Julie’s Kitchen

It was a good life...

When Rita turned up at my door with the pieced lamb that I had ordered this autumn from the local Sheep Association, I suddenly had 10 kilos or 22 pounds of high quality grass-fed lamb to prepare this holiday season’s dishes with.  I remembered that I had once tasted a lamb stew that was one of those meals that you remember for all of your life. It was so good, that I contacted my neighbor down the road to find out how he had produced that memorable dish. He mentioned that he had got the recipe off of a woman whom he meets when he is walking the dog. They exchange food notes while standing around watching their dogs frolicking in the park. He no longer had the recipe but he would get a hold of it.

The next day, my neighbor was at my doorstep with the recipe in one hand and a lead holding back his highly active dog in the other. “I got it from her,” he said victoriously. So, with Rita’s lamb in my kitchen, I got to work. This recipe takes less effort than it does cooking time, determination to find the right cut of lamb (lammlägg in Swedish or leg of mutton in English meaning the lower leg parts of the lamb), and a big, sturdy casserole dish with top suitable for the oven.

Best Braised Lamb
(original recipe by Petter at meny.se)
Serves 4

4 pcs leg of mutton
white flour for coating
2 red onions, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 tbsps tomato puree
0.5 dl or 1/4 cup balsamic vinager
5 dl or 2 cups red wine
1 sprig of rosemary
2 sprigs of thyme
Olive oil
Butter
Salt & Pepper

Preheat oven to 150 C or 302F. Coat the lamb with flour. Warm a click of butter and a few tablespoons of olive oil in a deep oven-proof casserole dish with top and saute onions and crushed garlic over medium heat. Do not brown. Set aside the onion mixture. Increase the heat, add olive oil, if needed and saute the lamb so that it is browned on all sides. Add the onion mixture back to the pot and add in vinager, wine, tomato paste and herbs.  Cover and allow to cook for 2.5 hours until the lamb falls off the bone. Serve with a green salad, boiled potatoes or some bread for lapping up the delicious sauce with.

Oh, just a note about the Christmas ham, if you are having it. Remember, PLEASE to order it from an ecological farm that takes good care of its pigs. We’ve just had the most horrible experience here in Sweden learning about how our pigs are treated before they become Christmas ham. I’m ordering from Årstiderna. Try to find an equivalent where you live.

Which fish?

In my household we love to eat fish. The problem is that there is one issue or another with buying most of the fish commonly sold in my supermarket. Cod presents a sustainability problem. The farmed salmon has got various health and sustainability issues attached to it. But then there is the Saithe or European Pollock which is a superb alternative since it is sustainable, safe and enjoyable if you find the right way to prepare it. Saithe has quite a firm meat so is easy to handle in cooking. My past experiences of consuming Saithe is that it had a rather fishy flavor which I didn’t like. However, the following recipe which I came up with at the spur of the moment surprised and delighted everyone in the family.

Pollock or Saithe in a Tomato Bath
Serves 4

2 large fillets of Saithe or Pollock
white flour for dipping the fish in
1 egg, beaten for dipping the fish in
4 tablespoons canola or olive oil
2 cloves garlic
500 grams or 18 oz. crushed tomatoes
dried or fresh chopped herbs of your choice
thinly sliced cheese such as gouda or other to melt over the fish
salt & pepper to taste

Rinse the fish fillets and pat dry. Heat the cooking oil in a pan over medium heat. Dip the fillets into the egg first and then into the flour which should have a pinch of salt and pepper blended into it. Place in the pan, crush garlic on top and brown on both sides. Lower heat and spoon the crushed tomatoes around the edges of the fish. Sprinkle over the herbs. Add a pinch of salt and pepper. Cover and allow to cook for 10 minutes. Add cheese slices on top of the fish and cover once again, cooking for a further 5 minutes when the cheese will have just melted over the fish. Serve with a salad and some whole grain bread.

Check The Nordic Wellbeing Guide to Responsible Eating and our new rating system in The Nordic Wellbeing Cookbook for more about sustainable eating!

A real winner

Now you’ve been very patient, waiting for me to test that plum sauce and see whether it works with savory foods. The good news is that a) it does and it is superb and b) you get an extra recipe for plums which cropped up in the process!

