortuitously paired with Katja who has just been crowned Sweden’s top food blogger for her quirky cooking in a coffee pot! Given my penchant for lateral cooking methods we were a like kindred spirits as we set about cooking mussel and seafood soup in Katja’s very own coffee pot. Given that coffee pot cooking normally involves 3 or 4 hour cooking times, we had our work cut out.

Ingredients

6 lovely Lysekil mussels
One percolator style coffee maker
One Katja
Tomato puree
2 langoustines
200g of monkfish
6 mussels
100ml of cream
1 finely chopped onion
1 clove of finely minced garlic
300ml of water
3 glasses of white wine
Sliced peppers
Parsley
Dill
Salt and pepper

Method

Given the time constraints we had to move very quickly so compromised on frying off the onions properly. If we had more time we would have gently sautéed them in the glass pot on the hot plate. But we concentrated instead on getting the water hot and using that as our cooking method instead.

Place 6 mussels and some dill in the filter compartment and boil the water in the tank so it percolates through the mussels. In the glass pot add the finely chopped onion, garlic and whole langoustines. The water should pass though the dill and mussels in about 4 or 5 minutes and then mingle together into a fishy fug.

Squirt some tomato puree into the pot and then add the lumps of monkfish. Add one glass of wine to yourself and one to the pot and then stand back and watch your coffee pot do the work whilst everyone else is busy chopping, frying, reducing and generally cooking properly.

After 20 minutes strain the contents into another vessel and then return to the glass pot. Discard the onion and garlic pieces. And remove the langoustines and mussel meat from their respective shells. Add them to the glass pot along with a slug of cream, the cooked monkfish pieces and some seasoning and return to the hot plate to heat through.

Serve in a polystyrene cup to rain soaked, highly bemused onlookers and reflect on what a bizarre, but brilliant experience the whole thing has been.

The soup itself was surprisingly good. What it lacked in depth of flavour it more than made up for in terms of personality and flair. The members of the audience and judges certainly enjoyed it.

If you’ve been even remotely as inspired as I have been by this surreal episode then you must check out Katja’s awesome cooking blog. And also have a look at her balloon blog and her boyfriend’s monster drawings. They’re both truly inspirational and I’m looking forward to our next lateral cooking adventure. Thanks you Katja and Dan for a few of the photos as well.

Paul Ainsworth at Number 6 in Padstow

2010-11-14T07:55:00.017Z

Our annual pilgrimage to the Cornish coast was one part “glamping” and another part fitness camp. On a frustratingly rainy day we stayed dry and cheery by conducting our own version of “Escape to the Country” by driving around looking for derelict wrecks to spruce up and turn into our dream house. We found a fabulous seven bedroom mansion with roses growing out of the tumbled down living room and dreamt of a new life of Cornish bliss. But when we got back to our campsite our hearts dropped when we saw that our tent had suffered a similar architectural disaster! My slapdash approach to securing the guy ropes had caused the business end of the tent to collapse and soaked all our bedding inside.

Bugger.

To her credit Cowie didn’t blame me in the slightest, but we both knew it was my hopelessness that had caused the catastrophe. We had planned to cook dinner al fresco, but in an inspired moment we decided instead to see if we could get a table somewhere good and not Steiny in Padstow.

“Not a problem Sir. We’re looking forward to seeing you,” were the words from the charming telephonist at Paul Ainsworth’s Number 6 restaurant that lifted our sodden spirits. In fact they were lifted so much that we decided to go for a sun downer 6 mile run to build up our appetite. So with chaffed nipples and an appetite the size of a dieting Texan we descended on Padstow.

We’ve been to Padstow a fair bit over the years with a very memorable stay at an eccentric BnB and a blow-out meal of lobster and all the trimmings at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant, but we have recently started to pick up an unfriendly vibe from the village. Parking attendants are particularly officious. Shopkeepers refuse to give you change. Ice-cream-licking-tourists hang around with nothing to actually do. And finding somewhere to give you a decent cup of tea is almost impossible. So the warmth we were greeted with and the genuinely friendly service we received at Paul Ainsworth’s restaurant couldn’t have been more welcome.

Paul Ainsworth is a talented chef who earned his stripes within the Gordon Ramsay Empire at The Greenhouse and Petrus who upped sticks and headed west in 2008 to cook in Padstow. He worked to the orders of the then management before buying them out and taking over in the last year or so. Since then, according to our waiter, the restaurant has taken on a new lease of life and is being touted, by some, as a Michelin starred restaurant in waiting.

We immediately warmed to the restaurant which was ablaze with rosy cheeks, the hubble bubble of merry laughter and the glistening twinkle of licked-clean-plates. The menu is full of locally sourced produce and just as many fun ideas that make you want to sample every single item.

Feeling exhausted after our run I chose to feed my weary muscles with as much iron-y meat as possible. So a starter of Charles Macleod black pudding with Dave Thomasson scallops and carrot cream was as welcome as a scalding hot Radox bath. Both the perfectly cooked scallops and black pudding were worthy of bearing their maker’s name on the menu.

Cowie’s beef carpaccio salad with pea shoots and horseradish was so delicious that I was barely allowed a mouthful. But that one little taster was stunning.

The star of the show was a rather dull sounding “day boat plaice with sea greens, brown shrimps and sweet corn salsa”. It was a single-handed demonstration of just how fine plaice can be. It had been poached in a flavoursome liquor which left it quivering like a petrified toddler who’s just seen their Wendy House go up in flames. All the elements worked together perfectly and we just wished, like at Relais de Venise, that they would bring out a second portion!

My Cornish lamb's liver with braised bacon, lettuce and a tomato fondue couldn’t have been more what I wanted. It was as if Paul Ainsworth had judged my mood and cooked exactly what my body wanted but my mind hadn’t realised. The liver was tender, pink and perfectly seasoned whilst the braised bacon and lettuce was a pitch perfect counterpoint. The tomato fondue was a clever twist on the classic grilled version that normally comes with liver and bacon. It was a great example of how the chef tried to apply his own twist on classic dishes.

We shared a wonderful dessert of Boddingtons strawberries, thyme, cheesecake and strawberry sorbet. It almost ended in a fight as I absent-mindedly demolished far more than my fair share having said that I wasn’t really in a pudding mood! If you want to avoid arguments ruining the end of your meal, you might want to have their, rather pricey, dessert tasting slate.

As the evening drew to a close and the other guests all left we found ourselves having a enthusiastic conversation with our waiter who could not have been more passionate about food and hospitality if he had tried. I’ve since read an interview with Paul Ainsworth where he speaks about his young team with enormous pride – and it is easy to see why. It’s this sort of youthful passion that is infectious and helped to make our evening far more than the sum of its excellent parts.

Photo from the Paul Ainsworth at Number 6 Facebook page

Further Reading

You can follow Paul Ainsworth on Twitter or like the restaurant on Facebook which is a good idea given that their website is “under construction”
Review in The Telegraph
Glowing reviews on Tripadvisor
How to make Tongue-n-Cheek by Paul Ainsworth

Magnus & Magnus - So Good they Named it Twice

2010-11-12T00:32:00.004Z

Magnus & Magnus is one of the top 10 restaurants in Gothenburg and has a reputation for being slick, cool and trendy which is all backed up by an excellent wine list and imaginative Scandinavian cooking. So when Cowie came to visit me for the weekend it was my number one choice for a bit of a bit of a blow out. The restaurant occupies a fine corner berth on quirky Magasingatan, which is graced by a shady speakeasy, nerdy murals, hip coffee shops and, now that winter has struck, shops renting sledges.

The menu is cleverly composed by someone who is clearly au fait with Behavioural Economics. They have a two course menu for €39, a three course menu for €49, a four course tasting menu for €49 and a six courser for €59. So you’d be mad to go for the three courser which is exactly what most people would typically go for. As a result you are drawn inexorably into the four course tasting menu instead and therefore spend an extra €24 (including tip) per couple and probably guzzle more wine as well. It’s a perfect example of what Nudge would call a “decoy”. Understandably we choose the four course tasting menu but opted not to pair a wine with each course and instead choose an excellent bottle of reasonably priced Grüner Veltliner. After a very welcome amuse of 80% warm cream and 20% pumpkin we got stuck into the good stuff.

Carpaccio of beef · onion · carrot · butter

Their menu descriptions take a leaf out of St. John’s textbook, opting for simplicity over intricate details. The beef carpaccio was as tender as a Blur ballad with the thyme leaves adding a fragrant lift. The pickled onion worked well, but in contrast, the three styles of carrot, whilst vibrant to look at were rather bland in the mouth.

Perch · Västerbotten cheese · potato · bleak roe

The perch was stunningly cooked, with a soft interior and crumbed shell. Anya potatoes were served simply boiled and curiously, turned into crushed up crisps. It was as if the chef had decided it was a good idea to munch a packet of Walkers and then tipped the dregs out onto our otherwise very impressive plate of food. A dollop of whipped cheese foam and a couple of splodges of bleak roe added further textures, but we finished the dish wondering what was going on. The extra accoutrements were like the bad metaphors in this paragraph that distract from the main point.

Cod · fennel · cucumber · oysters

Cowie’s cod was a triumph. It was perfectly flaky and cooked by someone who would rather die than serve someone overcooked fish. The fennel and cucumber salad was textbook Cowie, but the less said about the burnt, limp chips the better.

Venison · scorzonera · lingonberries · jerusalem artichoke

My venison was deeply flavoured and matched very successfully with a sharp lingonberry sauce, as well as the earthy tones of artichokes and salsify. I’d eat it all over again, every day of the week. But I’d like it even more if it had been cooked for 60 seconds less and with double helpings of the buttery celeriac mash.

Blackberry · chocolate · coffee

Our dessert was a bit weird. Let’s just say that coffee ice cream, cassis infused chocolate mousse, blackberries and stale cake isn’t something that makes me want to do a Gregg Wallace and bite my spoon. It’s more like one of those hideous “concoctions” from Starbucks for people who don’t like coffee.

Despite a few glitches Magnus & Magnus is a very classy restaurant that I’m looking forward to revisiting time and time again for the atmosphere, imaginative food and excellent wine list. It’s tasteful but relaxed and encourages you to loosen up and enjoy yourself without taking itself too seriously. Whilst it isn’t as good as Kock och Vin and isn’t as indulgently fishy as Sjömagasinet, it certainly deserves the warm praise it receives from Gothenburgers. If you’re planning a visit to Gothenburg and fancy an urbane night of Swedish creativity, then Magnus & Magnus won’t let you down. For the full experience have a drink opposite in Puta Madre beforehand.

Further reading

Kock och Vin
Familjen
Puta Madre
Sjömagasinet

Mussel Safari at Lysekil

2010-11-10T00:09:00.014Z

The West Coast of Sweden Tourist board very kindly took me on a Mussel Safari off the coast of Lysekil along with five of Sweden’s top food bloggers. So not only did I get to see more of the idyllic Swedish coastline, but I also got to eat fantastic shellfish and meet some inspiring people.

