Ginger Juice

The most annoying thing about Dutch weather is that it's so wet, raining most part of the day most of the time. It makes me supercold. You might think a Viking from the North ;) could handle it, being slightly warmer here than back home. NO! this humid stuff is too much, I don't mind it getting darker, but the wetness is driving me crazy. When it's raining I just want to stay at home and drink something. Like this juice I tested the other day, inspired by this: Cookingwithalia's Ginger Juice

Ginger juice, 1 cup

2 cm piece of ginger, chopped
around 150 ml pineapple juice
sugar to taste, I used 1 teaspoon

Put the ginger, juice and sugar in a bowl. Mix the ingredients with a mixer. Pour in a cup or glas and drink!

Swedish Meatballs

Exam week for the boyfriend, so I'm in charge of the cooking. He's been begging me for Köttbullar (meatballs) for ages. There was an action on minced meat at Coop; with 1 kilo minced  meat we have made fried rice with minced meat, bolognese sauce and now lastly Köttbullar. Served with cream sauce, potato slices, brussels sprouts and Swedish cucumber salad (I used the second version today) this is a hearty meal indeed!

Köttbullar, 2 persons extremely full afterwards

2-3 tablespoons bread crumbs

1/2 tablespoon potato flour

75 ml milk

about 350 grams minced meat (beef)

1/2 egg

plenty of salt

plenty of white pepper

plenty of dried majoram

For the cream sauce:

cream

soy

salt

Mix bread crumbs with the potato flour, add the milk and let the mixture swell for about 30 min. If it's still too wet, add some more bread crumbs.

Add the minced meat to the bread mixture. Add egg, salt, white pepper and majoram. 

Mix well until the meat strings have dissolved, giving you a grainy pink paste. If you use beef you can taste now and adjust accordingly if you want otherwise you can do that later.

Put water in a big pan. Bring it to the boil. Make balls out of the meat mixture, if you haven't tasted yet, make a small one and taste it and adjust the seasoning. If the taste is fine, make balls and put them in the boiling water, when they float up, take them out. Let them cool and dry a little. For this amount of meat, it took me two times to cook all the balls.  Have a bowl of cold water near by to wet your hands, then the rolling goes easier.

Put butter and oil in a hot pan and fry the balls until brown.

I had to fry them in two batches. Put some cream in the pan (still with the fat in it), add a little soy, let the cream boil and reduce a little, to thicken the sauce put a little potato flour in a cup, mix with a little bit of water, add this to the sauce in the frying pan. Salt to taste.

This is how I served the Köttbullar:

My plate, don't put the cucumber on the plate, it gets too wet :P

Boyfriends plate, notice the mayonaise ;)

This is not fast food, it takes about 1-2 hours to prepare, but it's worth it. Real Swedish comfort food!

I miss Swedish food!

Caffe Latte

One of my favorite things in my kitchen is a Bialetti Moka Express, which I use for making coffee almost everyday. Back in Sweden I used to drink a lot of filtered coffee, made by the awesome Moccamaster coffee machine. However filtered coffee doesn't agree well with me, the caffeine level goes to the roof and after a few cups of Scandinavian coffee and I act as the Duracell-rabbit and I also get very fidgety. 

Since I don't have the Moccamaster anymore, I only use the Bialetti and I've reduced my coffee intake also, to only a small cup in the morning. But this awful rainy Dutch weather made me get a craving for coffee. Also my boyfriend wanted late evening coffee, but he usually takes his coffee black, so more latte for me!

The amounts depend on the size of your mug!

Caffe Latte

sugar to taste
freshly made coffee
milk (more than the amount of coffee)

Tools needed:

Put some sugar in your mug. Put the coffee on. Warm the milk. 

When the coffee is done and hopefully your milk is warm by now also, whip the milk with an electronic coffee whisk until it's foamy, this you have to adapt to your own taste, me personally I don't like the foam to be too thick. Put the coffee in your mug and stir a bit, add the milk. Done. 

After giving the boyfriend some coffee I poured the left-overs on my latte for extra coffee flavour ;)

Chicken wings with honey soy sauce

Chicken wings was reduced in price at the C1000, dinner was an easy choice. I decided to try this recipe: Honey Soy Chicken Wings. C1000 didn't have hoisin sauce, so instead I used ketchup. Was too lazy to add scallion and sesame seed.

Chicken wings with honey soy sauce, 2 persons

10 chicken wings

2 tablespoons dark soy

2 tablespoon ketchup

4 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon light rice vinegar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

big pinch salt

Put the chicken wings in a big bowl. Add soy, ketchup, honey, rice vinegar, sesame oil and salt to the bowl, mix well, make sure all the wings get coated. 