I served the following plum sauce over pork served with braised apples and red cabbage, and boiled potatoes. My children couldn’t get enough of it which should give you the heads up. It has the advantage that it is much more health conscious compared to the better known plum sauce from Asian kitchens.

Savory Plum Sauce

1 liter or 1 quart plums, halved and pitted
3 dl or 1 1/3 cups dry white wine
2 tbsps apple cider vinegar
3 tbsps honey

Cook the plums covered on low heat in dry white wine and vinegar.  Once the plums are soft, allow to cool and press through a strainer. Place the plum liquid into a clean cooking pot and add honey. Allow to cook on low heat uncovered until the volume of the sauce has reduced by half.  Serve warm or cold over pork, potatoes or other.

Making the sauce didn’t exactly take care of the copious quantities of plums I had picked from my tree. I even needed a friend to help me pick them and suggested she take a basket home. We both came to the conclusion that the best thing to do in order to bottle this sunshine was to make some plum jam. This recipe is divine:

Bottled sunshine

Plum Jam with Lemon & Cinammon

1 liter or 1 quart plums, halved and pitted
500 grams or 1 lb sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
grated rind of 1 lemon
1/4 tsp natrium bensoate

Clean glass jars with tops for bottling

Combine all jam ingredients in a pot and blend with a wooden spoon, cover and cook over low heat. Once the sugar has dissolved and the jam is gently bubbling, remove from heat and skim away the ‘foam’ at the surface of the jam. Blend the natrium bensoate in a spoon or two of jam and add to the pot, blending thoroughly. Remove the cinnamon sticks. Pot the jam immediately.

We love them at nordicwellbeing.com!

My grandmother always used to say that most things that you prepare taste even better the next day if you rehash them a little bit. I guess she had to develop this approach having lived through two world wars. The thing is, I tend to agree with her. I don’t know whether it has to do with actual taste or just the satisfaction of not wasting food.

Who doesn’t have a sealed tub of leftover cooked pasta in their refrigerator? Please raise your hand. Aha! As I suspected, no one is raising their hand. As I had just pulled this year’s beets out of the ground in my kitchen garden yet didn’t feel like spending too much time cooking, I decided to put two and two together and came up with this little number that is just superb. I know you must think that we are beet-lovers at nordicwellbeing.com (yes we are! see our Nordic Wellbeing Cookbook).

Beet Pasta
(per person to be served)

50-100 g or 2-3 oz leftover cooked pasta or cook up some new
2 medium beets, cooked*
30g  or 1 oz. Goat’s cheese: feta or chevre
2-3 tbsps roughly chopped hazelnuts
Olive oil for drizzling
Salt/Pepper

Place the pasta in a microwave-proof bowl. Chop beets into bite-size wedges and add to the pasta without blending. Crumble over goat’s cheese and add hazelnuts. Cover and heat in the microwave until warm (1-2 minutes on maximum). Drizzle over the olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toss. Enjoy with a green salad.

* Cooking beets: Remove most of the stalk leaving about 2-3 cm or 1 inch on the beetroot. Wash and place in a cooking pot. Cover with water and add a bit of salt. Bring to boil and then lower heat leaving to cook about 30 minutes or until you can easily pierce the beets with a fork or other. Drain away the water and allow to cool. Remove the skin to use in food preparation. It should slide off easily.

If you do like beets (a wise health choice), please look no further, check Paavo’s Bytes and The Nordic Wellbeing Cookbook.

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Along the lines of food and frugality, please do check out the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm which is now home to the Manna Exhibition which has toured Sweden, Denmark and the US. The new cafe, MatMekka, established simultaneously with the exhibition is well worth a visit!

Scandinavian Sushi

When first I came to Scandinavia I worked for a Danish company based just outside of Copenhagen. In their cafeteria on every day of the week one could choose from several different types of pickled herring combined with various toppings and several different types of bread, many of them dark and grainy. I wasn’t wild about it at first, but it grew on me. I began to miss my pickled herring smörrebröd when I sat in London pubs – England was my other base during this phase of life.

Now that I have been living in Sweden for 13 years, I know that the summer cannot pass without a jar of sill or pickled herring in the refrigerator. There are many types that you can purchase in the shops, prepared in almost every imaginable marinade. The classic in Sweden is to lay a few slices on a starter plate with boiled new potatoes (peel unremoved) and soured cream. It is an elegant and exotic start to a meal even if you come from these parts. Sill is also a highlight at Christmas although at that time of year served with crisp bread rather than potatoes….but that is too far away to worry about just now.

