late night snack

Fredrik is now the official pancake maker in the family. I never knew of his pancake making skills because I’ve always made pancakes in the past but from now on, he’ll be in charge.

He made the batter for some pancakes tomorrow morning and just now he decided to give them a try. They were SO GOOD. Light and airy. Just crazy delicious. I could eat like 8 of these in 1 sitting.

Here’s a close up of the maple syrup covered goodness.

dumpling tutorial

A while back I made a whole lot of dumplings. Something in the 3 digit area. A friend of mine asked me how I formed them by hand. I’ve been meaning to make a tutorial but Fredrik wasn’t home for the last few times I made dumplings and the cats aren’t so good at holding a camera.

First you have the skin. I buy my skins ’cause I don’t know how to roll them out by hand.

Wet the edge of the skin with a bit of water.

Put filling in the middle of the skin. Be careful not to overfill it.

Fold the skin together at the middle and press to seal. Just the middle!

Fold the skin in the back and press to seal it with the front. Think darts if you’re a sewer.

Keep folding till the dumpling is sealed. Repeat on the other side. I usually get about 2-3 “darts” or folds per side.

Now you have a dumpling. Ready to be pan fried, steamed or boiled.

I usually pan fry my dumplings. First put them into a hot and oiled pan. Add a bit of water, enough to coat the bottom of the pan.

Cover with a lid. The dumplings will steam for a bit. I guess 5 minutes or so. I’ve never timed it. Just kinda know they’re done by the way they look. You’ll see the “dumpling juice” bubbling inside the dumplings. That’s a sign that they’re cooked.

Let it cook for a bit without the lid. This will dry out the bottom and crisp the skin. Don’t leave it for too long though. Then you’ll have burnt bottoms.

Serve with sauce of your choice. I like mine with balsamic vinegar and my mom’s chilli oil.

Here’s the video:

clean your plate

I’m sure that many grew up with parents that insisted on eating EVERYTHING on the plate.

My friend Salma used to say, “Think of the starving African children.” as she cleaned off her plate. That lead me to shout, “GO! GO! AFRICA!” one time while dining in a restaurant when she was struggling to finish a plate of fried noodles. She didn’t exactly appreciate it but she saw the humour in it.

I grew up having to eat every grain of rice in my bowl. It lead to a few times where I licked the bowl to get the last grains of rice. My mom didn’t really appreciate that.

I remember my mom telling me that grains of rice left in my bowl would lead me to have a husband with pox marks. My grandmother would tell my cousins that if they didn’t want an ugly wife they would have to leave a clean rice bowl. I remember my twin cousins telling my grandfather that he better clean his bowl or he’ll have an ugly wife.

I’d like to know what other people’s parents told them.

On another note regarding what parents tell their children to get them to behave, my friend Tara told me that her mom used to tell them that she’d sell her and her brother to the gypsies if they didn’t behave or be quiet. My mom never told me that she’d sell me to the gypsies but she did tell me that beggars would take me and chop off my arms and legs if I strayed away from her when we were out (this was when I was REALLY young).

is it really so strange

Yesterday Fredrik and I were at the pet store buying cat food. They had a sale on the cat food that Ull and Milo normally eats so we came home with 80+ packages (the boys eat those poached wet food). The cashier was a bit surprised and even told a co-worker to check out how much cat food we were buying when the co-worker was passing by.

As far as we know, our cats are not going to stop eating any time soon and the cat food is good till at least 2011. Why pass up on a good sale?

my first risotto

The other night I decided to give risotto a try.

I’ve never made risotto before. I had my first risotto this year at our wedding potluck. Our friends Cesar and Ylva made a shrimp and peas risotto that was just awesome.

Not to toot my own horn but my first risotto was AWESOME.

I used Jamie Oliver’s instructions on making the base risotto. Followed it from his Cook with Jamie book. I used fish stock instead of chicken or vegetable stock. I was low on chicken bouillon and figured that fish aught to work. There’s peas, corn, leek and spinach in it. I didn’t use any cheese ’cause we have none.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/risotto/basic-risotto-recipe

You can add just about anything and about half a litre of stock to this basic risotto recipe.

I was also surprised by how easy it was.

It’s interesting how in North America, risotto is often thought of as “fancy” Italian. At least that’s the impression that I got. While in Italy, it’s considered as “fast food”.

The shrimp was just pan fried with some butter and loads of chopped garlic. Sometimes the best way to make something already delicious is to just make it as simple as possible.

I’m hoping that the forested area behind our future house will have loads of mushrooms. Fresh chanterelles would make and awesome mushroom risotto. I’m already drooling thinking about that.

something i’d like to do

Around Christmas time last year, we got a digital SLR. I’ve been using it from time to time but I know that I haven’t been using it to it’s full potential. I’m pretty sure it has to do with the fact that I don’t really know how to use it. I’d like to learn how to take better pictures. At the present moment, I’m just kind of pushing random buttons and when I get a good picture, it’s more of a fluke. Maybe when I have the time I can take some sort of class. We’ll see. I would really hate to see this camera go to waste.

loves the coffee

Swedes love their coffee. According to a postcard I got from IKEA, the Swedes are only after the Finns (apparently drinks the most coffee in the world) in their coffee consumption.

The Swedish verb “att fika” that roughly translates to “to drink coffee”. Fika also works as a noun. I won’t get into it.