Marinate for a few hours (I marinated it for 2 hours). 

Put the oven on 200-230 degrees. Put the wings in a tin, save the sauce and put in the oven for about 40 min. This time my wings didn't get a crispy skin and I had trouble getting them finished. After half the time coat the wings with the remaining sauce. 

Serve by its own or with some rice with a garlic-cucumber salad. The sauce is sweet and really nice to put on some rice. 

3 things I like about Dutch food

When I first got here 1 1/2 years ago for my Erasmus, I really really disliked the food here in Holland. I thought it was tasteless, not that varied and that the Dutch lacked passion for eating. For me eating is life, you can't live without eating and eating just for the sake of nutrition is just boring.

I still don't understand the Dutch view on eating, how can you produce anything creative if you don't have any lunch and just snack on Boterham the entire day. I don't think I'll ever understand this and I can't live by it either, I just get too damn hungry!

However there are a few things I really really like, especially now after many visits, here's the list:

1. You can eat like a king here! 

Compared to Stockholm, the food here is really cheap. With the money I spend on crappy food back in Sweden, my boyfriend and I can eat really nice food everyday. Fish is more expensive here in Holland though, so I tend to go for fish when I go out eating here, because steak I can eat whenever I want. Back in Sweden I would go for steak when eating out, because eating that at home is simply to expensive. 

2. Patat, patat, patat - and mayonnaise!

French fries are awesome here and with mayonnaise it's so nice. In Sweden you can't get mayonnaise with your fries, mostly ketchup or bernaise sauce. In Holland, I have a craving for patat. Always, constantly.

3. Gegrillde Broodje at the Kaashoek in Zandvoort!

You wouldn't think a grilled sandwich would be one of the best things in the world, but seriously this sandwich is worth the trip to the village of Zandvoort outside Amsterdam. Cheese, chicken sausage, pickled cucumber, sauce - so good! Open Mon-Sat.

Kladdkaka or Swedish Mud Cake

Realized I haven't posted anything for a really long time, I was ill and then busy with moving abroad. Now finally settled in the Netherlands and started cooking again :) 

I have plenty of recipes I'd like to try and I'm also curious how to adapt Swedish recepies to my new country. A recipe that works excellent is Swedish mud cake. My boyfriend loves it!! I've already baked two this week. So here comes the recipe:

Swedish mud cake

100 g butter
2 eggs
300 ml sugar
250 ml flour
4 tablespoons cacao
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla sugar
a pinch of salt

Melt the butter. Beat the eggs with the sugar. 

Put the dry ingredients trough a sieve. Mix the butter with the egg-mixture. 

Add the dry ingredients, mix well, you dont want any spots of flour. 

Crease a tin with a removable edge, coat with bread crumbs. Put the oven on 200 degrees. Put the chocolate-mixture in the tin. 

Put in the oven for about 30 min. Be careful! You don't want the centre to set! 

Wait until the cake has cooled down until you eat it. You can eat it just as it is or with some whipped cream on the side. It's awesome with a cup of coffee. Typical Swedish fika!

Fried rice - August version

Being a poor graduating student, I have to be inventive with my food, which I love! Here the soy sauces play with each other and the peas add sweetness and the egg gives you the protein and the rice fills you up.

Fried rice for poor students, 1 person

chiliflakes
1 big bowl rice from yesterday
1 small bowl frozen green peas
pinch salt
1 egg
few dashes dark soy sauce
dash light soy sauce

Put boiling water over the peas taken straight from the freezer. Whip up the egg. Break up the rice with a spoon. Put oil in a hot pan, add some chiliflakes, add the rice, stir for a few minutes continuing to break up the rice. Add the peas and add some salt. Stir for a minute. Add the dark soy sauce, make sure all of the rice gets covered. Add the light soy sauce. Add the egg and stir until the egg is finished. Serve!

Chorizo Stroganov

I love Beef Stroganov and when I was younger I loved Sausage Stroganov. The sausage version is typically made with a Swedish "sausage" called Falukorv, with an abnormal low meatcontent, it can't be called a sausage at all. It has a really mild flavour and is really cheap, but...ever since I saw green Falukorv at my school lunch at the canteen, I haven't eaten it until a few weeks ago when I bought a ready made Sausage Stroganov for lunch at work, and it tasted nice. But Falukorv...doesn't taste anything. 

With chorizo and an optional dash of hot sauce, that's another story!