Sill doesn’t feel like something you want to consume too much of at once. It has a richness as a result of the fact that herring is an oily fish and a strong flavor, imparted by the marinade, that makes small quantities in starter portions just right.

For some years there have been health concerns about the consumption of herring from the Baltic sea which was heavily contaminated by PCBs (Polychlorinated Byphenals used in refrigeration), methylmercury and dioxin-like compounds during the 1960s and 70s. In addition, overfishing severely reduced herring stocks to dangerously low levels.  The news for the Baltic seems positive, with sinking levels of these pollutants and collaborative efforts to control fishing. Still, best advice is to consume Atlantic or Pacific herring up to two times per week. If you are expecting, avoid consumption of fish from the Baltic entirely.

The good news is that sill is one of three types of oily fish (the others are mackerel and salmon) rich in Omega-3 fatty acids which protect against heart disease, among other clear health benefits. These fish are a great way to get the healthy fats that your body needs without eating ‘fat food’.

So, what is the trick for coming up with that tangy tasting sill that is one of the most common features of the Scandinavian smörgåsbord? Here is a basic recipe that you can vary according to taste and what herbs you’ve got available. You can consider adding other flavors such as juniper berries, sherry or garlic.

Pickled Herring

1 dl or 1/2 cup vinegar
6 dl or 2 1/2 cups water
3 dl or 1 1/3 cups sugar
800 g or 1.8 lbs (28 ounces) canned herring
20 Black and white pepper corns
2 red onions, sliced thinly
4 bay leaves
Clean pickling jars

Blend the vinegar, water and sugar and bring to simmering. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. During this time, chop the herring fillets into 2-3 cm or about 1 inch chunks and layer in clean jars with pepper corns, onions and bay leaves. Pour over the liquid so that it covers the fish and fills the whole jar. Seal and allow to marinade for 4 days.

Serve with your favorite dark bread, potatoes, sour cream and perhaps, for that extra health and flavor kick, beet root salad. The possibilities are endless.

Dandelions in Northern Norway

Inspired by Johanna’s thrifty thoughts about dandelions this May 2009, I am including my best dandelion leaf recipe.

Dandelions are nature’s own gift to you in the Spring as their leaves have a strong cleansing effect on the kidneys and gallbladder.

Dandelion leaf has a bitter flavor which you can tone down by soaking for a half an hour or so in water before using in salads and other foods.

The slightly bitter, leafy green taste of dandelion leaf complements barbecued meats and vegetables perfectly.

Dandelion Pesto

1 liter or 1 quart dandelion leaves
1 dl or 1/2 cupVästerbotten or parmesan cheese, grated
3 1/2 dl or about 1 1/2 cups canola or olive oil
1 dl or 1/2 cup pine nuts

Soak the leaves in water for 1/2-1 hour. Pat dry and chop roughly. Blend in a food processor with the remaining ingredients until the mixture has become a smooth paste.

Asparagus and Potatoes with Lemon Oil

If you want a real lift this May, I suggest you try the light lunch prepared in under 10 minutes that I enjoyed today. What was it that I prepared and ate? Asparagus. What is that doing in the Nordic Wellbeing Cookbook, you might ask? Doesn’t that grow in a sandy, dry environment somewhere where it is much warmer? In actual fact, asparagus is a hardy plant that grows in a wide variety of climates and can even tolerate frosts. Asparagus from Gotland has become a delicacy in Sweden, for example. During the past decade asparagus has become a favorite of Nordic kitchens during the warmer, lighter season.

What’s so good about asparagus from a health point of view? Just a few of its many virtues include that it is a great source of vitamin C, B2 and one of the richest existing sources of B9 (folates) among other essential vitamins and minerals. If you’ve got diabetes, gout or fluid retention you’ll want to eat more of it. It’s also one of those foods that you don’t have to buy organic since it has relatively low pesticide residues. Since it doesn’t have a long shelf life, it’s one of those vegetables you’ll have to eat relatively fresh. There are, of course, also frozen options.

A more long-standing great favorite of the Nordic kitchen is the potato and these combine beautifully with asparagus for a delightful and satisfying meal. If you’ve got any of those boiled potatoes  left from last night’s meal, don’t throw them out! They will make a perfect lunch with asparagus.

