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.

soup for the sick

Fredrik is sick with the flu, so I made chicken noodle soup.

I used the whole chicken I had in the freezer. I defrosted it first in the fridge. Popped it in my cast aluminum pot with enough water to cover most of the chicken and some chopped celery, chopped onion and about 5 small carrots, chopped. Season with some black pepper corns, thyme and a couple bay leaves. Bring it down to a simmer when it comes to a boil.

I let it cook for at least 2 hours. The meat on the chicken should almost fall off the bone. Fish the chicken out and let it cool so you can pick and shred the meat without burning your fingers. I set mine out on the balcony in a covered bowl.

I reserved some of the shredded chicken ’cause I didn’t want to overload the soup with too much chicken. Chicken soup is about the soup. At least in my opinion.

I added a bit more than a cup of dried fusilli into the soup after it was brought back to a boil. I also added some more water since the pasta is dried.

I also decided to be a bit “adventurous” this time. I’ve read and heard that garlic is supposed to be good against colds and flu. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to add a few cloves of garlic. Well… a “few” ended up being about 6-7 cloves. Smashed them with the flat of the knife. It did turn out really good. It’s also REALLY garlicky.

The pasta continued to suck up the soup after it’s done cooking. The chicken soup ended up putting Chunky Soup’s chicken soup to shame.

This picture was taken before the pasta sucked up most of the soup.

We have enough soup to feed a small army. I’ve put away 2 large containers of soup into the freezer for later consumption. I’m thinking that I might turn 1 portion into a chicken chowder of sorts.

improv breakfast

I couldn’t decide on what to eat this morning. Frankly I spend most mornings not being able to decide on what to eat. I’m just not a big breakfast person. Fredrik, on the other hand, loves his breakfast. Especially his Swedish breakfast, consisting of egg, bread and caviar.

I started out with some soba noodles and then decided to make it a bit more filling than just noodles and a bit of soy. Chopped up a stalk of spring onion, some nappa cabbage and a few crabsticks. Stir fried it with some okonomiyaki sauce. It turned out pretty good. Think I’ll have this again in the future.

it starts with sweet condensed milk

Ahhh… Sweet gooey milk. What it’s original use was, I have no idea. I recall my dad telling me that when he was young (he was poor growing up) he would thin down sweet condensed milk with water and drink it like milk. I grew up spreading it on well buttered toast. My dad would have it with peanut butter on bread. There are a lot of foods I like that came from my dad.

Now if you want to make dulce de leche, you start with sweet condensed milk. People boil it in the can (REMEMBER to punch holes in the top so you don’t have a sticky milky explosion). I boiled mine in a glass jar. It take a really long time but it’s worth it. Stir it every so often because the bottom will start to brown before the top does.

I made dulce de leche because I came across David Lebovitz’s recipe for dulce de leche brownies. (I used only 1/2 cup of sugar. I figured that the brownie was already sweet enough with the chocolate and dulce de leche.) Now the flat smells like brownies. It’s quite wonderful.

I wish Fredrik was home so he can sample this with me.

my bolognese

I made a big batch of bolognese today. Decided that I’d make it into a tutorial of sorts. Hope you like…

Let’s start with ingredients…
Base ingredients: mince beef, onion, carrots, zucchini, garlic, crushed tomatoes

I don’t use any measurements… I just use what I have. There are some extra ingredients in THIS particular bolognese because I had it kicking around in the freezer. Don’t worry about not having salsa and soy protein mince in your bolognese.

Grate the carrots and zucchini. Dice the onion. Mince the garlic.

Season your beef with some soy sauce, sugar and a splash of cooking sherry. I used leftover white wine.

Heat up some oil.

Sauté your onion and garlic first. Trust me… the bolognese will be tastier if you start by sautéing your onion and garlic first.

Add your mince. Make sure to stir it around so that it doesn’t cook into a giant clump of meat.

I usually add some seasoning when I’m cooking the meat. I use oregano. (I’m really not good with using spices.)

Add your grated carrots and zucchini.

Cook until the carrots and zucchini have softened. Add your crushed tomatoes. I use the kind that comes in a carton. Fresh tomatoes are a bit pricey here in Sweden. Canned tomatoes work just as well.

The bolognese will be a bit watery at first. Cook the sauce without a lid until most of the moisture has been reduced.

Serve with some sort of pasta. I chose spaghetti but after eating it, I decided that it would’ve been better with a penne or fusilli.