Chorizo Stroganov, 4 persons

1 chorizo sausage
1 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 can red kidney beans (225 g drained)
1 can chopped tomates (400 g)
3 tablespoons hot chili sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup, if needed
dash hot sauce 
salt
3 tablespoons cream

Slice the chorizo, chop the onion and cut the bell pepper in smaller pieces. Drain the beans and rinse them with water, drain. Put olive oil in a hot pan. Add the chorizo and the onion. Fry for a few minutes. Add the bell pepper and fry until onion is brown. Add the beans and the chopped tomatoes. Add the hot chili sauce and cook for 5 minutes. Taste, if you need more sweetness, add the ketchup. Add the hot sauce. 

Add the cream, let it boil for a minute, taste and add salt to your liking. 

 
Serve with rice.   

The sauce without the cream could be a base for a vegetable and bean stew, maybe with some chickpeas or lentils.

Chorizo Carbonara

My freezer is getting emptier and emptier, because the move to Holland is moving closer and closer. With one of the chorizos I had in my freezer I made Chorizo Carbonara. 

Chorizo Carbonara, 1 person

1 chorizo, sliced
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/3 red chili, chopped
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 egg
3 tablespoon cream
a squeeze of lemon
little grated parmesan
penne for one person

Boil the pasta. In the mean time, put olive oil in a hot pan, fry the chorizo until brown on a medium heat, add chili, fry it for a while, add rosemary and the garlic, watch out so it don't get burned. Take it off the heat if needed. 

Whip the egg, mix with cream and add lemon. When the pasta is done, drain it, but safe some of the pasta water if the sauce gets dry. Add the pasta to the sausage mix, stir around, then add the cream and egg mixture, remove from the heat and stir until the pasta has a nice creamy coating on it, don't scramble the eggs! Add the parmesan and stir a bit more - then serve! Season with salt if necessary.

Scrambled eggs with tomatoes

Back to Sweden. And vacation is over. Now back to the thesis. Also back to Swedish prices, so no more beef :(  Since I don't work anymore, I can eat breakfast again and cook nice lunches.
This recipe takes about 5 minutes to make, you can serve it with some rice if you want to. 

Scrambled eggs with tomatoes, 1 person 

2 eggs
5 cherry tomatoes, halved
pinch salt
small spoon sugar

Whip the eggs. Put a wok on high heat, add a little of oil and scramble the eggs, add salt. Take the scramble out of the wok, clean the wok and put it on the heat again, add some oil and add the tomatoes, stir quickly, let the fluid boil for a little bit. Add the sugar and stir fry the tomatoes quickly. Add the eggs and let the scramble soke up the fluid. Serve immediately. 

Coconut Chicken Adobo

Had chicken thighs in the freezer that needed to go and with my boyfriend being here I also wanted to try a new recipe so this one caught my interest, the site was done when I wrote this, but it's from a blog called Appetite for China and the recipe is called Coconut Chicken Adobo.
This is how I did it.

Coconut Chicken Adobo, 2 persons

4 chicken thighs
1 part white vinegar
4 pars water
3 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons soy or fish sauce
1 can coconut milk
½ teaspoon cayenne
½ teaspoon paprika powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Put chicken, vinegar, water, peeled garlic, bay leaf and soy or fish sauce (this time I used soy, might have overpowered the dish slightly, next time I'm going to use fish sauce) in a pot. The chicken needs to be almost covered, add more water if needed.

Bring it to the boil and then let it simmer for about 20-25 minutes. Remove the thighs when tender to a plate, dry them with kitchen paper. 

On high heat, reduce the sauce until it feels thicker, about 15 minutes.  

Add the coconut milk (I use a really cheap one that had been standing in my cupboard for a while, it didn't bring that much flavour to the dish, I have to say...), cayenne, paprika powder and black pepper. 

Bring to boil and remove from heat. Put oil in a hot pan. Quickly fry the chicken (about 2 minutes on each side) and return to the sauce pot. Serve with rice.

This dish has a really subtle spiciness to it that even my boyfriend could handle ;)

Stuffed Chicken

This is my favorite way of preparing a whole chicken!

Stuffed Chicken, 4 persons
1 whole chicken, everything taken out
2 lemons
dried rosemary
dried thyme
salt
black pepper
olive oil

Rinse the chicken and dry it with kitchen paper (inside and outside). Put some salt and black pepper inside of the chicken. Cut the lemon in wedges. Put the wedges in the chicken. Pour some olive oil on the chicken. Rub rosemary and thyme gently on the chicken. Gently lift up the skin of the breasts and put some herbs there also. Put some salt and black pepper on the chicken. With string, tie the chicken together. Put on a oiled tray. Put in the oven, 200 degrees for about 30 min or until done. 