The West Coast of Sweden’s defining characteristic is its relationship with the chilly North Sea which creates the insane weather that Gothenburg is blessed with and nourishes the seafood that graces the icy counters of the feskekorka. It’s the reason why Gothenburg has five Michelin starred restaurants and why this rocky coastline is such a rewarding place to indulge in a shellfish safari.

After an overnight stay in the seaside town of Lysekil, our mussel safari started with a mist shrouded chug out to sea guided by mussel-men Lars Marstone and Adriaan van Der Plasse. Because I was the only non-Swede I stood at the back and admired their nautical roll-necks and the handsome shoreline views.

Adriaan explained to me, in English, that the mussels take around two years to grow to maturity and thrive in the nutrient rich waters. They use the tried and tested nylon stocking technique where the mussel seeds are sown in a nylon sheath and then dangled off rafts into the sea. The mussels then grow on the rope itself before their gonads reach maturity. The diagram below from The Fish Site illustrates the process well.

Adriaan has been growing mussels all around the world, from Chile to Holland, for an eternity, so he knows what he’s talking about. The mussels we saw were six-month-old mini mussels that were still doing their GCSEs. His favourite way of eating his catch is to maintain their flavour by simply steaming them and then gorging on their seasoned naked flesh. No fancy sauces. No Thai green curry. No white wine and garlic. And definitely no cream.

Adriaan also farms oysters in the same bay. He proudly explained that because of the ferociously cold winter this year’s natives are some of the finest he’s ever eaten. He lost 80% of his crop, which wasn’t insured, thanks to the two-mete layer of ice that covered the sea. But, as if by following a combination of Pareto and Darwin’s theories, the 20% that survived are stunningly tasty as I found out back on dry land.

Sadly we didn’t get to try any mussels or oysters on board the boat on this particular trip. For paying punters Adriaan will swallow dive into the sea and return like a rugged mermaid clutching a bounty of be-shelled protein before cooking it there and then for you on the deck. In the bastardised words of Greg Wallace, “Cooking doesn’t get much fresher than this”.

Unfortunately, we had to wait till we were back in Lysekil before we could taste the mussels which were served in a creamy soup that was laden with lip smacking garlic. But it was worth the wait. As was the sight of a market dripping with crayfish and the black gold of the sea...

I trundled back down the coast to Gothenburg with my stomach full of mussels and my head jammed full of fishy facts whilst trying to persuade the tourist board to send me on one of their four other Shellfish Safaris.

You can find out more about going on a Lobster, Crayfish, Prawn, Mussel or Oyster Safari here or if you’re keen to book a trip then take a gander here.

And whilst we are on the subject of “Big Fives”, you should check out my “fem” new favourite Swedish food bloggers who I met on this trip...

Linnea's beautiful blog is soon to become a book about making the most of your pantry, Swedish style!

Kinna is a bit of a social media guru and has an excellent food blog that's good for when you want to practice your Swedish

Emma's Kök is full of stunning photographs of food that is designed to be swift and tasty

Kalasgott has quickly become one of my favourites - from the photos to the charming design. It also helps that Jenny is lots of fun. It's also got a nifty feature that lets your translate the text into English.

I found a kindred spirit in Katja who cooks all her food in a coffee pot - look out for a forthcoming post about an unusual way of cooking mussel soup

Beetroot Curry

2010-11-03T21:45:00.005Z

Has Browners gone completely insane? Beetroot curry sounds repulsive. He must have gone native. What’s next, pickled herring soufflé? A dill and walnut chocolate cake? Lingonberry scrambled eggs? But fear not. Beetroot curry is actually rather good. And fabulous to look at.

As you may have noticed, I’ve become rather attached to beetroot since moving to Sweden. It’s all part of my effort to eat more vegetables, to cut down on expensive meat and to become a bit healthier. And it turns out that beetroot are a blessing. They’re tasty, healthy, filling and hold their own against robust flavours. But would beetroot be able to cope with curry?

When Cowie and I were in India this time two years ago, we had a couple of cooking lessons from some of our hosts. I’ll never forget this chap at the Villa Rivercat in Goa patiently whipping up an incredible chicken curry with spices that were so expressive they were like Eddie Murphy after a dose of amphetamines. We both came back from India feeling incredibly healthy having eaten mainly vegetables and fish throughout our trip.

Inspired by thoughts of India I hatched a plan to create the reddest curry every seen and set off in search of spices. The Curry House, in the quaint district of Haga, has every spice known to mankind. And then some. They even sell bizarre things like black feathers, rhubarb root and lots of exotic medicines. It’s a bit like the market in Munnar, but less crazy.

Armed with fennel seeds, cumin, star anise, cardamom, dried red chillies, mustard seeds, turmeric and a massive bag of orange lentils I aromatically waddled back to my flat to do battle with the beetroot.

Ingredients:

10 beetroot
10 small potatoes
1 bag of fresh spinach (or can be frozen)
1 can of coconut milk
6 tomatoes
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
Chicken/vegetable stock
2 thumbs of ginger
1 dessert spoon of cumin seeds
1 desert spoon of fennel seeds
1 dessert spoon of mustard seeds
1 desert spoon of coriander seeds
10 cardamom pods
5 star anise
2 desert spoons of garam masala
6 dried chillies
Vegetable oil
Coriander leaves
Salt

Method:

Roast all the spices (apart from the garam masala and cardamom) until they are aromatic but not burnt. Then pound to a dust in a pestle and mortar.

Sauté the onion until soft then add the chopped garlic and cook for a few minutes. Then add the grated ginger and breath deeply. A few minutes later throw in all the spices including the garam masala. Allow to mingle and cook for whilst you heat your stock up.

Pour in the hot stock and then add the chopped and peeled beetroot along with the dried chillies and cardamom. You want the liquid to be covering the beetroot.

Allow this to bubble away for about an hour with the lid on – until the beetroot begin to become tender. Then add the halved potatoes and take the lid off so that the liquid reduces. Once the potatoes are becoming tender add the can of coconut milk and 6 finely chopped tomatoes.

Taste for spice levels and seasoning and adjust accordingly with some chopped fresh chillies. At the last minute, stir through some spinach. Sprinkle with chopped coriander and serve.

I had it straight up with no rice, lentils or bread. But I think it would be best served with a chapatti or steaming hot naan. Whilst it might be an assault on the eyeballs it’s a delight to eat.

I made a large vat of it and lived off it for most of the week. You can add some pork or chicken when you are craving a bit of meat.

Further reading:

Beetroot curry recipe from One Bite at a Time
Beetroot curry recipe from Coffee Muffins

Three Ways with Beetroot Gnocchi

2010-10-27T21:56:00.010+01:00

In it’s own right, most pasta couldn’t be more bland. Beige and almost flavourless it is like a silent servant being ordered around by the other ingredients. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been neglecting pasta. So in my quest to eat less refined carbohydrates and following the success of my experiments of using root vegetables as pasta substitutes I decided to have some colourful fun creating beetroot gnocchi.

In my head it seemed a fairly simple task. Substitute the potato for beetroot, mix in some flour, add an egg, season, knead, prove, roll into a sausage, chop into nuggets, boil and serve. But I hadn’t accounted for the fact that my kitchen would transform into a blood bath, or that my hands would be caked in lurid red Playdough rendering me incapable of doing anything. But it was well worth all the scrubbing and hard work.

I made enough dough for several meals so played around with various beetroot friendly flavour combinations. Of all the combinations I tried, a simple pairing with a lip pursing goat’s cheese worked well as did a creamy chanterelle sauce and a bowl of super charged aniseed soup with beetroot gnocchi dumplings.

Beetroot Gnocchi

Ingredients

6 large beetroots
2 large potatoes
1/6th weight of beetroot and potato of plain flour
1 egg

Method

Boil the potato until tender, drain, allow to cool for a bit and then mash. Do not under any circumstances whiz in a food processor as it will become gluey and the texture of the gnocchi will be damaged.

Roast the beetroot on a bed of rock salt for 40 minutes. Others suggest boiling or steaming them, but having tried different methods, the salt roasting technique is best. The beetroot keeps its colour better and the flavour is enhanced. Remove the beetroot from the oven and allow to cool. Remove the skin and blend in a liquidiser.
Combine the beetroot puree with the potato and marvel at the bright red mixture.

Season with salt and pepper. Next beat in the flour and the egg. Keep adding flour until the mixture turns from unmanageable red gunge to a well behaved dough. It took far more flour than I had expected to achieve this, so be patient.

Once it is becoming dough like transfer the mixture to a well floured work surface and knead like you’ve never kneaded before. Make sure your hands are well floured and you are wearing a T shirt you don’t care about much.

Tear off a piece of dough for your serving and roll into a thin sausage shape. Roll in flour and cut into little nuggets.

Boil in well salted water until the first red blob floats to the surface and then drain immediately. Serve with any of the flavour combinations below.

Beetroot Gnocchi with Goats Cheese, Toasted Walnuts and Chives

Once cooked, simply place the gnocchi in a bowl, top with goats cheese and toasted walnuts and place under the grill for a few moments to melt the cheese. Then sprinkle with finely snipped chives and season maniacally with salt and pepper. It’s a delicious autumnal lunch time dish that, once you have made the dough, is unbelievably simple to make. The subtly earthy flavour of the beetroot was a super match for the sharp cheese and the soft texture was enhanced by the crunchy walnuts.

Beetroot Gnocchi with a Chanterelle and Goat’s Cheese Sauce

The woody, earthy tones in mushrooms and beetroot are made for each other. Coupled with a splodge of crème fraiche and a knob of goat’s cheese it made for a more indulgent main dish than the previous version.

Sauté two large handfuls of chanterelles in butter and olive oil over a high heat. Sprinkle with salt and continue cooking until they have leached their water out and taken on some colour. Lower the heat. Then add a finely minced clove of garlic and cook for a few minutes to take the raw edge away. Then add several spoonfuls of crème fraiche and bubble away until it has become saucy. Toss in the goat’s cheese and then slather over your just boiled beetroot gnocchi.

Garnish with chives and sprinkle with smoked salt and season with black pepper. Just writing this makes me want to eat it all over again, but this time either with a glass of white wine like a Grüner Veltliner or something more woody like a Chassagne-Montrachet.

Fennel Soup with Beetroot Gnocchi Floaters

Being very partial to the taste of anise I decided to buy up my local store’s stock of fennel bulbs and make a fennel soup supercharged with star anise and tarragon.

I simply roasted 4 chopped fennel bulbs until golden with a couple of shallots and 5 star anise and then added them to a pan of simmering water with a glug of chicken stock. I removed the star anise and then blitzed in a food processor before seasoning and topping with beetroot gnocchi and a sprinkling of goats cheese and walnuts.

The photo doesn’t really do it justice. So you’ll have to take my word for it that it’s a cracking combination and is something I am going to make time and time again. I’ll just have to work on the presentation!

If you’ve been inspired to make some beetroot gnocchi by this post, I encourage you to make a large amount and store the remaining dough in the freezer. After the fun of making beetroot gnocchi, my next task is to do something similar with all the glut of pumpkins that November is promising.

