Spice it up

I’m so happy that the Thai grocery store has moved into Sollentuna Mall (they used to have the store with t’s entrance on the outside) so it’s easy peasy to shop. They have raw scampi (2kg) for a song compared to the supermarket and spices, curry paste and veggies among other things. Found Coriander power (which can’t  be found at ICA Maxi, my go-to place for groceries) , Turmeric and Cumin powder in bags, not “puny” glass jars and large t

tubs of Thai Green and Red curry paste, which is a vast difference that the jars from Santa Maria, a Swedish spice company. Ah, I just love spicy cooking.

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Asian hot dipping sauce

Wanted a little something for the pan fried scampi last night and came up with this:

1/2 dl rice vinegar , 1/2 dl mirin (you can up that if you want to), 1 red peri-pari chili,chopped, 1/2 jalapeno, sliced, 1-2tsk fresh ginger, grated, 1/2 spring onion, sliced, 1/2 teaspoon fresh lime juice, flaked sea salt, grounded black pepper, 1/2-1 tsp raw sugar, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp white sesame seeds.

Stir it all together in a bowl.

 

The Italian Stallion

Photo from Kellyupsom.com

There is probably as many recipes for Spagetti Bolognese as there are pasta loving people, but with The DH taking the car and disappeared  to some metal (not music, steel metal) crazy friend, I couldn’t go to the supermarket and had to raid the freezer and pantry. Came up with the best Bolognese sauce so far. It’s serves 4-5 so you can freeze it into portions if you want to. No picture though cause it looks like a Bolognese usually does,

500gr of ground beef

1/2 a package of bacon cut into pieces

1 chopped onion

2 finely sliced cloves of garlic

1/2 a red chili (or more if you like)

4 Bellaverde broccoli

1 can of chopped tomatoes. Find that there is a difference between cheap and not cheap ones,

1dl red wine

1tbs of “Touch of Taste” Italian veal stock (concentrate in a bottle from Knorr)

1/2 tsp each of dried basil, oregano and thyme

Flaked sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, raw sugar, Chili Explosion

A dash or two of Tabasco sauce.

Fry the bacon and then add the garlic, onion and chili. Cook unto the onion is soft. Add the ground meat and while you fry it, use your spatula to break up larger lumps. Add the seasoning and stock  and stir a bit. Add the wine and tomatoes, stir and let cook until it all has thickened. Check the seasoning and serve with spagetti and fresh grated good quality parmesan cheese.

Definitely not local

Made chicken pasta for dinner yesterday, my own recipe. Very simple but very tasty 😉

4 skin- and boneless chicken breast

1 small pepper

6 small Jerusalem artichokes

1/2 leek

2dl of cream

1/2 dl white wine

salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper, chili flakes, tabasco, raw suger

Peel the artichoke and slice thinly. Deseed the pepper and cut in strips. Clean and cut the leek. Cut the chicken breast thinly and fry in some olive oil, add the veggies, cream and white wine and season to taste. Simmer until the Jerusalem artichokes are soft. Serve with pasta of choice or rice.

För Jakob

En liten receptsammanställning 😉

Baby back ribs, fast det går lika bra med fläskotletter

Lägg revbenen (kamben, lite svåra att få tag på) i en stor kastrull, täck med kallt vatten. Lägg i en  fler två buljongtärningar (beror på hur mycket vatten man har i) handfull krossade pepparkorn, några lagerblad och en skvätt Liquid Smoke. Koka upp och låt sen sjuda på svag värme till dess köttet är riktigt genomkokt. Låt svalna i boljungen och när det är dags att grilla ta upp, torka av och pensla med nån smarrig barbecuesås  och grilla på båda sidor.

Pulled beef

ca 1kg högrev (räcker till 3 pers), 1-2 gula finhackade lökar, 2-3 hackade vitlöksklyftor och en flaska barbecuesås efter smak.