Asparagus & Potatoes with Lemon Oil
Lunch for 2

Bunch of asparagus (green or white – up to you)
4 medium-sized boiled potatoes, room temperature (ecological please!)
1 lemon cut in half
Canola or extra virgin olive oil
Salt/Pepper

Wash the asparagus, cut off the hard ends of the stalks and place in a pan just covering with water. Sprinkle in a little salt. Bring to boil and allow to simmer for 5 minutes. Pour into a sieve, draining out the hot water and rinse immediately with cold water so that the asparagus retains its crispness. If you’ve got an asparagus cooker (steams the asparagus upright so that it cooks more evenly and preserves more of the nutrients) it will take about 10 minutes.

Cut the potatoes into quarters and divide between two plates. Divide the asparagus into two quantities and pile next to the potatoes. Drizzle potatoes and asparagus with oil and serve with a half a lemon for squeezing over just before eating.

This dish is as divine as it is simple. P.S. Kids and adults alike love it.

Nettles around my compost

As I sauntered past my compost container yesterday, I noticed the first tender leaves of nettle forming small umbrellas over the rich soil.  Although it is a bit of work, this is the best time to clip away a liter (a quart) or two for preparing that iron and calcium boost you need this spring.  So, if you’ve got some nettles starting to grow in your vicinity, pull on the gardening gloves  and clip away as much as you can (no need to worry about it not growing back – it is a very determined plant!).

In Scandinavia, nettles are a main feature of spring cuisine. Every newspaper and magazine in April is running its own nettle soup and other prickly green recipes. I remember sitting in the offloading room of a major restaurant in Stockholm in April and gaping at a local who had just walked in with several crates of nettles. The man who had leather hands declared that he never picked with gloves on!

I’m starting with my favorite nettle recipe which isn’t the typical nettle soup (that’s next). If you haven’t got nettles you can use baby spinach leaves instead.

Spring Nettle Pie

Pie Crust:

3.5 dl or 1.5 cups whole wheat flour or Grahamsmjöl
1 tsp baking powder
100 g or 3.5 oz. butter
Pinch of salt
1 egg

Filling:

2 liters or quarts nettle leaves detached from the stem
Water for cooking the nettles
1 white onion, chopped finely
2 tbsps canola oil or extra virgin olive oil
150 g or or 5 oz. feta cheese or other goat cheese
2 eggs
3 dl or 1 cup creme fraiche
Salt & Pepper

Garnishing:

Red currant jelly or other favorite berry jelly

Preheat your oven to 200 C or 392 F. Mix the dough ingredients in a food processor until they clump together in a thick sausage shape. Roll out in between two sheets of baking paper (so as to avoid the dough sticking to the counter and the rolling pin). Scatter a bit of extra flour onto the bottom sheet of baking paper before rolling out to avoid stickiness. Remove the top sheet of baking paper and turn the dough into the pie dish, peeling away the other layer of baking paper once the dough is nice and flat in the pie dish (ca. 11 inches or 28 cm).  Cut away any extra dough that hangs over the edges. Sounds complicated but it’s actually very simple once you get the hang of it!

Place the pie crust in the oven and allow to bake for 7 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Now to the nettles. Brush off any soil. Pluck the leaves off the stems, place in a pan with just a few tablespoons of water and gently bring to boil. Let boil for only a minute or until you see the leaves wilting. Place in a collander and press all of the water out of the nettles. Roll into a ball and press more water out. Cut the nettle mass into fine strips. Saute the onion for two minutes over medium heat. Do not let them brown. Remove from heat and blend in the nettles.

Beat the eggs and blend with creme fraiche,  a pinch of salt and a turn of the pepper grinder.

Assemble the pie. Cover the base of the pie with the nettle and onion mixture. Crumble feta or other goat’s cheese on top. Pour the creme fraiche mixture over the contents of the pie and cover evenly using the back of a spoon. Ready for the oven!

Bake for 25 minutes or until the pie is lightly browned on top. Serve with red currant or other fruit jelly of your choice. If you are enjoying this as a main dish you can also serve it with some cold meats and almost any type of salad.