After about 2 weeks of eating just Asian foods, we were craving for some non-Asian food. I made courgette carbonara today from Jamie Magazine (Issue 3), apparently also in Jamie At Home. I added mushrooms and we used a different cheese because our parmesan didn’t make it through our vacation.

I added the egg and creme fraiche mixture when the pasta was a bit too hot and some of the sauce turned into scrambled egg. It still tasted great in the end.

Here’s the recipe for those who want to give it a try.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/beautiful-courgette-carbonara

mixed veggie goodness with pasta

Fredrik and I had ratatouille with pasta for dinner. I used Rachel Ray’s recipe for my first ratatouille. I’ve made my own modifications and tweaks since then.

Here’s a brief rundown of my ratatouille. I like my ratatouille garlicky.

• 1 medium zucchini
• 1 medium eggplant
• 2 small-ish bell peppers
• 1 medium onion
• 5-7 cloves of garlic
• 4 tomatoes
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• thyme
• oregano
• pasta (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 225°C. Cut tomatoes into wedges, put in roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil and put into the oven.
2. Take a piece of tin foil, put garlic in middle, drizzle with olive oil, wrap up the garlic and into the oven.
3. Chop up the zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers and onion into 1 inch pieces. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just small enough that it doesn’t take too long to cook. Put on cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, sprinkle with thyme and oregano. Put into oven.
4. Take garlic and tomatoes out of the oven. Set timer for about 30 minutes.
5. Mash garlic and tomatoes in a relatively large bowl.
6. If you’re gonna have the ratatouille with pasta, you might want to start it when there’s about 15 minutes left on the veggies.
7. Mix finished veggies with tomato and garlic mash. You can add some tomato paste if you think it needs a bit more intense tomato taste.



8. Mix in pasta.
9. EAT!

mmm clam chowder

When I was a kid, my family went to Cape Cod kind of often. We loved whale watching and the seafood. I love Provincetown and Boston. I’d really like to go to Cape Cod sometime with Fredrik in the near future. Perhaps next year. We’ll see.

One of my favourite foods includes the New England clam chowder. Unfortunately fresh little neck clams are not that readily available here in Sweden. The clams in clam chowder aren’t so great either. I prefer them stir fried with some black bean and garlic sauce. I intend to get my fill of that in Hong Kong in less than 2 weeks.

I did, however, find a fish monger in the city and they sold cans of clams. Tonight I made New England clam chowder and it was DELICIOUS! Fredrik thinks I should make it more often. I’m thinking about doing a chicken and corn chowder next.

I used Martha Stewart’s recipe as a base. She had a chowder feature in the the August 2008 issue of Martha Stewart Living. I learned about the Manhattan Clam Chowder from that feature. I had no idea that it existed.

As usual, I made modifications of my own. I added diced carrots, peas, sweet corn and chunks of fish (Alaskan pollock). I also used fish bouillon and the juice from the canned clams. Since the clams were already cooked, I put them in the bowls instead of dropping them back in the soup. Fredrik wasn’t the biggest fan of the clams but like I told him, it was more for the clam juice.

The chowder is also rather soup like. Not thick like the commercial stuff I had in the past. You can thicken it with some flour if you want. I thought it was kind of nice to have it soup like. Sometimes the thick soups can be a bit heavy.

Serve with some knäckebröd. DELICIOUS!

korean for dinner

I made bulgogi for dinner and it turned out quite nice.

I brought over a jar of Korean meat marinate from Toronto when I moved here. I finally opened it and used a bit of it. The boys at work had some left over sliced rib eye when I dropped by to pick up some chanterelle mushrooms my boss picked from the forest by his house. Pretty nice marinate. I fried it up with some onion and left over peppers (Fredrik and I had roast bell peppers the other night).

I found a recipe for bulgogi that’s from the Korean embassy. I think I’ll give it a try when I’ve run out of the pre made marinate. Might be a while because the jar is quite large.

http://www.dynamic-korea.com/cuisine/video/view_video.php?num=12&page=2

It even comes with a video. My favourite part of the recipe is when it called for “½ bulb of union”.

fish pie! fish pie!

I made a fish pie on Monday.

I used Jamie Oliver’s Fantastic Fish Pie recipe from a book when Jamie was still referred to as “The Naked Chef”. I’d go check which book I have but Ull’s sleeping on my lap.

We had some leftover kipper in our freezer. I used pangasius filets. Didn’t use any cheese and used chopped spinach.

Jamie doesn’t have the Fantastic Fish Pie recipe on his site but he does have the fish pie recipe from Ministry of Food.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/fish-pie

Definitely recommend giving it a try.