Scandi Food for Midsummer

I don't normally quote newspaper articles, but Diana Henry has written a really good piece about Scandinavian summer food - specifically Swedish - in her Telegraph column this week. You'll find it here: 'Scandi Food; why Swedes do midsummer - and coffee breaks - best'

Takk Diana :)

Photo: www.uterummet.se

A Norway Day Cake To Die For

I'm trying to see past the streaming rain today, surely it will improve in time for Norway Day on Sunday? Although obviously this amount of rain is bound to turbo-charge the plants in the garden, which is a very welcome effect after such a dry spring.

Anyway, so far my preparations for ND have consisted of making gravlaks and baking a cake. Plus eating too many of the Scandi sweets I ordered from the Skandikitchen "just because I need to test the quality". I have rather a lot left to do on the prepping front.

But, I'd like to share the recipe for the cake, which was a great success at our Norway Day garden party last year. It's a recipe by famous Norwegian food blogger Trine Sandberg (www.trinesmatblogg.no) and she has graciously allowed me to translate and publish it here. Trine calls it the 'Hurra for 17. mai kake' which if you don't read Norwegian means 'Hurrah for the 17th of May'.

It's easy, but looks very impressive.

Ingredients
* 150g butter
* 200g dark chocolate (70% is good)
* 3 medium eggs
* 150-175g caster sugar
* 1tbsp vanilla sugar (I used 1tsp vanilla extract as vanilla sugar isn't commonly available in the UK)
* 125g plain white flour (not self-raising)
* 1tsp baking powder

 Photo: lifewithanordicsoul

Baking
* Heat your oven to 175°C (or 160°C fan)
* Grease and flour a round 22-24cm tin and set aside
* Melt the butter in a pan on a low heat while you break the chocolate into small pieces
* Remove the pan from the hob and add the chocolate, stirring until it melts completely (it's important that the butter is not too hot as this can make the chocolate go grainy)
* Add one egg at a time, stirring the batter thoroughly but gently between each
* Stir in the sugar, vanilla and baking powder
* Sift the flour into the batter while stirring until completely smooth
* Pour the batter into the tin and place it on the middle shelf in the oven

* Bake for 20-30 minutes (test with a wooden toothpick after 20 mins - if you pull it out clean the cake is done, if not bake for a few more minutes) 

* Leave the cake to cool on a rack while you prepare the filling and topping

Filling & Topping

Chocolate ganache, crème chantilly, pears and berries...

Chocolate ganache ingredients:

* 200g chopped dark chocolate

* 100ml single cream

* 50ml water

* 2-3tsp caster sugar

* 1tbsp butter

Chocolate ganache method:

* Add the chocolate and butter to a large mixing bowl

* Gently heat the cream, water and sugar in a pan on the hob until the sugar dissolves and pour it into the mixing bowl

* Stir the mixture gently until the chocolate is completely melted. Do not stir more than necessary.

Crème chantilly, pears & berries:

*500ml whipping cream

* 1tsp caster sugar

* 1 drop of vanilla essence

* 1 punnet of strawberries (raspberries are fine, but strawberries are more 'flag red')

* 1 punnet of blueberries

* 1 tin of pears in natural juice

Method:

* Whip the cream, sugar and vanilla until you get a fluffy whipped cream with 'hold' and put the bowl in the fridge

* Slice the cake in two horizontal layers

* Spread half of the whipped cream over the bottom layer of the cake, then layer the pears and half of the berries on top of this (I would recommend slicing the pears and strawberries so that you can layer fairly flat)

* Gently place the second layer of the cake on top of the first

* Pour the chocolate ganache over the top of the cake and spread with a spatula, letting some of it run down the sides (at this point the ganache should have cooled and thickened a bit so that it doesn't run too much)

* Set the cake aside to allow the ganache to cool and set before you continue

* Spread the remainder of the cream over the top of the cake but not all the way out to the edge

* Decorate the top of the cake with the rest of the berries

And there you have it: Hurra for 17. mai kake!

Photo: Trine Sandberg

Friday

is Riverford delivery day - organic fruit and vegetables delivered from Devon. And eggs! I eat eggs for breakfast every day and right now I've run out.