If you’ve got any further ideas about what to do with beetroot or pumpkin gnocchi please let me know.

Back to Nature at Kolarbyn

2010-10-03T17:42:00.011+01:00

After losing to Sweden at football, then England manager, Graham Taylor, famously put the Swedish victory down to the fact that Swedes “tend to be of an outdoor pursuit". He rightly got ridiculed by the British press and earned the nickname Turnip Taylor as a result! But ever a true word has been said in jest. England lost because Sweden played better, but he was right that Swedes love being outside. And when you get a taste for how stunning the countryside and coastline is, you understand why.

With this in mind, when Cowie arrived for a Swedish weekend with Edwin and Anna, I hatched a slightly insane plan that involved 900km of driving and a weekend of no running water, toilets or electricity! But what we lost in creature comforts we more than made up in tranquility and memories that will last a lifetime thanks to the enchanted forest and mysterious lake at Kolarbyn. It’s a former charcoal making forest that now operates as the “world’s most primitive hotel” where you sleep in log cabins and explore the forest in search of moose, bears, mushrooms, wolves and fairies.

After a 5 hour drive from Gothenburg, towards Stockholm, through biblical rain showers we arrived at Kolarbyn in a spotlight of sunshine and a breath of virginally pure air. The roads leading towards the clearing made me feel like the Stig and would have made Jeremy Clarkson feel like he’d broken down and gone straight to motorists’ heaven.

When Andreas, our super charming host/ranger, showed us around the clearing we were so excited that all we could do was exchange grins and stifled gasps of wonder. It was like a cross between Hansel and Gretel, Narnia and Lord of the Rings, except without the evil monsters lurking behind every tree. Our moss covered, log cabins were as primitive as the website has suggested. But that isn’t to say they weren’t the cosiest hotel rooms I’ve ever seen. Each one was fitted with a log fireplace and two benches to sleep on with a sheepskin for a mattress.

An essay about our weekend won’t do it justice. So I’ll let the photos and a few brief captions do the job instead…

We kicked off by chopping our wood for the night and soon discovered that Anna had been born to be a lumberjack...

she put Edwin's use of a lady axe to shame.

Meanwhile Cowie got the giggles...

which set Anna off into a fearsome rage!

And I almost took my leg off with an enthusiastic swing!

Our huts were like mini hobbit houses...

with grass, moss, weeds...

and mushrooms growing out of the roof.

After lighting our fires in our cabins we headed to the lake and rowed across to the floating sauna armed with logs, firelighters, matches, swimming costumes and a box of white wine.

Whilst we waited for the sauna to heat up we tucked into ice cold white wine whilst watching the sun set over our lake.

It was one of the most perfect experiences I've ever had and only got better and better. After three quarters of an hour we stripped off and hopped in the sauna which was now roasting hot. After half an hour of blissfully relaxing heat we braced ourselves and dived into the chilly lake. I swear at that moment we were the four happiest people in the whole world.

We made our way back to the camp and tucked into a hearty Swedish supper of pickled herring, crisp bread and meatballs.

And then returned to our toasty cabins good night's sleep.

We had a rustic breakfast of eggs, porridge and coffee gathered around yet another fire before heading off for an excursion in search of a moose.

But all we seemed to find was acres of lychen...

thousands of lingonberries...

and dangerous mushrooms.

But that didn't matter it the slightest. And I can safely say that the four of us had the best weekend we can all remember for a long time.

Kolarbyn is one of the most enchanting places I've ever been to and I can't recommend it to you enough. If you are staying for longer than one night you might want to treat yourself to a wolf howling tour, a beaver trail or a moose safari. But to be honest, just being at one with nature was good enough for us.

Spaghetti alla Bottarga

2010-09-28T22:25:00.011+01:00

Sardinia’s opal tinted waters that lap against the island’s crinkly coast are awash with bronzed Italian bodies and most excitingly, are wriggling with grey mullet. The history of Sardinia, the Mediterranean and these wriggling mullet is so intertwined that you could write a compelling anthropological thesis about their relationship that would reveal the island’s true character.

Sardinia’s location makes the island a sponge for outside influences. Over the centuries Sardinia has been invaded by the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Ostrogoths and the maritime republics of Genoa and Pisa as well as being inundated by Arab raids. It’s this influx of external influences that makes Sardinia’s food culture so interesting. A quick look at the culinary palimpsest shows what a strong influence Arab culture has had on Sardinia with the legacy of fregola and most interestingly, bottarga.

Bottarga (AKA Sardinian Caviar) is the preserved roe sac from grey mullet and tastes deeply savoury, super salty and very grown up. Just imagine a firmer, nuttier version of an anchovy. It is made by salting a mullet roe sac and then pressing it between two pieces of wood and air-drying it. When cured it is then covered in a layer of beeswax and sold for an extortionate price in flash delis all over the world. It gets its name from the Arabic batarekh and is found in various guises across the Middle East.

Like all seafood and Italian food it is at its best at its most simple. Just grate it onto a bowl of pasta that’s been doused in garlic infused-olive-oil and lemon zest and shower it in parsley and you will be eating the very essence of Sardinia.

We had a go at cooking an improvised version of spaghetti alla bottarga in our outdoor kitchen at Casa Teulada whilst we were in Sardinia and loved it so much that I made it my mission to recreate it properly back in my kitchen in Sweden. With a recipe from Mario Batali as a guide I put my waxy block of fishy gold to good use.

Ingredients:

Top quality spaghetti
Bottarga
Italian parsley
Olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
1 lemon
Chilli flakes
Salt and pepper

Method:

Boil the pasta in salted water.

Meanwhile gently heat an indecent glug of olive oil in a cast iron pan and add the thinly sliced garlic and chilli flakes. You just want the garlic to warm through and lose its raw edge which will take no more than a few minutes. If you've got some bottarga powder as well as the roe, sprinkle some into the oil for a deeper flavour.

Then when the pasta is cooked use a claw and add the pasta to the garlicky oil. Flick in some of the magical pasta water and toss. Then serve in a bowl and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley, lemon zest and then triumphantly grate over a generous amount of bottarga. Make haste and serve pronto.

Washed down with an icy bottle of Vermentino, each forkful transports you back to the warm, breezy shores of Sardinia.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition which you can read about here and on www.homeaway.co.uk

For more information about bottarga and Sardinia have a look at these sites:

Gastroanthropology on bottarga
Granturismo themselves on the delicacies of Sardinia and even more bizarrely their account of staying in our apartment!
Practically Edible on Bottarga
One Bite on Bottarga

Salmon with Fennel Remoulade

2010-09-26T01:07:00.008+01:00

I’ve got a confession to make. I’ve become addicted to fennel. In my defence, I am genetically pre-disposed to the stuff and I suspect that my mother has an even bigger soft spot for it. I love the texture, the sweetness and its grown up aniseed flavour. Whether it’s grilled, cured, pureed or raw, it never fails to add an elegant extra dimension to any dish. As a result there is normally a fennel bulb standing on duty in my fridge waiting to be called into action.

I opened up my trusty Flavour Thesaurus and flicked straight to the “Anise” section. In the introduction Nicki Segnit claims that anise gets on “famously with seafood” which triggered a memory of Heston Blumenthal’s salmon with liquorice gel and also of a stunning fish soup with a fennel backnote that Cowie and I had on a remote Swedish island. Nicki speculates that the sweetness and refreshing quality of fennel makes it the perfect foil for a fatty fish such as salmon. So I thawed a salmon fillet before work and played with the idea of a fennel remoulade during my lunch break (having been inspired by this and this). But the idea of a rich mayonnaise base didn’t seem right, so I switched it to crème fraiche and added some capers for a spritz of salinity.

Ingredients:

1 salmon fillet
Olive oil
Butter
Salt and pepper
1 fennel bulb
2 tablespoons of crème fraiche
1 teaspoon of capers
Handful of finely chopped parsley
Juice of half a lemon
1 teaspoon of whole grain mustard
1 finely chopped shallot

Method:

Chop the fennel as finely as possible and discard the tough central spine and put in a non reactive bowl. Immediately cover in lemon juice. Add the chopped shallot, capers, and mustard and then add the crème fraiche. Stir so it is all coated and then place in the fridge whilst you cook the salmon.

You can sear, poach or grill the salmon depending on whether you trust your grill, have an issue with making the house smell of fish, like crispy skin or are on a diet. Given my love of crunchy skin and the temperamental nature of my grill I went for the frying option. It also helps that I live on my own! Sear the salmon, skin side down, in a hot pan for a few minutes until the skin is crispy. Turn the heat down and flip the salmon. Add a knob of butter and cook until its done to your preference.

Personally I like to dice with death by cooking it so the middle is only just warm and a vibrant sunset pink. But it’s up to you. You can either be brave and risk a dose of botulism or be a cowardly woos living a life punctuated by regret, greyness and never ending remorse.

Remove the fennel mixture from the fridge and add the chopped parsley and season to taste. You won’t need as much salt as you think because of the salinity of the capers.

I wolfed this down watching an old episode of Spooks with a glass of metallic Muscadet and went to bed looking forward to a second sitting for lunch at work, but with less wine! The salmon was juicy, rare and blessed with skin that was so crisp and salty that you could have persuaded a blind folded man that it was pork crackling, whilst the fennel remoulade was restrained, crunchy and healthy to boot. I imagine it would go very well with left over roast chicken, crab or would be great as part of a picnic instead of icky coleslaw.

Further reading:

The Flavour Thesaurus by Nicki Segnit
Fennel Remoulade from Nick Nairn
Fennel Remoulade from Cook Almost Anything

Celery and Cauliflower Soup with Honey Glazed Walnut Croutons

2010-09-22T23:45:00.005+01:00

The Flavour Thesaurus is fast becoming my favourite cookery book. When I looked in my fridge and saw half a head of celery and a cauliflower I was about as inspired as a fax machine. Feeling hungry and glum I flicked through Niki Segnit’s book and my mind itched with possibilities. Reading the book was like smoking a joint. It helped to connect disparate ideas. The last entry in the cauliflower section suggested an affinity with walnuts. Inspired by this I thought of Waldorf Salads and dived into the section that explains the affinity between walnuts and celery and got very excited when I saw that walnuts have a “magical” relationship with chicken stock.

So it all became very simple. I had no option. I had to make cauliflower and celery soup with a chicken stock base and walnut croutons.

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower
1 head of celery chopped
1 finely chopped onion
1 clove of garlic
2 litres of chicken stock
4 small potatoes
Olive oil
Butter
Cream
Salt
Pepper
Skinned and chopped walnuts
Honey

Method:

Saute the onion until beginning to soften in olive oil and butter. Add the celery and garlic and continue cooking for a few minutes. Then add the cauliflower and potatoes and fill the pan with chicken stock.

Simmer for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Liquidise and season with salt and pepper and return to the pan to reduce to your desired consistency.

Whilst reducing, heat a frying pan and add the walnuts. Then when they are getting toasty spoon over some runny honey. The nuts should become sticky and crunchy.