Torka av köttet och lägg i en ugnssäker gryta. Häll såsen över och toppa med lök o vitlök. Lägg på locket och in ugnen, ca 150-175C och låt stå där i minst 3 timmar. Testa genom att ta två gafflar och se om det går att dra is är köttet. När man kan det så dra isär allt, krydda med ex chilipulver, tabasco, salt, svartpeppar o lite råsocker. Prova dig fram. Låt kallna i grytan och servera med antingen hamburgerbröd eller chiabata, sallad  och nån mumsig dressing och lite nachos vid sidan om.

Moule Marinier

Ett nät blåmusslor, 3dl grädde, 3 dl vitt vin (ICA Maxi har ett fint litet sortiment med alkoholfria viner som passar superbra i matlagning), 8 schalottenlökar, 4 vitlöksklyftor, 1 liten röd chili, några saffranstrådar, salt, svartpeppar, råsocker, ca 1d hackad färsk dragon och persilja. Lägg saffranet i lite varmt vatten, jag brukar gnugga trådarna mellan fingrarna först. Hacka lök o vitlök fint, finstrimla chilin – fräs i lite olivolja en gryta. Häll på vin o grädde (jag brukar ha i lite råsocker för att balansera syran)och sjud ett tag till det kokat ihop lite. Skölj musslorna (ta bort skägget om det behövs), släng de musslor som inte stänger sig och lägg de friska i  i grytan. På med locket och låt sjuda (man kan dra ner värmen till mini och låta musslorna ånga till dom öppnat sig. Släng de musslor som inte öppnat sig. Strö över dragon och persilja  sch servera med ett gott bröd och vin.

Man kan frysta in dom musslor man inte äter upp, ta bara ur dom ur skalet först och lägg i en liten plastburk.

Bearnaise – den bästa?

250gr smält smör, 2 shalottlökar, 1 kvist dragon, några vitpepparkorn, 0,25dl rödvinsvinäger, 0,5dl vatten, 3 äggulor, 1/2 msk hackad persilja, 172 msk hackad dragon, salt, peppar, tabasco.

Hacka schaletten fint och lägg i en liten kastrull med dragonkvisten, pepparkorn, vinäger och vatten. Sjud på låg värme till ca hälften återstår och sila, häll tillbaka i kastrullen. Tillsätt äggulorna och vispa på svar värme till det det tjocknar. Man måste passa noga för det kan gå fort. Egentligen ska man göra det över ett vattenbad, men har man induktionshäll eller gasspis kan man reglera värmen mycket lätt. Ta kastrullen från plattan och vispa i det smälta smöret lite i taget, ungefär som när man gör mayonaise. Krydda med salt, peppar, cayenne och det man har lust, ibland kan man ta i ca 1-2msk tomatpure, lite chilipulver, paprikapulver och tabasco…. OM mot förmodan såsen skulle skära sig; vispa upp en äggula med lite vatten (1tsk ung) och häll i den skurna såsen droppvis medan du vispar och vips är den fin igen.

Hamburgerdressing

1dl creme fraîche, 1dl mayo (Hellmans är den bästa), 1-2msk chilisås, 2msk bostongurka, 1/2-1 inlagd jalapeno, Salt, peppar, Tabasco Chipotle

Mina favoritrecept från Hairy Bikers som går bra att frysa in.

Mexicansk soppa, servera m chiabata

Jambalaya jättegod

Fried rice Nästan samma sak fast kanske lite godare. Brukar ha i lite sweet chilisås och tabasco.

Moussaka Jag brukar använda vanlig nötfärs

Enchiladas

Chicken Jalfrezi

 

 

 

Cheese sauce

We had pulled beef made with like alb of chuck, 2dl or so barbecue sauce in a bottle (Texas longhorn bar) I chopped onion and 4 chopped cloves of garlic, Pour sauce over meat in a oven safe casserole, put all the onion on top. Cover with lid and let it sit in 125C warm oven until you can pull the meat apart with two forks – round 4hrs. After pulling the pice apart, spice after your own taste.