Whenever one of us opens the door to find the little Riverford box it's like opening a present, we never know what we will find. Sometimes we're instantly inspired to cook and sometimes we have to work out what on earth a vegetable is, and how to cook it. But we really like the fact that our fruit and veg come direct from the growers, who have not been shafted by some giant impersonal supermarket. And that the eggs come from happy hens.

Morning Glory

Recycled Bonne Maman jam jar and 1940's saucer by Colclough, vintage linen table cloth by Åhlens.

When I grew up people used to refer to 'vårslapphet' afflicting many as winter segued into spring. It's a term I suppose one can translate into 'spring fatigue' and it's that feeling of weariness that hits you just as nature starts to spurt forth buds and shoots everywhere. Perhaps it's the body letting go a bit after months of cold and darkness.

We're feeling a bit 'vårslappe' in our household, so I've started preparing a dark green juice in the mornings to give us a bit of extra pep. Much has been written about juicing lately as it's been hijacked by the weight-loss brigade, but the real benefit of juicing is that it allows us to consume a large quantity of vegetable nutrients - much larger quantities than if we were to simply eat them.

An easy juice to start with is by juicing around 200g kurly kale (this is the standard size for a bag of prepped kale in the shops), a large pear and a squeeze of lime. Do rinse the kale even though it looks clean in the bag. Wash the pear and chop off the stalk, then cut it into wedges. There is no need to peel and core it (unless you have concerns about pesticide levels, in which case peel it or buy organic). The flavours go really well together and it's an alkaline juice, which is good for the acidity levels in our bodies. It should be sipped, and if you can pretend to chew it then your stomach will benefit much more than if you simply glug it  - chewing activates the digestive enzymes and you need these to absorb the nutrients of the juice properly. So if you take the time to make your own juice, take the time to chew it too!

If you are interested in juicing I would recommend The Alkaline Sisters' blog, which is full of inspiring recipes and information.

Winter Warming Food - Medisterkaker

Cabbage is on the menu for dinner today. As it has been at least once a week for the past month. Before we had our weekly Riverford deliveries I didn't really think about what was in season, but now I know that cabbages and brassicas plus root vegetables are the backbone of a homegrown winter menu. Pork is a popular meat in Scandinavia, and I think it's the best to accompany cabbage. Lightly steamed Savoy cabbage with a bit of lightly salted butter melting on top - who can resist that? English quality sausages (such as the coarse ones you can buy from a traditional butcher, Sainsbury's, Waitrose or Duchy Originals) go exceptionally well with cabbage, as do succulent pork shoulder chops. However, it's time we varied our repertoire a bit, so tonight I am making grove medisterkaker. These are little meat patties made with coarsely ground pork meat - you can use pork mince, or the pork stuffing meat you find around Christmas time. In fact, grove medisterkaker are a big part of a traditional Norwegian Christmas dinner if you come from a region where pork is on the menu. I try to eat a low-carb diet, so I will use the following recipe which uses an egg as a binding agent instead of potato flour.

Ingredients:
400g pork mince
1 egg
2 dl cream (1 dl = 100 ml)
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon ground or grated muscat
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger (from the spice rack, not fresh)
pepper

Mix the ingredients well in a bowl using a fork. Scoop out a tablespoon of the mixture and shape it into a ball with your palm (or use a second tablespoon if you prefer, rolling the ball between the spoons). Place it in a hot frying pan with melted butter or oil and press it down slightly with a spatula to flatten it. Brown the medisterkake for a few minutes on each side. When it's cooked through have a taste - you might want to add a bit more seasoning. If you are happy with the flavour and texture proceed with spooning out the rest of the of the mix in the frying pan. When the patties have browned a few minutes on each side lift them out and transfer them to a wide casserole with a bit of butter and a shallow amount of water which you leave on a low temperature. If you find that the frying pan accumulates a lot of melted fat as you fry your patties you simply pour the fat over the patties in the casserole as this will make them more succulent. Once you have finished the mixture leave the patties to simmer on a low heat under a lid in the casserole while you prepare the vegetables to serve with it. All winter vegetables go well with this dish, but if you low-carb or LCHF then stick to vegetables growing above ground and leave root vegetables out.