 
The lemons leave a really nice lemon flavour to the meat. Serve with roasted potatoes and/or vegetables.

too lazy to cook

After finding out that my potatoes had gone bad (how do you store potatoes correctly?), I really didn't want to cook tonight, so I opted for Chili-fried broccoli with an omelette, tomato salad, a matze and for dessert Greek yoghurt with hazelnuts and honey. 

Chili-fried broccoli, 1 person

1 broccoli 
1 clove garlic
small piece red chili 
olive oil

Chop the broccoli to smaller pieces. Chope the garlic and slice the chili. Put some olive oil in a hot pan, fry for a minute, add the broccoli and fry for a few minutes. Done!

What happened to the second cauliflower?

 
I pickled it! Preserving it for the rest of my time in Stockholm ;)

I used these recipes (in Swedish): Pickled cauliflower - I have to have this in my fridge constantly and Pickled cauliflower.

Cauliflower pickles, 1 big can

1 cauliflower
300 ml water
200 ml sugar
100 ml vinegar
1 bay leaves

Chop the cauliflower into smaller pieces. Rinse them and let them drain. Boil some water in a big pot. Add the cauliflower and let them boil for 1 min. Throw away the water, let them cool while preparing the preserving juice. Add water, sugar and vinegar to a pot. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, bring it to the boil. Put the cauliflower in a big can, pour the juice over it, add a bay leave, let it cool and then seal the can. The first recipe states that you should leave it for a week in the fridge for the flavours to develop. Lasts a long time.

Cauliflower curry

I love cauliflower! And everything is in season right now, so I found a pair of really nice cauliflowers at Lidl and bought two. One I made for this, the fate of the other one is coming soon. 

It's a combination of two recipes. This one from Youtube: Cauliflower Tomato Curry and this one from a Swedish diet-person: Indisk blomkålscurry. I didn't have all the stuff from the Youtube cauliflower curry and the diet cauliflower curry seemed a bit thin and from having a bad experience with adding vegetable stock, I came up with this recipe.

Cauliflower curry, a lot 

1 cauliflower
1 onion
1 green chili 
4 tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
a little piece of ginger
1 teaspoon turmeric powder (didn't have this, but would be nice to add)
1 teaspoon chili powder (didn't have this, mixed paprika powder, cayenne pepper, )
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon cummin powder
150 ml red lentils
a sprinkle of coriander

Divide the cauliflower in smaller pieces. Rinse and let to dry. 

Chop the onion roughly and slice the chili. Quarter the tomatoes and cut to smaller pieces. With the garlic press, press the garlic and the ginger. Put the spices in a small bowl. 

 
Put some vegetable oil in a hot pan. Add the onion, fry for a few minutes. Add the chili, fry for a minute or two. Add the ginger and garlic, fry for a minute or two. Add the tomatoes, add more water if needed. Let it boil for 1-2 min. Add some water to the spices and mix around, add this to the pan. Let it boil for a few minutes, I like my tomatoes not totally disintegrated. Add the cauliflower and lentil. Add water if needed. Boil until the lentils are finished. 

Sprinkle some coriander of it and serve with basmatirice and mint-yoghurt.

Easiest student food ever

Pasta rood, bolognese, call it whatever you want, but when I need lunch boxes, this is the dish I do - and it's always different everytime. This time I just took what I had left in the fridge, a piece of zucchini, some carrots...Cajsa Warg would've been proud of me ;)

a la Linda June version, one substantial dinner plus 2-3 boxes

200-300 g minced meat
1 can of tomatoes, 400 g
1 red onion
3 small carrots
1/3 zucchini
2 teaspoons sweet paprika powder
1 teaspoon hot paprika powder
1 teaspoon paprika powder
a pinch chili flakes
about 1 tablespoon dried basil
2-3 teaspoons dark soy
1-2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 cube chicken stock
salt
black pepper

Chop red onion. Slice the zucchini and quarter it. 

 
Peel the carrots and grate them roughly.

Put some olive oil in a hot pan. Add red onion and zucchini and fry a few minutes. Add the meat, fry until almost finished. Add salt, pepper, the paprika powders, chili flakes and basil. Pour in the can of tomatoes (save the can and fill it up with water). Add the soy and the balsamic vinegar. Add the carrots. 

Put in the chicken stock. Add some water. Reduce the heat slightly. Let it boil. Add more water if needed. Start boiling the pasta after about 10 min. 

When the pasta is done the sauce should have reduced nicely. If the sauce is to acidic for your taste, serve it with ketchup. 

While writing this post, I realized I forgot to add garlic, the taste was a bit thin, so this could have been what was missing, so Don't forget the garlic!!
For more about Cajsa Warg, you can read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajsa_Warg