The Swedes also like to have something sweet with their coffee.

Fredrik and I picked up some “kaffegodis” today. I felt like having a “dammsugare”, also known as the punschrulle.

We only got 4 assortments because that’s all the shop had but it still made a good fika.

The punschrulle is arrak flavoured filling wrapped in marzipan and dipped in chocolate on both ends. It’s commonly known as a “dammsugare”. Guess it looks sort of like a vacuum. The chokladboll is cocoa and oatmeal mixed in butter, then dipped in chocolate and coated with coconut. The pärlboll is just like the chokladboll but instead of coconut, it’s covered in nib/pearl sugar. The biskvi is an almond flavoured cookie with chocolate cream on top and then covered in chocolate.

what do you eat for breakfast?

After reading Almost Bourdain’s post on curry laksa, I started thinking about breakfast.

When I was really young, my mom would make me eat an egg and drink a glass of warm milk for breakfast. I stopped getting the glass of milk for breakfast after discovering that my lactose intolerance was one of the reasons why I was getting “unexplained” stomach aches. I stopped eating breakfast after high school started and when college rolled around, coffee and donuts were the breakfast of choice to give me that kick in the morning to survive the 8am pattern drafting class. It wasn’t until the last 5 years that I started eating breakfast regularly again.

Fredrik loves his Swedish breakfast. Boiled egg with caviar on bread. Cheese on bread. Shrimp cheese on bread. Ham on bread. Mackerel in tomato sauce on bread. He loves his bread. The Scandinavians all love their bread. They also love their foods that come out of tubes.

I on the other hand will eat anything for breakfast. Usually depends on what I’m feeling like and depends on what’s available. Every so often I like the bacon and eggs combo. Which makes me wish there were diners here in Sweden.

When Fredrik and I were in Hong Kong, we ate out for every meal including breakfast. Liver congee and plain rice noodle rolls were my choice of breakfast. Oh how I could go for congee and rice noodle rolls RIGHT NOW.

Speaking of breakfast. I’m getting hungry. Think I’ll go check out what I can have.

surprise! korean!

Fredrik and I went browsing today. We went to check out prices for things that we’ll need in the house.

We found a Korean restaurant in the least expected place. Hidden in a “business park” area. Restaurang Izumi Gumi.

We were actually looking for some sort of lunch restaurant. In our search, we also discovered the Vivels bakery. If we weren’t really hungry, we would’ve probably bought some bread. There were some seriously nice looking bread. Their jalapeno bread looked pretty interesting.

We ate out of the lunch menu. Fredrik got the yakitori bibimbap. I got the yakiniku bibimbap. It was as good as the bibimbap I’ve had in the Korean restaurants in K-town Toronto.

You’ll have to excuse the blurriness. I took the picture with Fredrik’s cellphone and I have a hard time holding my hands still.

I’d like to see their dinner menu. There are probably other authentic Korean goodness.

Damn… now I want all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ.

Restaurang Izumi Gumi
Svetsarvägan SA
171 41 Solna
08 28 01 01

oh yeah… london…

So I went to London on Sunday to see Fredrik’s band play. The show was fantastic. There were a few disappointments in my journey but for the most part, it was pretty good. May have something to do with being able to hang out with Fredrik.

I had planned to have dinner at Asakusa, a Japanese restaurant by the venue that served traditional and REAL Japanese food but they were closed on Sundays. I was actually surprised by the amount of shops closed on Sundays in London.

I ended up walking 1.2 MILES to Ikura for dinner. Their food was good but I was still disappointed because it was just a run of the mill Japanese restaurant. I was most disappointed because Ikura was a recommendation on Chow as an izakaya. I wanted izakaya food. I wanted chicken skins on a skewer and fish heads!

On the plane over to London, I made a list of things I wanted to eat while in London. The list included fish and chips, full English breakfast and fried chicken. I managed to eat it all despite my short visit (Fredrik and I flew home on Monday morning).

I got fish and chips from Crown Fish & Chips which wasn’t the best I’ve ever had but the fish was definitely fresh. Read my review at Tasty Fish & Chips.

After the show, I got some spicy fried chicken wings, chips and Ribena. Just the right kind of food for after a concert.

We had about 3 hours of waiting at Heathrow before our flight so we got breakfast at The Bridge Bar and Eating House. They apparently renovated the place since I was last there. I think I prefer the old cozy British pub atmosphere. Perhaps the next time they renovate it again, they’d name the place The Bridge Bar and Food Shack.

I got the Classic Full English Breakfast, 2 fried eggs, bacon, 1/2 tomato, mushroom and sausage. I forgot to take a picture of it before I started eating. Unfortunately it was only AFTER eating that we saw that the cafe across from the waiting hall that had baked beans in their breakfast. Perhaps that’s where I’ll get my full English breakfast next time in Heathrow.

Ever since Hong Kong, I’ve decided that I would buy food to bring on the plane. This is even more important when flying with SAS because they don’t even give complimentary nuts/pretzels and drink. I got myself a delicious Peking duck wrap from EAT. It could’ve gone without the mayo. It made me wish I had found out about it sooner. I could’ve eaten at least 4 of them while I was in London.

I’m hoping that Fredrik and I can go to London in the near future for a proper vacation. If I had a few more days to spend in England, I would’ve liked to add Jamaican food, a couple more helpings of fish and chips and Chinese food from Chinatown to my list.