Gravlaks - End of Year Delicacies

We have friends coming over for New Year's Eve. It's the first time ever that we're hosting in our own home... In previous years we've organised big NYE weekends in various country houses - and every time we created a cooking rota where everyone was responsible for a meal each. It was always good fun and not very stressful at all when it came to our turn to cook (it was just a case of dishing out the main NYE meal to the best cooks of course, no one blamed us for that!) This time we're entirely responsible, since although I started by suggesting that our guests might bring zip-lock bags of peeled and chopped vegetables as contributions, my husband said no, it's not the done thing, we'll do it all ourselves. Huff! Time to start planning!

Anyway, I have knocked my husband's idea of a casserole dish on the head and am heading to an old-fashioned butcher in London later today to see if I can find a good joint of beef. But before that, as we're now just 2.5 days away from the event, I need to get some gravlaks on the go as I am planning to serve that as a starter. I have a really top-notch recipe for gravlaks by Norwegian food blogger Anne Cathrine who posts superb recipes on her blog Enestående Mat. I served this gravlaks at our Norway Day party in May and it was very well received.

Photo: enestaaendemat.no

GRAVLAKS by Anne Cathrine's Mamma
ca 500g boneless salmon fillet (if you use fillets with skin on one side they will be easier to slice when you serve)
2 tbsp cognac
1 tbsp salt
0.5 tbsp sugar
1 small handful mustard seeds
1 large bunch of dill (approximately 3 packets if you buy from a supermarket)

Use salmon (or trout if you prefer) which has been frozen for at least 24 hours before you use it. This acts as a kind of sterilisation process. Defrost the fish in the fridge. Once defrosted, pat it dry with a kitchen towel or kitchen paper - do not rinse it with water!
Ensure that you have two pieces of salmon. If you start with one large fillet cut it in two half lengths. Pour the cognac over the fish and massage it in gently with your fingers. Mix the salt, sugar and mustard seeds together and sprinkle over the fish, then massage the mixture in gently making sure you cover the whole surface of both fillets.
Make a bed of around 1/3 of the dill in a shallow dish and place the first fillet (skin down) on this. Chop the remaining dill and spread half of it over the salmon fillet in the dish. Then place the second fillet (fleshy side down/skin up) on top and cover with the remaining chopped dill. Place a chopping board on top of the two salmon fillets - I put a heavy book on top of this in order to make sure it is weighed down properly - and place it in the fridge for 3 days. It is important to let the fish breathe, so resist any temptation to use clingfilm, the fish needs to breathe.  Leave the fish alone, there is no need to turn it or touch it at all, it will mind itself.

After 3 days the gravlaks will be ready to serve, but if you leave it for 4 days it will be absolutely heavenly. It will last up to 1 week if you store it carefully in the fridge (or on the balcony if it's cold where you live - this is what my parents do, it's great for expanding your fridge capacity! Though not if temperatures are sub-sub zero). Gravlaks is traditionally served in all the Nordic countries as a special treat: in Swedish it is called 'gravadlax', in Danish 'gravad laks' and in Finnish 'Graavilohi'. In Norway it is often served with a creamy potato salad, but we're having roast potatoes with our main course, so to avoid carb overload I am planning to make a crisp red cabbage salad and a creamy celeriac salad plus a dark rye loaf.

The traditional mustard sauce which is served with gravlaks is made of roughly 3tbsp mustard, 1tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar and a finely chopped bunch of dill - stirred thoroughly.

Julebakst - traditional Christmas Cake

Our new stand mixer arrived this week and tomorrow I will be baking no less than two traditional Christmas cakes. One for my parents and one for my husband's. When I was around 10 my father found a recipe for Christmas cake in a book at our local library (no mean feat in 80's Norway) and from then on we started baking this rich fruited cake with marzipan and icing. I remember we couldn't quite work out whether the icing or the marzipan should be the top layer, and as marzipan is a favoured Christmas sweetmeat in Norway we decided that surely it should be the finishing touch. Not so, apparently, Christmas cakes here in the UK are resplendent in their heavy royal icing. And it seems that the English don't really like marzipan...! My theory is that this is due to the inferior quality available - no one who has tasted Danish Anton Berg marzipan or German Lübecker marzipan could fail to appreciate it. Marzipan simply IS Christmas.

Anyway, the KMix is ready in the kitchen. And tomorrow the house will start to smell of Christmas. To me, baking is one of the best ways to get into the Christmas spirit. It is slow, contemplative, smells and tastes lovely - and best of all, the product of it is meant to be shared.