Food of Love

I have to concede that I am what Swedes call a “höns mamma” (hen mother). On Valentine’s Day I want everyone at home with the unifying aroma of honey rye sourdough bread emanating from the oven and floating around them throughout the house. When we enjoy it together with the crumbs scattering quickly across the kitchen table as we laugh together in this most important of rooms, this bread feels like love itself. I’m without my bread mixer at the moment, you see. So, I have kneaded this bread by hand on a pastry kneading board that has been the birth place of great breads for the past hundred years or more . I have found that kneading is not an inconvenience if you really focus on it and don’t constantly think of the next thing. It is an act of love. However, if you’ve got a bread mixer, you need not look at it longingly as you knead (excuse my pun on words) for fear of not being able to deliver the same feeling to your family and love ones. Go ahead and use it!

Here is my best recipe for rye sourdough with a touch of honey to give it that lovely gentle flavor. A note about rye: it’s a good idea to try consuming more of this in your diet of grains or at least blending rye with wheat varieties of flour as this recipe does. Consuming rye flour breads has some clear benefits over eating mainly white flour breads as they include insoluble fibers which assist digestion and reduce blood fat levels.

The touch of honey that I’ve put into this bread has a dual effect. It helps the bread to rise and to become airy and elastic along with the sourdough and touch of yeast. It also gives the bread a smoother, more mature flavor compared with breads made with sweet baking syrup. Make sure you choose honey that is raw – meaning it hasn’t been heated. That way you preserve its yeasting qualities for the bread.

In this recipe I’m using the sourdough culture which you should make sure you’ve already got waiting for you in the refrigerator. Preparing it takes about a week of waiting (but not much work). Read about it in my entry for sourdough earlier this February.

Honey Rye Sourdough Bread
(makes two loaves)

5 dl or 2 cups fine ground rye flour
4 dl or 1 3/4 cups fine ground wheat flour
2 dl or 3/4 cup stoneground wheat flour or Grahamsmjöl
1 dl or 1/3 cup wheat germ
2 dl or 3/4 cup rye sourdough
25 g or 0.9 oz dry yeast for savoury doughs
2 tbsps honey
2 tbsps salt
4 dl or 1/3/4 cups lukewarm water
2 dl or 3/4 cup extra fine ground wheat flour for kneading (if you are using a bread mixer this can be used as extra flour if the dough is too sticky)

Combine flours, wheat germ and yeast in a mixing bowl or bread mixer. Add sourdough, honey and water. Knead into a smooth dough with one hand, keeping the other one free to add a bit of white flour and reduce stickiness. If using a bread mixer, blend at low speed for 2 minutes. If kneading by hand, scatter a bit of the spare flour onto a kneading board or wooden surface and knead the dough on this for about 10-15 minutes. If using a bread mixer, mix on medium speed for about 8 minutes. Add salt towards the end of the kneading process. Place the dough back into the bowl, cover with a clean, dry kitchen towel and allow to rise for 6-8 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat your oven to 250 C or 482 F. Split the dough into two, form into rounds and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Cut a cross into the middle of the bread with scissors (for aesthetic purposes only - not a must). Scatter over a bit of extra stoneground wheat flour. Cover with the kitchen towel. Place near the warming oven and allow to rise for an hour or two. Reduce the oven heat to 200 C or 390 F and spray or sprinkle the dough with water just before sliding the baking tray with the bread rounds into the lower shelf of the oven. Allow to bake for 25-30 minutes until the bread is crispy and browned but not burned. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Enjoy lukewarm with a bit of butter or margarine and a hot cup of tea, coffee or drinking chocolate.

I love listening to the radio while I am kneading dough. It is a wonderful break from the hectic day! I like to partake in this unusual little relaxation technique before going to bed. That way the bread can rise while I am sleeping and be put into the oven to bake the next morning.

Happy Valentine’s!

More Cabbage!

Just when you thought that I couldn’t possibly come up with another cabbage recipe, here it is! This isn’t just any old cabbage recipe, it must be my absolute favorite and fits well with so many savoury dishes. Since you know all about the fantastic health benefits of eating raw cabbage (mainly heart and cancer protection), I know I don’t have to convince you. Dill, by the way, was once used a means of getting small children to sleep better – it might work on you too!. Here it is:

Place the cabbage in a large salad bowl. In a small mixing bowl, blend the liquid ingredients and dill with a manual beater. Pour over the cabbage. Add salt and pepper. Toss, taste, add more salt and pepper if needed.