Serve the soup with a dash of cream and a topping of walnut croutons. What it lacks in vivid colours it makes up for super savoury flavours. Without the sweet and crispy walnuts this would have been a shadow - they added texture, sweetness and a golden thread to marry the celery and cauliflower together.

Turkey Meatballs with Mushroom Sauce

2010-09-16T09:01:00.000+01:00

A trip to the supermarket isn’t complete without remortgaging your house. Whereas in the UK, the fierce competition between the supermarkets means you get inundated with special offers, 3 for 2s, bogofs and reap the rewards from loyalty schemes, Sweden just plucks a price for each item out of thin air and then doubles it. And then adds a tonne of tax. For the first month or so I was overwhelmed by the language barrier and a bit naïve about the exchange rate with the result that each bag of food seemed to cost around 30 pounds. Since then, I’ve been far more careful and have cut out expensive items such as meat from my shopping list and instead filled my basket with vegetables and keep things interesting by regularly visiting the fish monger. As a result my bags are now weighing in at 20 pounds and I am feeling a lot healthier to boot.

Whilst exploring the exotic frozen meet section in my local supermarket, amongst the crocodile meat, marrow bones and deer blood, I came across a rather boring, but cheap, giant frozen turkey breast and started thinking of ways to pep up this dull lump of protein.

The first night I lobbed off a couple of chunks and poached them in a stock laced with cardamom, cinnamon and coriander and ladled over a reduced sauce that was supposed to be savoury but turned into butterscotch. Whilst it filled a hole for dinner and lunch the next day, let’s just say it barely deserved the 63 words I’ve just given it.

The worst thing about the meat was the texture. With so little fat it was dry and very tasteless. So the only solution was to mince it and turn this mound of inert poultry into super tasty meatballs. This is an adaptation of a great recipe from Anne’s Food which uses either pork or beef. But I’ve used turkey instead.

Ingredients:

Meatballs:

1 whole turkey breast weighing around a kilo
1 finely sliced onion
1 clove of garlic
White pepper
Salt
Handful of cardamom pods
Sprinkling of cinnamon powder
Sprinkling of all spice
Some oats/breadcrumbs to balance the moisture – use your judgement
1 egg

Sauce:

A dozen sliced button mushrooms
1 shallot
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of crème fraiche
Thyme
Tarragon
Butter
Olive Oil
Salt and pepper

Whole wheat

Method:

Mince your turkey and add everything in the meatballs ingredients list. Hold back a bit on the spices and make a test meatball which you should fry in a bit of oil. It should cook in about 5-8 minutes. Let it cool and test for seasoning and spicing. Adjust as necessary remembering that you can always add more, but it’s harder to take away!

Form into balls about the size of a golf ball and fry in batches to brown. Transfer to a roasting pan cook in a medium-low oven whilst you plough on with the other aspects.

Boil the wheat and drain, but reserve the starchy water. Keep the wheat warm.

Sautee the mushrooms in butter and oil and season with salt which will draw the moisture out. They should start to turn brown. Then add the onions and garlic and cook until soft but not brown. Then pour in about 300ml of the starchy wheat water and it should cause quite a commotion in the pan. Add a dash of liquid chicken stock and reduce. Add some crème fraiche, tarragon, thyme and seasoning to the sauce which should become quite stroganoffy.

Serve the meatballs on a bed of wheat and topped with the mushroom sauce. What is lacks in colour it makes up for in rich, autumnal flavours.

This recipe made around 20 meatballs which was enough for 5 meals. Which made it incredibly good value. The warming spicing completely transformed the bland turkey and leant itself to being paired with quinoa, cous cous or fregula and plenty of hot sauce.

After dipping my toe into the controversial world of Swedish meatballs, I’m looking forward to giving the proper versions a go next. If you’ve got a great recipe for Swedish meatballs that you can share with me I’d love to give it a go.

Swedish Mushroom Adventures

2010-09-14T00:11:00.008+01:00

Early September in Sweden is an enchanting time of year. The damp air and moist forests feel ripe with autumnal life and even the grassy areas in town are sprouting mushrooms. Even if they have been carved out of tree stumps.

With the sun being slow to make its mind up as it politely debated with the clouds about who should bat first, I went for a run and landed up at the Saluhallen where I almost inevitably was drawn towards a man selling chanterelles (Kantareller) for a pittance. I snaffled a bagful and grinned as I felt their weight almost drop through the bottom of the paper bag and the change jangle in my running shorts' pocket.

With my golden cargo and a loaf of honey rye sourdough I made my sweaty way home and cooked the most perfect breakfast of sautéed chanterelles on toasted sourdough topped with some creme fraiche and washed down with the best part of a whole pot of percolator coffee. All I needed to make it extra special was Cowie and a copy of the Guardian.

My weekend mushroom adventures continued on Sunday with a trip to the forest. With Alexandra's mushrooming knowledge and the advice from a day of foraging with John Wright of River Cottage HQ ringing in my ears and memories of playing mushroom roulette in Richmond Park we fearlessly tackled the mozzies and got stuck in. We found a wealth of half nibbled mushrooms snuggling into the light, sandy soil, sheltering beneath the branches of pine and birch trees.

I’m not sure what they all are, but where I’ve got an inkling I’ve included a caption. If you know what they are please let me know in a comment.

No idea what this one is. But it looked mean and evil.

This monster, we think is ideal for eating. It’s either a cep, or another sort of bolete. It was just a shame that the slugs and maggots had got there first.

And we saw these Fly Agaric by the dozen, as they flamboyantly lined the paths.

I returned home with an impressive clutch of well pored mushrooms which all seemed like they had edible potential, with the ominous exception of the black capped, long stemmed, example which resembled a grim reaper.

We were very worried about this one. It looked particularly evil.

These are called Slippery Jacks which are covered in a slimy cap which can cause indigestion. If you clean the cap the mushrooms themselves are rather good apparently. But their name is enough to put anyone off!

This one, I think, is a cep, which is called a Carl Johan in Sweden, and judging from the amount of holes must have been very tasty.

These two smelled good and when I took a small nibble didn’t taste bitter, but instead, rather impressive. And given that friends in the office and a few online experts suggested these would make for very good eating I plucked up the confidence to tuck in.

I decided to follow a recipe from Mark Hix’s new book “Hix Oyster and Chop House” and simply studded the ceps with slithers of garlic, coated them in butter and seasoning and then roasted them for 15 minutes before sprinkling with parsley and nervously tucking in.

They were absolutely delicious. Soft, tender and buttery and without question, the most mushroomy thing I’ve ever eaten. I am sure they tasted even better because there was a chance I’d identified them wrong and there was a vague possibility that this could be my last meal. If I suddenly drop down dead, please come and find me armed with whatever anti-toxins I require!

Further reading:

Funghi Forays - sign up for their excellent newsletters
Carl Johan on Wikipedia
The Good Food Mood Blog on chanterelles on toast
Beginners' guide to picking chanterelles in Gothenburg Daily newspaper

Not Quite the Holy Trinity

2010-09-09T08:26:00.006+01:00

Trinity is our local bolthole where we go for a treat. After some disappointing weekend experiences in the West End we’ve found it’s far better to dine somewhere more local. Or at least local to Cowie! Our previous meal at Trinity was nearly faultless. We were treated to some of the best service we’ve ever had as well as a sensational starter of pigs head that got the better of its cousin at Wild Honey and a hare dish that rivaled the Royale at the Zetter.

If you like your tablecloths to be crisp; your service to be smooth; your wine list to be accessible and interesting and your food to be refined and imaginative then Trinity ticks a lot of boxes. But if you like your sweet things to be sweet and your savoury dishes to be savoury, then you may have a freak out like we did…

Sitting at the best table in the house and drinking effete little glasses of Prosecco we gorged on some fine bread and slightly too warm butter whilst feeling like we were in a benevolent version of the Truman Show. It seemed that the whole restaurant was constructed around us with the fellow diners showcasing dishes we might order, offering background noise and in the case of a lady next to us with a notebook, a source of constant amusement. Especially when she repositioned her husband’s spoon as he was about to use it to dig into a soufflé which was then allowed to go cold!

Cowie adored a pristine starter of tuna and crab with a tomato consomme which was as close to being the Platonic Form of Cowie’s dream starter as is possible. Meanwhile, my pigs’ trotters with quail eggs on toasted sourdough was startling. Deeply savoury and with the swine dial on maximum, it made me want to roll around in a muddy field and scratch my bottom against a barbed wire fence.

I am a big fan of restaurants that serve wine by the carafe. Cowie loves white wine, but is less of a fan of red, so the carafe approach let’s me have a glass of red with my main course. A splash of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc was ideal with our starters and some Pinot Noir was ideal with the lump of meat that arrived next.

My fillet of beef with bone marrow, snails, onion tart and bordelaise sauce was richer than a Sheikh who’s just won the pools. It pulsated with flavour and mooed with medium rare rouge. From now on I am refusing to eat fillet steak without snails and marrow on my plate. But the soggy onion tart can stay at home.

Cowie ordered rabbit two ways and had to send it back because some elements of the dish were stone cold. When the plate arrived back it was a much better temperature, but was destroyed by a vanilla sauce that smothered everything in sickly sweetness. I like vanilla a lot but have learnt my own lessons that it can easily overwhelm a sweet dish, let alone a meek and mild little bunny rabbit.

And as if the pastry chef and the rabbit chef had just played musical stations we were then presented with the most bizarre dessert we’ve had in years. The apricot tart looked stunning. The golden topping was sweet, sour and fragrant. But then things got weird. We couldn’t put our finger on it, but then it clicked. The pastry wasn’t sweet, it was cheesy. After triple checking we scraped off the topping, closed our eyes and realised that the pastry tasted identical to cheese straws. How very, very odd. So we mentioned this to our waitress who after a visit to the kitchen said it always tasted that way, but that no-one had ever complained.

Having not seen each other for ages we weren’t going to let a few sweet and savoury cross wires get in the way of a romantic evening. Especially when the starters and my beef were so ravishing. But for 150 quid, you’d expect the kitchen to be able to get the basics, such as savoury for main course and sweet for dessert, right. As we moseyed home we reluctantly relegated Trinity down our “must return to” list which means we’ll be heading to Chez Bruce for our next treat.

Planked Salmon with Fennel Two Ways and Burnt Aubergine Puree

2010-09-06T23:44:00.004+01:00

Cowie has a long and distinguished history of buying me awesome cooking gifts, not to mention having built Cassius as well. So when she gave me a collection of cedar planks for Christmas I got giddily excited.

Planking is an old fashioned culinary technique where you cook your meat or fish on a dampened plank of wood, such as cedar, over hot coals. The wet wood emits puffs of steam and smoke that gently encourage the flesh above to yield whilst providing a smoky backdrop. (For more in depth information about planking have a look at this site or buy this book.)

The easiest, and possibly best, thing to cook on a plank is a fillet of salmon. You land up with an indecently moist piece of warm smoky fish that will make you wonder why you’ve been eating boring old poached or grilled salmon for all those years.