 

Photo: Rosendahl

Rosendahl has a beautiful line of measuring cups and jugs called 'Grand Cru'. Well worth investing in if you enjoy baking. Available from, among others, Skandium and Heals.

Pepperkaker - Scandinavian Gingerbread

One of the seven varieties of cakes and biscuits which we used to bake when I was growing up was 'pepperkaker'. The Swedes call them 'pepparkakor' and the Danes 'peberkager'. The dough takes a bit of time to make, since it needs to rest for a good 12 hours before one can use it. Children love baking pepperkaker since they can choose from lots of different-shaped cutters and literally bake a story.

We're going to be baking pepperkaker on the 13th, so I've got plenty of time. But it's good to start planning the ingredients now so that we don't rush around looking for them at the last minute.

The recipe we're going to use is one we've tried before, by a Norwegian food writer and blogger called Trine Sandberg.When I was little we often used Henriette Schønberg Erken's classic recipes, but I'm afraid I don't have her cookbook here in England. In any case, Trine Sandberg's cake recipes tend to go down a storm, so we're in safe hands.

Ingredients:
250g caster sugar
1dl golden syrup
1dl dark treacle
1tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2tbsp ground ginger          (Schwartz - available from Asda and Tesco)           
1/4tbsp ground cloves          (Schwartz - available from Asda and Tesco)  
250g lightly salted butter
1tbsp natron                       (use baking soda if you do not have access to a Norwegian grocer..)
2 small eggs
650-800g wheat flour            (NB: Scandinavians do not use self-raising flour, only what I call 'natural' flour)
baking parchment  

NB: 1 dl = 100ml   

• Start by cubing the butter and putting it in a wide bowl. Set aside.
• Pour the sugar, syrup and treacle into a small saucepan and gently heat until the sugar dissolves. 
• Add the ground cinnamon, ginger and clove to the mix and stir well.
• Stir in the natron (or baking soda) with quick movements. The mixture will lighten and rise slightly.
• Without delay, pour the mixture over the butter in the bowl. Stir until the butter is completely melted and the mixture has cooled.
• Whisk the eggs and add them to the main mixture.
• Add the flour by sifting it over the mixture bit by bit and stirring carefully. Continue until you get a smooth and quite firm dough (you may not need to use all the flour - set the rest aside)
• Shape the dough into a smooth flat ball with your hands, return to the bowl and leave it somewhere cold for 12 hours (in England that will have to be the fridge)

  
Baking:
Sprinkle a bit of flour on the table or bench where you will be rolling out the dough. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin (you don't have to do the whole dough in one go, I break it up into smaller lumps and roll those out individually). For small to medium sized cutters I would roll the dough out to ca 3mm thick. If you are making a 'pepperkakehus' (a gingerbread house) you will need to go slightly thicker, 5mm, otherwise the walls and panels of the house will be too fragile to work with.
In my experience it is quite difficult to lift the pepperkake shapes off the worksurface and on to the baking tray, so I suggest that you roll the dough out to around 1cm thick, then transfer it on to a sheet of baking parchment and finish rolling it out to 3mm or 5mm thickness. You can then place the cutters (or your house pattern) on the dough - we call it 'sticking out' the shapes - and lift off the residue from between the cut out shapes, leaving you with pristine cookies that can be put straight in the oven. Bake at 220-225C (no fan), in the middle of the oven, for 7-10 minutes. Keep a close eye on the tray towards the end as they will darken quickly and can burn if you are not careful. Remove from the oven and transfer the whole sheet of baking parchment with the cookies on it to a cooling grid (they will still be soft at this stage, so if you lift them off one by one they may bend).

Keep your pepperkaker in a closed tin until you are ready to serve them.

Decorating:
If you like decorating pepperkaker you can use white icing, by itself, or as glue to stick on little silver balls or coloured sweets. Here is a simple recipe:

• 4dl icing sugar
• 1 small egg white (if it's a medium or large egg increase the amount of icing sugar)
• 1ml lemon juice

Whisk the ingredients in a bowl until smooth, firm and not too gloopy. Scoop into a plastic freezer bag, tie a knot firmly to close the opening and snip a corner of the bag off with a pair of scissors. The snip should make a small hole, to give you a fine piping. (You can of course use a piping bag - but this is really not something I have invested in - I prefer throwing the bag away when I've finished) You can also add food colouring to the piping mix, but do bear in mind that it will make it more runny, so you would have to add a bit more icing sugar to compensate.