We cooked this with a fennel salad which we cevichified from Mark Hix’s book and some burnt aubergine puree that we bastardised from Ottolonghi. And all in a Cornish field with a small BBQ.

Ingredients:

1 cedar plank
1 salmon fillet big enough for two with the skin on
Salt
Pepper
Lemon zest
2 aubergines
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of yoghurt
Olive oil
1 fennel bulb
Mint
Juice of 2 lemons

Method:

Soak your cedar plank in water for anywhere between 2 and 12 hours. This will stop it burning.

Slice the fennel as thinly as possible. We didn’t have a mandolin on the camp site, surprisingly, so just make sure you’ve got a very sharp knife and haven’t drunk your own body weight in gin and tonic by this stage. Season with salt and pepper and then douse in the juice of 2 lemons.

Light your BBQ. When the coals have stopped flaming throw on two aubgerines and pierce with your knife. Let them burn, Ottolenghi-style, for 20 minutes or until steam is spurting out of the aubergines and the flesh is soft. Remove and leave to cool. Then scoop out the flesh, mash, and mix in the yoghurt, more salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. You’ll be adding some smoked garlic later…

Descale the salmon and remove any pin bones. Then rinse in cold water. Pat dry. And then season like there’s no tomorrow. Add a few curls of lemon zest.

Place the plank on the coals and when it starts to smoke lay the salmon skin side up on the wood along with 2 cloves of garlic. Add the fennel to the grill and close the lid. Inspect after 10 minutes and turn the fennel. Judge the doneness of the salmon and continue cooking for as long as you like.

Remove from the heat and mash the smoky garlic into the aubergine. Dress the fennel ceviche with some olive oil, shredded mint leaves and check the seasoning. If you’ve got the inclination, remove the salmon skin and place on the grill to crisp up.

Serve the salmon from the plank with the two types of fennel and a saucy smacker of smokey aubergine puree.

The salmon was softer than an Andrex puppy’s downy ear and subtly smoked. Whilst the fennel was sharp and crunchy on the one hand and charred and sweet on the other.

After a scorching debut I think that planking may well be my new favourite cooking technique. We’ll have to push the boat out next time with some more adventurous recipes…

Further reading:

Epicurious on maple planked salmon
Accidental hedonist on Copper River planked salmon
Man Meat Fire
Cedar Grilling Company - they know a thing or two about planking
Cedar plank recipes from Tasty Timbers
Buy planks in the UK here
How to cut your own cedar grilling planks

Arctic Char with Roasted Fennel and Grated Tricolour Carrots

2010-08-22T09:07:00.000+01:00

When Cowie was last over in Sweden we had a cracking dinner at a small restaurant and bar called Stearin, in Gothenburg’s trendy Linne district. My beef was delicious, but it was Cowie’s fillet of crispy skinned and soft fleshed röding that really caught our attention. We couldn’t work out what the mystery fish was. We left the restaurant convinced we had eaten trout but then found out via the magic of the interweb that röding is actually arctic char.

So when I saw a fillet of röding in the Feskekôrka I snapped it up and made it my mission to recreate the dish. I decided to make good use of an abundance of mulitcoloured carrots which seemed to be behaving like a chameleon as they changed colour to match the pink and purple speckled fish skin. And a stray fennel bulb seemed like a good idea too. As did an orange and a lemon.

Ingredients:

Fillet of Arctic Char
Half a fennel bulb
3 grated carrots
1 orange
1 lemon
1 tablespoon of honey
2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
Some chopped parsley
Glug of olive oil
Half a red chilli
Salt and pepper

Method:

Roast the fennel in a hot oven with a wedge or two of orange for 30 minutes, or until soft and slightly coloured.

Grate your carrots. I used my MagiMix which took a mere 4 seconds and made me feel like a WI superhero! Dress the carrots with a mixture of olive oil, honey, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, orange zest and finely sliced red chilli. As well as some salt and pepper.

Season the fish and sear skin side down until the skin is crisp. Then turn over and barely cook. You want the fish to be mooing.

Arrange the plate with the fennel as the foundation and balance the fish on top with the carrots looking like an upturned birds nest on the edge of the plate.

It’s a delicious, light summer dish that would work just as well with salmon or trout. The carrots, with their citrus, honey and chilli notes and the sweet, aromatic fennel more than played their part too.

Further reading:

More information about Arctic Char on Chow
Swedish recipe for röding and an interesting Scandinavian food blog

Seared Salmon with Cauliflower Puree and Redcurrant Sauce

2010-08-19T22:14:00.003+01:00

I came home from the market with a bag full of treats and a brain that was racing with ideas about what to do with all my lovingly purchased ingredients. Bargainous oxtail and short ribs went straight into the freezer taking with them a meaty portion of my “what to cook” conundrum. I stood looking at my haul playing a mental game of word association, but with food. Then, with a shard of crimson inspiration, things clicked into place.

Super fresh redcurrants glowed like rubies, begging to be matched with a fillet of salmon that was so fresh I imagine there’s a fish swimming around with an oblong hole in its side. And with an absence of potatoes, a cauliflower raised a hand and volunteered to fill in. Seared salmon with cauliflower mash and redcurrant sauce may sound like something Alan Partridge may pitch as the name of his new TV show, but I can assure you it is delicious.

Ingredients to serve one (sob sob):

1 salmon fillet with the skin very much still on
Handful of redcurrants
5 cardamom pods
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
Half a head of cauliflower
250ml of milk
2 table spoons of crème fraiche
1 tablespoon of grated horseradish
1 tablespoon of honey
Salt and pepper

Method:

Start by making your cauliflower mash. Saute the onion and garlic gently until soft. Don’t let them colour. Cut the cauliflower into small pieces and simmer in the milk. Be careful not to burn the milk. When soft blitz in a blender and then add the crème fraiche. The consistency should be smooth and soft. Season with alacrity and add the grated horseradish if you fancy a bit of warmth.

Add the redcurrants and cardamom to a pan and just cover with water. Boil until the currants of soft and the liquid is red. Pass through a sieve and return to the pan. Add the honey and reduce until it is syrupy. (If you carry on reducing it and then let it cool it will become jelly).

Then season your salmon and sear skin side down to crisp up the skin. Turn it over and barely cook until it is rare. Spoon the cauliflower puree onto a plate and place the salmon on top. Dress with redcurrant sauce and serve.

I was rather pleased with how it turned out. The earthy flavour of cauliflower was a good foil for the salmon whilst the sweet, sour and aromatic redcurrant sauce added a powerful counterpoint. The blood coloured moat made it look like it had been cooked by Dexter. My favourite part of the dish was the way that everything was so soft except for the lusciously crispy salmon skin which snapped, cracked and crunched in equal measure.

Further reading:

Redcurrant sauce
Cauliflower puree
Dexter

Tricolour Carrot Tagliatelle with Orange Zest, Coriander Seeds and Scallops

2010-08-16T20:06:00.003+01:00

This started out as a healthy experiment that worked well in principle but wasn’t quite right taste wise and evolved into a dish I’m really proud of. Inspired by the success of making salsify tagliatelle I thought it would be fun to do something similar with carrots. But whereas the creamy seafood sauce worked wonders with the salsify thanks to the white root vegetable’s oystery taste, my horseradish carbonara was best consigned to the compost bin.

But rather than give up I mulled things over, invested in some multi-coloured carrots and had a look in my Flavour Thesaurus. Prior to peeking inside, I had wondered whether orange and a Middle Eastern spice might work well and was delighted when I stumbled across the fact that Niki Segnit recommends both orange and coriander seeds as two great flavour combinations to throw at carrots. So I thought, what the hell, let’s try both. And then threw some scallops in as well to turn it into a proper meal.

Ingredients:

A bunch of peeled, long, multi-coloured carrots
Coriander seeds
2 oranges
4 scallops
Red chilli
Salt
Pepper

Method:

Using a vegetable peeler, cheese slicer or mandolin, shave your carrots into thin strips. Then cut all these carrot strips into tagliatelle width slithers. You’ll be left with a bowl of raw carrot tagliatelle.

Squeeze the two oranges into a pan and reduce the juice with a tea spoon of honey and some crushed coriander seeds. Add the zest of half an orange and check to see it all taste vibrant. I added a touch of chopped red chilli as well for good measure, but you needn’t if you don’t fancy it.

Then boil the carrots briefly in salted water. And sear your scallops having seasoned them first.

Add the carrots to the sauce and combine. Serve in a bowl. Season. And then add the scallops on top. Then gasp at how beautiful, healthy and delicious this is. It may not be a traditional bowl of pasta. But it’s certainly strikingly different.

If you've got any thoughts about flavours and sauces that could accompany carrot tagliatelle please let me know...

Further reading (beware it's all a bit health foody):

Griddled salmon with carrot spaghetti
Carrot spaghetti with green pesto
Carrot tagliatelle with almond garlic and brocoli

Langoustine Fregola

2010-08-11T22:29:00.008+01:00

One of our favourite meals in Sardinia was a bowlful of comforting fregola, strewn with mussels and fire licked vegetables, laced with mullet stock and lifted by a kick of chilli and a blast of lemon zest. It was our take on a Sardinian classic. Just without the pricey clams, saffron or tomatoes! After we’d devoured what was in our tangerine coloured bowls, I couldn’t help myself from scooping out the residual grains of moistened fregola from the discarded mussel shells.

Fresh from having our fregola virginity stripped away from us, my curiosity took over and lead me into the darkened corners of the information super-highway, where people discuss how to hand roll semolina so it turns into perfectly irregular nuggets of pasta-cum-couscous. It seems that fregola is a culinary palimpsest, showing the influence that Arabic culture has imparted on Italy. All of which is fairly ironic considering some of the nationalistic rumblings that occasionally get expelled from the mouths of officious Italian politicians about evil foreign food.

The main differences between the two are that fregola is toasted, giving it a nutty quality and that couscous tends to be much more granular. Meanwhile, to confuse matter, Israeli couscous is normally the size of a small pea and untoasted.

The fregola we encountered in Sardinia was gnarly and unevenly coloured which gives it a characteristic, hand made charm and could well be the basis for its name. As SFGate says, “The name fregola probably derives from Italian fregare, meaning to rub, an apt description of how moistened semolina is transformed into fregola's coarse crumbs.”

So back in Sweden I decided to revisit our Sardinian adventures by creating a bowl of langoustine loaded fregola as a sort of Sarda-Scandi fusion.

I blitzed the Fishchurch and left carrying a bagful of langoustines and a hake carcass which I had wangled for free. Brilliantly, the fishmonger had been more careless than frugal so there was still plenty of meat on the bones, especially around the head, so it made for excellent stock.

Ingredients:

1 hake carcass plus accompanying stock vegetables in order to make a litre of fish stock
200 grams of fregola
4 raw langoustines
2 handfuls of spinach
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion - finely chopped
Orange zest
Half a finely chopped red chilli
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Chilli sauce

Method:

Boil the fish carcass along with a carrot, a stick of celery and an onion for 30 minutes. Strain the liquid and discard the bone and keep any meat that falls off. Reduce the stock, but don’t go too crazy because it can go gluey.