Pipe away. If you're decorating a pepperkake house you may find that the icing will run slightly down the walls - in which case set aside your piping bag and reserve it for decorating horizontal stuff. Add a bit more icing sugar to the recipe and you'll find it holds its shape better on vertical surfaces.
The icing will need to dry thoroughly before you can put the cookies away in a tin.

 Photo: Trine Sandberg

If you are making a house you can use the piping to glue the bits together, but the best option is to make caramel and use that - it dries much faster. Arla, the Scandinavian dairy brand, has a fairly simple model drawing which you can print out on A4 paper and then cut out the various elements. See here. With a bit of dedication you could make this:

Photo: Arla

And if you fancy stocking up on beautifully crafted utensils for the baking days ahead, try Iris Hantverk

 Photo: Iris Hantverk

Having not baked pepperkaker for a few years I re-learned a couple of lessons this time: 
- If your spices are a bit old (as our were) you can still use them, but do increase the dosage a bit to get the desired spiced flavour. Our pepperkaker turned out a bit on the bland side...
- I tend to buy large eggs these days, and traditional recipes are generally based on using medium to small eggs, unless large eggs are specifically stated. This makes a big difference when making sugar frosting, as a large egg yields a large egg-white. Opt for a small egg, or increase the amount of icing sugar. Otherwise you might end up with a gloopy glazing, which will look fine on cakes decorated while lying flat but it will droop and run when decorating a pepperkakehus...

Baking in December

Last night I went to bed hoping that the Amazon delivery van wouldn't arrive after I'd fallen asleep. I wanted our new stand mixer for the kitchen to be delivered, but not after 10pm. I woke up this morning and realised that it hadn't been. Grrr.

This is very inconvenient. I have two traditional British Christmas cakes to bake this weekend. And while my husband bakes them by hand, he is not here, and I do not have the arm-power to cream brown sugar and butter in those quantities... Disappointed. Cakes will not be as good if they don't get to snuggle in their cake tins and sip brandy for a month before we serve them to our families.

The elusive stand mixer is also going to help me reconnect with my traditional Norwegian self, specifically the baking of the magical 7 kinds of 'julekaker' in preparation for Christmas. Norwegian Christmas kakes are more like biscuits and small kakes, each a mouthful only. Which 7 varieties one choses to bake is left to your own preference, guided by family tradition and - perhaps crucially these days - preparation time and effort. In my family we never made 'Fattigman', a delicious deep fried diamond-shaped delicacy. My mother wasn't comfortable with the idea of deep frying - hot oil with children jostling around wasn't a reassuring thought, and worse even, our hair would smell of 'smult' afterwards. We concentrated on non-dangerous baking: 'Serinakaker', 'Berlinerkranser', 'Mor Monsen', 'Pepperkaker', mince pies (my father is British, hence the mince pies and Christmas cake), 'Krumkaker', 'Sandkaker'... none of which need to bathe in the deep-frying pan. Each weekend in December was dedicated to baking two types of cakes, which were stored in Christmas-patterned tins until we would crack them open on the 23rd December.

So just come on and deliver that silly mixer! I have work to do.

Snaps & Rye - New Danish Café in London

The other day I stumbled across an article about a new Danish eatery in Elle Decoration online. Snaps & Rye joins a small number of Nordic cafés in London (The Scandinavian Kitchen and the Nordic Bakery are favourites of mine) where we can revive ourselves with food from 'home'. Although Norwegian, I, like most Scandis, spent holidays in all the Scandinavian countries growing up, and food from the Scandi 'brother' countries evoque happy childhood memories. I have a dreamy memory of staying overnight on a farm en-route somewhere, and sitting down to a breakfast table so full of delicacies that we couldn't even get through them all (the landlady's disappointment was palpable when she realised that we hadn't discovered her home-made paté, covered as it was by a beautiful linen cloth).
I look forward to trying Snaps & Rye soon - this refreshingly light and retro-modern café is located at no. 93 Golborne Road at the western end of Notting Hill. Golborne Road, in case you are not aware, has a number of interesting antique shops and brocantes, plus the fascinating 'Rellik' vintage clothes shop and much more.

Photo borrowed from Elle Decoration