Meanwhile sauté the onion until softened and add the minced garlic. Then add the fregola and enough stock to cover. Cook until the fregola is soft and season. Grate the zest of an orange into the fregola and stir through half a red chilli. Then add the langoustines and cook them until they change colour followed by the spinach which you just want to wilt and add colour.

Check the seasoning and serve with the claws hanging over the edge of the bowl. I added a splash of chilli sauce at the end just to give it a lift as well, but that’s optional.

It’s very moreish. Luckily I didn’t eat both portions and managed to save some fregola for my next meal, which found its way into a roasted red pepper.

Further reading:

Chocolate and Zucchini recipe for fregola sarda
SFGate on fregola
Fregola with leeks and sausage
Fregola with goats curd, tomatoes and asparagus on Eat Like a Girl
Fregola sarda with vegetables and wild garlic pesto
Artisan pastas
How to make fregola by hand

Cooking in Sardinia

2010-08-09T00:14:00.008+01:00

We spent an indecently brilliant week in South West Sardinia, staying in an utterly perfect apartment, soaking up sunshine like a roll of Bounty and gorging on food that was so fresh and irregularly shaped that it would have given a supermarket buyer an aneurism. We whiled away our days on sensational beaches and the evenings cooking the best food Sardinia’s lader had to offer on our patio.

You’d expect Sardinia to be obsessed with fish, but curiously it isn’t. Historically Sardinia is a land of hunters who stayed away from the coastline to avoid marauders and malaria whilst spearing wild boar and roasting a variety of animals over juniper wood fires. They are famous for their pork, lamb and goat rather than fancy fish dishes.

Isola di San Pietro, marooned off the industrial zone of Portovesme is a notable exception, given that it is often touted as being the home to the world’s best tuna. The island was named, apparently, after Saint Peter who landed there around AD46 to avoid some vicious baddies. He chose a good place to drop into because it is a stunning island that reminded us of a mini Monaco crossed with Havanna.

If you are fortunate enough to get stranded here, you must try their local specialties of tuna such as intestine and a type of ham like salt cured tuna fillet called mosciame which was a revelation. I had to erect a mini barrier to stop Cowie’s fork from infiltrating my plate! All of this tuna-mania is based on the ancient island ritual for catching the fish in enormous nets which bring the tuna into an a small harbour in Carloforte where the sea turns red as they club the tuna to death. It’s all pretty grim, but the tuna tastes amazing. The videos below show the complex series of nets that are placed meticulously to trap the fish… and then the second video shows the catch being landed and the sea turning red. It’s quite dramatic. Look out for a tuna that is the size of a small London flat. But if you’ve feeling squeamish, be warned…

Other Sardinian specialities include fregula – which is a sort of pasta version of couscous, bottarga – which is salted and dried mullet roe with a flavour that is reminiscent of anchovies and a very flat crisp bread called Pane Carasau – which is, bizarrely quite Scandinavian.

We only ate out once, so had the luxury of cooking with each other for the first time in months. We came back from Teulada’s well stocked market with our fingers almost bleeding from carrying bags full of ripe produce such as gorgeous peaches, melons that smelled indecently fresh and some pecorino that had to be taken away from me because I was nibbling it all the way home.

I’ve got a few recipes set aside for further posts including a cauliflower salad, fun with fregula and spaghetti with bottarga, so in the meantime, here’s a taste of some of the most pleasurable and simple meals of our year so far…

We quickly singed peaches, figs and apricots over the coals and provocatively draped them with hand carved local ham and were in awe of how good they were. It’s a sickening cliché, but when food is this fresh all treating it simply works best.

An amazing fish stew made by charring a range of Mediterranean vegetables over some very hot coals with grey mullet and a garlic tomato concoction.

A super fresh tomato, mozzarella and basil salad.

Fregula with charred Mediterranean vegetables and mussels.

Smokey aubergine dip with tapenade

Cauliflower salad with olives, sun dried tomatoes and chilli

Spaghetti alla bottarga

Further reading:

The Sardinian Cookbook
Pane Carasau
The tuna rap of Carloforte
Casa Teulada

The Felin Fach Griffin

2010-08-01T23:29:00.007+01:00

Last summer we had one of our most memorable meals at The Gurnard’s Head in Zennor, which is the other side of St Ives. As ever we had found it in Diana Henry’s Gastro Pub Cookbook and it had lived up to her glowing recommendation. My grey mullet and fish soup will stay with me for a long time. And the moment we reluctantly left we set our eyes and hearts on a trip to their other inn, The Felin Fach Griffin near the Brecon Beacons.

We took advantage of their special deal which treated us to dinner, bed and breakfast for only a fraction more than dinner would have been on its own and enjoyed our experience from rainy start to dog cuddling end. Given that they implore you to “Eat. Drink. Sleep” it made even more sense.

The bar and restaurant areas are as snug as a tea cosy and the art and photographs adorning the walls tell a story that appeals to wondering imaginations. In particular we loved a series of photographs of enormous vegetables and the undersides of some rather well uddered cows. After our spectacular drive through the Brecon Beacons where we had admired some stunning waterfalls we collapsed into their timeworn leather sofas and felt as if we had become part of the family and not customers.

The dinner menu was blissfully brief – avoiding the habbit many pubs have fallen into of throwing every dish they can think of at the menu in the hope that a few will stick. Ingredients are genuinely local as are many of the customers although some are more exotic. The group on the next table included one of the photographers whose work was on the walls and a charming lady who runs Brecon Holiday Cottages. On the far side of the room sat an Canadian girl, eagerly reading her book. We later found out she was a jorunalist reporting on the Hay Festival.

With no car to worry about and only a flight of stairs to negotiate we tucked into a couple of generous gin and tonics before testing out their wines by the carafe. Some piercing Sauvingon Blanc tickled our lips whilst we enjoyed our starers. Cowie enjoyed her jamon persile which was deeply piggy, with jelly that was unctuous rather than icky. Whilst my goats’ curd with tapenade and explosively flavourful olives was delicious. Both were elegantly presented without looking like a tart who has spent 3 hours preening herself before tottering down her front steps.

Cowie had some pink duck for her main course that had been cooked sous vide. Sadly this meant the skin was a bit flabby and the flavour of the duck was somewhat lost. It was a shame because the meat was clearly very high quality and came from a few farms away. I read once that sous vide works best with fish and lean meat and for some reason doesn’t do well with large seams of fat. I’m not an expert, but with a sample of one dish, this piece of pseudo-scientific folklore seems to hold true.

I adored my main course of local pig cooked four ways. Belly was moist, piggy and crisp on top. I teased it apart and considered regurgitating it so I could enjoy it all over again. The blood pudding, cheek and fillet were just as good and had me groaning in greedy approval. I imagine it was this sort of firm handshake cooking that Jay Rayner approved of when he visited.

After such a rich main couse I have no idea how I came to order a slice of chocolate nemesis. It was, no doubt, delicious, but I couldn’t cope with its intensity. And opted instead to use my powers of disraction to devour most of Cowie’s dessert instead!

Her pudding was the best we’ve had in ages. Intensely flavoured rhubarb compote hid under a layer of creamy vanilla panacotta. I know it’s hardly original, but when you encounter a pudding as perfect as this, and served so unetentiosuly in an tall glass tumbler, it reveals the whole restaurant’s approach in one dish. The flavours are left to speak for themselves without recourse to foams and slicks of sauce. Ingredients are seasonal (this was in May). And presentation is unpretentious and designed to let you enjoy the food rather than add a mediating layer of fuss and cheffery. In short our rhubarb pannacotta was the perfect distillation of what a true “gastro pub” should be like. It was so good I decided to draw it, although the image does it barely any justice.

We retired to the bar for coffee where we whiled away the next hour or so talking about photography and the local area with the photographer and the lady who runs the holiday cottage business – who pointed us in the direction of a cracking farm shop and their Facebook page which are well worth a look if you are planning a trip to the area.

We arose to copies of the Guardian and an exceptional breakfast that was served in the Aga room. It’s almost worth going for the breakfast alone which was super local, but more importantly cooked by someone who likes to eat a cooked breakfast themselves on a regular basis.

We set off back for England, through undulating countryside with smiles on our faces and fingers crossed that Charles Inkin might consider opening up either near Gotheburg or in Somerset. His two inns are near perfect in everything they do. If you happen to be planning a trip to Cornwall or Wales, take the time to make a diversion to either The Gurnard’s Head or the Felin Fach Grifin.

Potato “risotto” with smoked mackerel and horseradish crème fraiche

2010-07-28T07:06:00.000+01:00

Regular readers will know of my fondness for risottos. What’s not to love about a dish that’s more comforting than a hot water bottle? The only downside is that they have a tendency to be somewhat bad for your waistline. In essence they are the equivalent to the first year you spend at university where it is almost impossible not to put on a stone or two of not very solid fat!

Given that I am trying to eat more healthily and cook with a more Scandinavian mindset, risotto hasn’t really had much of a look in. But when I found myself with a bag full of ageing potatoes that needed cooking I felt as if a compromise might be achieved. Marcus Samuelsson soon came to the rescue with his recipe for potato risotto which I took inspiration from and tweaked with the ingredients that lay expectantly in my fridge.

Ingredients:

I bag of potatoes, peeled and finely diced
2 shallots
1 clove of garlic
½ litre of vegetable stock
100 grams of peas
100 grams of spinach
2 mackerel fillets, torn into pieces
3 tablespoons of crème fraiche
Grated horseradish
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Dill
Thyme
Tarragon

Method:

Peel your potatoes. Then finely dice them. This is quite laborious, but sadly, essential.

Sautee the shallot and garlic in olive oil then add the potatoes. Stir for a minute or two and then add hot stock and keep stirring. Add the thyme and tarragon. Then add more chicken stock and continue until the potatoes are tender. Be careful not to overcook. For me it took around 15 minutes.

Add the frozen peas and spinach and let them cook through. Then add 2 tablespoons of crème frache and a knob of butter and stir until the risotto is creamy. Don’t be as aggressive as you would be with rice because you don’t want to mash the potatoes.

Add the smoked mackerel and allow to rest so that the fish warms through. Season and serve with a dollop of crème fraiche on top and some grated horseradish and garnish with dill.

It was delicious. And for some reason felt healthier than a normal risotto. The combination of potatoes, dill, horseradish and smoked fish was unmistakably Scandinavian. I loved every single mouthful and went to bed dreaming of eating the leftovers for lunch!

Beetroot and Smoked Mackerel Soufflé

2010-07-25T22:55:00.001+01:00

My working life is quite unpredictable in Sweden. I never seem to be settled in my flat for longer than a few days before I’m heading off to the airport at 5am or coming back at 11pm. I’m absolutely loving it, but it does make cooking somewhat hard to plan. But when I do get a moment in the kitchen, I find myself treating it as entertainment as much as feeding myself. And given that I am cooking for one I’m finding that posting the recipes on here is my way of sharing my meals, albeit with none of the intimacy or fun!

As a result of being always on the run, I’ve got better at having a few hardy supplies in my kitchen that I rely on. I’m not sure where I’d be without beetroot, a stick of horseradish and a few smoked mackerel fillets in the freezer! They have come to my rescue on many occasions.

When I was researching this recipe I found quite a few people writing about either soufflés made with smoked fish or plain beetroot. The closest thing I discovered to a beetroot and smoked mackerel soufflé was a chilled one made with gelatin. So as far as I know this particular recipe is “original”. But given that nothing ever is and all ideas are simply mashups of existing ideas that doesn’t really count for much anyway. Either way, if you enjoy bright red, light egginess and smoked fish, the chances are you’ll love this.

Ingredients:

3 egg yolks
5 egg whites
25 grams of flour
25 grams of butter
300ml of milk
1 smoked mackerel fillet – mashed
4 beetroot
Some grated horseradish
Goats cheese
Salad
Walnuts
Oil and vinegar
Salt and pepper

Method:

Peel and dice the beetroot and boil till tender. Then whizz in a blender.

Make a roux with the butter and flour. Then add the warmed milk. Stir until it has formed a smooth béchamel. Then add the blended beetroot and the mashed mackerel. Season with pepper and then grate in as much horseradish as suits your palette.

Allow to cool and then when it is warm rather than hot beat in 3 egg yolks.

Then whisk the whites until they reach stiff peaks and fold into the mixture in 3 goes. Be careful not to loose the lightness. So imagine you are Craig Revel Horwood when you are performing this rather effete task.

You can then either spoon the raspberry ripple mixture into individual ramekins or load it all into one big oven dish like I did. It just depends on what your style is. I find that my soufflés work better in larger dishes. I’m not sure why.

Bake in a preheated over on a medium heat for 30 minutes or so until the top is looking deep red rather than pink and the texture has taken on a firmer appearance. It should have risen a fair bit as well!

When your soufflé is almost ready whip up a salad with goat’s cheese, walnuts, beetroot tops and dress with a simple oil and dressing combination. Season with salt only once the soufflé is cooked. Add a spoonful of the soufflé to the side of your salad and tuck in.

The earthy quality of the beetroot complements the smoky flavour of the fish brilliantly and the creamy tang of the goat’s cheese isn’t bad either. The walnuts add texture. But the best bit was the colour. If you hate boringly coloured food as much as I hate “magnolia” coloured walls, then you are in for chromatic overload.

Restaurang Brygghuset, Fiskebäckskil

2010-07-20T23:31:00.006+01:00

After a fantastic lunch at Peterson’s Krug on the idyllic island of Käringön our Midsummer’s extravaganza adventured north to the charming seaside village of Fiskebäckskil. Our odyssey was punctuated by jaw dropping bridges, brief ferry hoppings and avenues of silver birch trees with the ubiquitous backdrop of a sky so blue that a Manchester United fan would have gone red in the face with fury. Fox gloves set the shady woods ablaze with soft pink petals amid the impossibly green grass.

We stayed at the Gullmarsstrand Hotel which looks out across the sea to Lysekil’s towering church spire. We sat back in our sun loungers and basked in the Scandinavian sunshine languidly sucking up gin and tonics and building up our appetite.

Restaurang Brygghuset is a fish restaurant floating in Fiskebäckskil’s picturesque marina that specialises in seafood and warm hospitality. We sunk into our comfortable seats and gorged immediately on a basket of sensational bread.

Dad had a starter that was bizarrely brilliant. The sound of herring cured in pomegranate and rhubarb and a horseradish cheesecake was almost scary. But the flavours worked wonderfully.

Mum’s perfectly cooked scallops with marinated beetroot and a log of goats cheese sprinkled with bacon dust was a sensational. It’s the sort of thing Heston Blumenthal might be tempted to knock up if he was exploring Swedish cuisine. The tangy goats cheese, salty bacon and sweet earthy beetroot combined to become far more than the sum of their parts.

My prawns on rye bread was more simple. But none the worse for it. A smoked prawn and a peripheral ring of caviar helped to elevate this prawn sandwich above the run of the mill.

Mum’s baked cod sat on top of a pond of rich shellfish sauce. The skin was as crisp as ryvita but with the thinness of paper and the flesh flaked perfectly in glorious contrast to my halibut at lunch time.

But the real star was a rich fish stew bejeweled with mammoth mussels, dinky prawns, moist scallops, crispy skinned salmon and cod so good that it might well be the best piece of fish I’ve ever eaten. My fears about the fish being overdone because they all cook at different speeds were swept aside. And the sauce brought it all together with a luxurious injection of lobster and crab based bisque. It’s just a shame I had to share it with Dad! The glossy boiled potatoes it was served with would turn even the most die hard Atkins fan into a greedy carb guzzler.

We thought our lunch at Peterson’s Krug had been good. But our dinner at Brygghuset, overlooking the marina, was flawless and deeply memorable for all the right reasons. We rolled out of the restaurant into the twilight glow of the temporarily shy sun and forceful moon that lit the inlet up like a scene from a spooky film. It’s a moment in time that is now imprinted onto my mind and causes my mouth to twitch into a smile just by thinking about it. All it was missing was John Nettles and a few comically complicated murders.

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Peterson’s Krug on Käringön

2010-07-14T17:10:00.001+01:00

My parents came over to visit me in Sweden for the Midsummer celebrations. The whole of the country goes crazy for the weekend and dances around maypoles shaped like giant cocks whilst imitating frogs and getting hammered in the depths of the Swedish countryside. I didn’t think this was particularly suitable so we hired a car and explored the West Coast. Armed with some fantastic recommendations from my new friends at work we went in search of seafood, sunshine, stunning scenery and serenity. And I’m pleased to say that we found it.

We drove to Hallevikstrand where we caught the ferry to a tiny island called Käringön which has become a playground for wealthy Norwegians and the yacht-set from Stockholm and Gothenburg. The journey there was idyllic with the blue sky unraveling to infinity. Yyves Klein would have probably tried to sue the sky. You’ll get the vibe from these photos…

Peterson’s Krug is renowned for it’s super fresh seafood and relaxed atmosphere. As we settled down for lunch we found ourselves comparing it to the other seafood restaurants we’d all eaten at. In terms of setting it knocks the socks off anywhere we’d been in the UK with its 270’ views out to sea.

For those of you who can read Swedish (Manne that’s probably just you!!!) here is the menu. For the rest of you, the menu is heavy on fish with oysters (ostron), mussels (musslor), sill (herring), salmon (lax) and halibut (halleflundra) making it hard to resist simply asking for the whole menu.

Dad, being the brave soul that he is, dived in with both feet for the pickled herring platter.

Pickled herring is one of my favourite discoveries since moving to Sweden. Like many people I had a natural prejudice against what I thought were vinegary bottom feeding scum. But how wrong I was. Sill as they are called in Sweden is served in a seemingly endless range of cures. This platter featured from left to right, honey, mustard and dill; soured cream and chive; dill; and a medley of all spice, bay and onions. It’s almost a meal in itself and had Dad purring like a Siamese cat who has just nudged the dog out of the prime spot in front of the fire. As ever the brown bread was stunning.

Mum’s prawns on toast held together with soured cream and anointed with bleak roe and chives was delicious. Nothing fancy. But given the surroundings it was perfect.

My four oysters from the island were some of the best I’ve ever had. They were so rich in minerals I half expected Rio Tinto to turn up after lunch with a permit to mine my stomach. It makes you want to give up eating oysters simply to cherish the memory of them being so special.

Mum and Dad both fell for the fish soup which was large enough to keep us picking at it all week. Packed with mussels, prawns and flakes of cod it was as rich as a Norwegian oil magnate and intriguingly flavoured with all spice and dill. It was a great choice and an interesting diversion from the classic French version.

My halibut was almost brilliant. Sadly it was fractionally overcooked so rather than flaking it tore. Given halibut’s leanness it needs to be cooked with as much care as you’d take putting your contact lenses in for the first time. But leaving this issue to one side the combination of asparagus, golden butter, silky potatoes and a topping of grated horseradish was inspired. It seems this is a classic Swedish combination and I am delighted to have discovered it. I’m going to try it myself soon, so keep your eye out for it.

Dad went a bit Oscar Wilde and gave into temptation, once again, with a trio of raspberry desserts which matched his very seasonal shirt. The sorbet and cheese cake were both exceptionally good.

We lingered over coffee almost horizontally enjoying the view and wondering whether this is the best setting we’d ever encountered for a restaurant. In England this would have been packed, snooty and rushed. Here it was completely the opposite. I think we could have stayed all week if we wanted!

I’m told that when the lobster and crayfish seasons come around, this place turns things up an extra gear and goes crustacean crazy. Like the Pensionat on Styrso, Peterson’s Krug on Käringön is worth the mission. In fact, in many ways the journey is what makes the meal so special. For those of you living in along the North Sea in England, why not hop on your sailing boat and head here for lunch. You won’t be disappointed. Alternatively catch the Ryan Air flight to Gothenburg, hire a car and you can here in time for a stunning dinner.

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Mushroom Mania - Soufflés and Stuffing

2010-07-10T16:53:00.003+01:00

My local supermarket, in Gothenburg, tempts me every week with their treasure trove of mushrooms. Ranging from field mushrooms the size of dinner plates to what I've assumed are golden chanterelles and oriental varieties as well as the more expected button mushroom and a selection of very expensive dried fungi. After 3 months of sniffing, groping and ogling like a lecherous red-faced outcast in a dirty rain raincoat, I gave in.

My mushroom fetish went into over drive and led me into uncharted fungal waters. My mind wouldn’t let go of the thought of stuffing the enormous field mushroom with other mushrooms! In a sort of pseudo-infinite-fungal-regression. With a glut of mushrooms and only one mouth to feed, I spent most of the week inventing new ways to eat mushrooms. Here are the two that are most interesting…

Field mushroom stuffed with chicken liver, chanterelles and goats cheese

Ingredients:

1 massive field mushroom – skinned and destalked
About a dozen interesting small mushrooms such as chanterelles
Butter
Olive oil
3 chopped chicken livers
1 finely chopped shallot
Thyme
2 beaten eggs
1 clove of garlic
Parsley
Goats cheese

Method:

Season your massive mushroom and brush with oil and butter. Then roast for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, sauté the mushrooms in butter until they have browned and released their juice.

Then add the shallot and garlic and sauté until soft. Remove from the pan and then sauté the chicken livers until rare.

Combine the mushrooms, shallots, garlic, crumbled goats cheese, thyme, beaten eggs and livers in a bowl and then spoon on top of the large mushroom. Season. Then bake for a further 25 minutes at a medium temperature.

Serve as a light lunch. The liver, eggs and double hit of mushroom is a great flavour combination for autumn or a cold summer’s day as you tend to find in Sweden.

I’m not much of a wine expert, but I imagine it would work well with the subtle oaky notes you get in a good white Burgundy or with a piercing New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc to pick up on the acidity of the goats cheese.

Field mushroom with wild mushroom soufflé

Ingredients:

1 massive field mushroom – skinned and destalked
5 small mushrooms
50 grams butter
50 grams of flour
400ml of milk
1 clove of garlic
4 eggs
Goats cheese
Horseradish
Crème fraiche
Salt and pepper

Method:

Start by poaching the big mushroom in the milk. You may need to weigh the mushroom down as it tends to float! Season with pepper and throw in a chopped clove of garlic. Poach for around 20 minutes until it is soft and the milk has become mushroomy. Remove the mushroom and squeeze to remove the milk. Brush with butter and bake whilst you move on with the rest of the recipe.

Make a roux using the butter and flour. Then after a few minutes of cooking the flour add the hot mushroomy milk. Stir until it has turned into a silky béchamel worthy of featuring in a Dulux ad. Then crumble in some goats cheese.

Meanwhile sauté your smaller mushrooms in butter and oil. (If I had some cognac to hand I would have added a glass at this stage.) Once cooked blend to a pulp and add to the béchamel. Then split your eggs. Add the yolks to the now warm béchamel and whisk the whites to stiffness in a very clean bowl. Fold in the egg whites in three batches.

Remove the large mushroom from the oven and spoon the soufflé mixture into the mushroom’s cavity. Return to the oven and bake on a medium heat for 25 – 30 minutes. Resist the temptation to open the oven!

When the soufflé has risen and is looking golden on top, whip it out and serve with a dollop of horseradish crème fraiche and a sprig of parsley. A salad of goats cheese, walnuts and greenery would also be delicious.

The mushroom soufflé is also great on it’s own. Especially if you make an incision in the top and drizzle in some horseradish cream. Next time I am also going to make some croquetas from the glossy mushroom and goats cheese béchamel. These would be awesome either as tapas to go with a very dry sherry or as an accompaniment to a pork chop or chicken wrapped in parma ham.

Heavenly Lunch at Pensionat on Styrsö

2010-07-06T17:41:00.004+01:00

Gothenburg as a city is great. But I have learnt recently that it’s real trump card is the string of islands that slip out into the North Sea like a double helix. The Southern Archipelago is reachable by a hop out of the front door, a skip on the number 11 tram to Saltholmen and a jump on the ferry. Seeing as the last time Cowie came over to Sweden the whole place was bound by ice, we thought we’d explore the real DNA of what makes Gothenburg so special.

We headed off to Styrsö, which is the most populated island on the Southern Archipelago where we’d heard we’d find a good restaurant called Pensionat Styrsö Skäret. The journey itself was idyllic. The sea was calm and the sky was marbled with deep blue and fluffy white clouds – just like the opening credits in The Simpsons. We watched impressive yachts tootle around with not the slightest care in the world and supercharged ribs go flying past like Jeremy Clarkson on an trying to show off to a German cop on an Autobahn. We arrived on Styrsö with our appetites whetted by the sea air and in such a good mood that a micro-waved chicken kiev and a lukewarm banoffee pie would have been enough to send us packing with glee.

As we stepped off the boat we were greeted by a couple of "flakmopeds" which buzz around the island instead of cars, transporting luggage and supplies. It was our first glimpse of island life and we fell in love with Styrsö immediately.

We soon found our restaurant sporting the almost mandatory Swedish flag, pale yellow wooden exterior, terrace and red roof.

As you can imagine from the photo above, the White Guide plaque and the fact that this is on a fairly remote island the prices aren’t cheap, so we kept things simple and only had one course each. I also didn’t want to spoil the mood so didn’t take any photos. I’ll let the scenic photos do the job of giving you a flavour and hope that my words can do the meal the justice it deserves.

We were treated to the typical array of Swedish breads. Rich, toffee nosed, soft rye bread should be served with a note from the Surgeon General suggesting you eat it in moderation. It is sooo good you’ll seriously consider giving up all other brads and just eating this one. It was flecked with apricot and walnut and was as close to Soreen as you can get without it becoming a malt loaf! I’d be raving about their crisp bread studded with caraway and white sourdough if the brown stuff hadn’t stolen their thunder.

Our glasses of Australian Riesling arrived with a complimentary shot of glossy potato and mussel soup that was so good that we almost asked for seconds and for them to cancel our main courses. The mussel flavour was subtle, but fishy and the texture could have been weaved by a silk worm.

I’ve had many a good fish soup in my short time in Sweden. But this version is very special indeed. Rather than the dusty brick red version you get in France this one was the colour of richly churned butter melting under an amber sunset. Lemon aioli rather than rouille also distinguished this from its French cousin. If French fish soup is male, this was its virginal bride.

Amongst the saffron flecked creamy fish broth swam mussels, enormous prawns, barely cooked scallops and hunks of cod that flaked like strung out film-stars. Dabs of lemon aioli made me purr and Cowie lost count of the times I decried it as being the best I had tasted.

Cowie’s scallop and tuna salad with vermicelli was like a helium balloon. Super light, attention grabbing and not something that will ever make you appear masculine. The scallops were so well cooked they should be sent off as examples to all the gastro pub chefs across the UK who regularly ruin them and the tuna was immaculately rare.

We retired outside to the garden to drink coffee and play Scrabble whilst overlooking the sea and a croquet lawn and basked in the Swedish sunshine wondering whether life could be any better.

The Pensionat on Styrsö is idyllic. And it was no surprise to find a box as we left the island belonging to God. There can be few more heavenly places to spend a sunny Saturday than Styrsö.

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Coffee Roasted Duck with Potato, Pear and Artichoke Ragu

2010-06-22T19:22:00.007+01:00

Swedes are obsessed with coffee. They like it strong. They like it hot. And they like it many times a day. Consequently one of my favourite places in Gothenburg is a coffee shop called Bar Centro which is the hipster dive bar alternative to Starbucks. Their coffee is super strong and unbelievably good. They’ve got me hooked on something they call a 50-50 which is a double espresso super charged with hot milk. It’s a sort of lengthened version of a macchiato but without being as long or frothy as a cappuccino. It’s strong, bitter, sweet and creamy.

So when I saw a recipe for coffee roasted duck in Marcus Samuelsson’s book my eyes lit up and my pulse started racing as if I had just ingested a litre of espresso. The background story to this dish is a confluence of his Ethiopian and Swedish roots. He recalls the smell of his grandmother making coffee from scratch by roasting green coffee beans in a pan that filled their house with an enchanting scent and then layers the Swedish culture for coffee consumption on top of this to create a dish that is very unique. And delicious.

I’ve adapted Marcus Samuelsson’s recipe for both the coffee roasted duck and potato and pear ragu

Ingredients (for one):

Duck

1 duck breast
2 cups of coffee
12 cardamom pods
1 stick of cinnamon
2 handfuls of coffee beans
Cinnamon powder

Potato and pear ragu

1 firm pear
4 small potatoes
3 Jerusalem artichokes
3 tablespoons of crème fraiche
1 endive
Butter
Salt
Pepper
150 mls of chicken stock
Tarragon
Honey

Method

Wake up. Brew the coffee. Pound half of the cardamom pods and add them to the coffee along with the cinnamon. Allow the coffee to cool. Then slash the skin of the duck breast and marinate all day in the fridge.

Return from work and remove the duck from the marinate. It should look similar to the picture below. Pat it dry, sprinkle with salt and return to the fridge with nothing covering it so that the skin dries out.

Peel and core the pear leaving it in half. Simmer until tender in water with a few cardamom pods, a sprinkling of tarragon and some honey thrown in. You can cook it in red wine but I didn’t have any because of Sweden’s ridiculous licensing laws that mean you can’t buy wine in a supermarket.

Meanwhile boil the potatoes in chicken stock. When they are 8 minutes from being tender add the peeled Jerusalem artichokes. Remove from the heat and drain the potatoes and artichokes, but keep some of the liquor.

Now add you duck breast skin side down to a medium-hot frying pan and render the fat out. Shake some cinnamon powder over the underside of the duck. Drain off some duck fat. Then add the coffee beans and cardamom pods and turn up the heat. The kitchen should fill with an intoxicating smell. Once the skin is crisp turn the duck over and the heat down. Add some of the reserved liquor from the potato and artichoke pan and finish the cooking by braising.

Slice the vegetables and then return them to the heat and add the crème fraiche and some more liquor to heat through along with a touch of butter. After five minutes or so add some shredded endive and slices of perfectly poached pear. Season with gusto and add more tarragon.

Discard the coffee beans and cardamom and allow the duck to rest then carve diagonally and serve with the ragu for a very unusual, but utterly delicious dinner.

The combination works brilliantly. The duck was pink and moist with some of the crispiest skin I've encountered for a long time. It turns out that duck is tailor made for the bitter aromatic aspects of coffee. And the creamy ragu with the sweetness of pear is the equivalent of adding a tempering dollop of foam on top of an intense espresso. It's an unusual dish. And I am delighted to have discovered it.

Further reading:

Coffee roasted duck recipe from Marcus Samuelsson
Potato and pear ragu recipe from Marcus Samuelsson
Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine on Amazon

Smoked Mackerel and Grapefruit Salad

2010-06-16T23:22:00.004+01:00

I dreamt this recipe up whilst on a run around suburban Gothenburg. I set off in a quandary about what to have for supper, knowing that after a run I would be hungry but not want anything too heavy. I knew I had a grapefruit in the fridge along with a bag of salad and some smoked mackerel. And somehow I landed up with the dish you can see above. And to make matters even better it not only tasted fantastic and was healthy but has also go the thumbs up from my Swedish colleagues!

Ingredients:

I smoked mackerel
½ a grapefruit
6 dessert spoons of crème fraiche
1 avocado
Half a bag of salad
4 teaspoons of caviar
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
A dozen mussels (optional)
Scandinavian crisp bread

Method:

Remove the flesh from inside the grapefruit and cut the fruit into segments. Squeeze the juice that is left inside the skin into a bowl but don’t mangle the skin.

Shred the mackerel fillet. Roughly chop your mussels and add. Then mix with the crème fraiche and the grapefruit juice. Stir through 2 teaspoons of caviar. Season with pepper and a touch of salt. Then spoon the mixture into the grapefruit half and top with another teaspoon of caviar.

To make the salad empty the leaves into a salad bowl and dress with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (or you could use the juice from the other half of the grapefruit). Then add the individual grapefruit segments and sliced avocado. Then add another teaspoon of caviar and mix together.

Serve with some crispy Scandinavian bread.

It was just what I wanted. And tasted even better for not only using everything in the fridge but also being healthy. To make it even better you could add some horseradish to the crème fraiche and make the salad a lot more interesting. The combination of acid from the grapefruit and smoky, creaminess of the mackerel turned out to be a great match. It makes for a fun change from the normal squirt of lemon and parsley with smoked mackerel pate. And I felt very intelligent the next day thanks to all the fish oils. Apart from when I sent an email to a client and called them the wrong name!

When I told Cowie what I’d made, I realised that I am cooking for her even though she’s not here.