Instead of buying sauce, I decided to make my own. The recipe is not fully mine, but I tweaked one from the web: 1dl chrome fraiche (or smetana), 4 slices of them horrible orange American ready sliced toast ones, 1dl grated Svecia chess (bought in a bag) – since I’m pretty sure you can’t find that anyway outside of Sweden, find some strongly flavored ready grated cheese. Melt the creme fraiche in a pan, add the cheese and stir until melted. Spice with Tabasco Chipotl, Chili Anjou powder, sweet paprika powder, a dash of Cayenne powder, some salt (not much) and black pepper. Keep on low heat until serving. Great with nacho chips (the men preferred sour dough hamburger buns), pulled beef and coleslaw.

Holy chicken

Yesterday I decided to try the Darth Vader (Philips hot air fryer) for something else than potatoes and the thai fish cakes. So I did some reading and understood that I had to think it through myself . So I cut 4 skinless chicken breasts in 1-2cm strips, poured som panko (Japanese bread crumbs) in a bowl and seasoned it with paprika powder, barbecue seasoning, salt, freshly ground black pepper, Chili Explosion, round 1tbs olive oil and stored. Then in with the chickens trips and massaged the panic mixture on them evenly, Heated Darth to 200C and then in with the strips and freed for 7 minutes. And it turned out ver well, not one morsel was left after dinner. Made a dipping sauce out of equal parts of mayo and sour cream. Added Sweet Chili sauce, some Heinz chili sauce, tabasco, Red Tai Curry paste or Chipotle paste, salt, black pepper. Sadly no picture.

Buhu

Hairy Bikers/Dieters are having a competition – create your own lo cal recipe and if you win, it will be published in their upcoming book. Well, no problem there, I often cook as a go along. So I created a low cal version of my potato sallad and then I read the fine “print” – they only accept contestants within the UK. Buhuhu. I go hide in the corner and sulk, so much for my chance to fame….:(

Easy peasy Sunday lunch

Don’t know how I came up with them, but this is the very fav Sunday lunch for my boys Fried egg sandwiches . Take as many slices of toast as you want/need. Use a thin glass (or a round cookie cutter) and stance circles in the middle. Save the circles. Melt a nice knob of butter in  frying pan and put in the slices of bread as well as the left over circles. Crack an egg in the hole, and light pick the yolk, season with some sea salt flakes and BBQ seasoning. Fry until the egg look done and flip over the bread and fry a minute or so more. Presto – done!!

OBS, you have to use butter, otherwise you don’t get the right flavor.

Love my gadgets

Before The DH I wasn’t that into gadgets and stuff, but he has turned me into them. Gadgets and things are FUN! And can make life so much more easy. Like in the kitchen. Oh

I do have the ordinary things like knifes . Everyone who does any work in the kitchen ought to have a good set of knifes. I love these (Anders Petter brand) cause they are made from one piece of steel so the handles can’t come of. BTW, I never use a garlic press any longer. I did buy the Jamie Olover one and although it is great, I too much of the garlic get stuck in the press. So I use a kithcenknife, whack the clove with the broad side of the knife, pluck of the peel and then press and drag the knife towards you over the garlic = perfect!  I also have various kitchen machines, but this new one is currently my fav since it uses only the

minimum of oil. I call it the Darth Vader machine (it’s a Philips Air Fryer) and it uses less than a tbs of oil to make fried potatoes for 3 😀

And I can’t (stupid thing to say, of course I can) cook without my battery operated pepper mill

For crushing various other peppers etc. I use this wonderful pestel & mortar, the bowl is solid stainless steel as is the pestel, the stand and the handle is rosewood.

I always found grater to be bothersome and to large for just a quick nutmeg or parmesan grate until – I got my hands on two Microplane graters 

They are the shit as my oldest would say. I have had them for 8-10 yrs now and they are as sharp now as they where when I got them.

You know I have been cooking since when, but there are two things that never have worked out – frying eggs and cooking rice. Well, with some sincere workout in the egg dept I have that covered now and thank’s to this “gadget” –

The rice cooker from Tupperware. Yep, you read right and it’s butt ugly – but – it works like a charm, perfect rice every time 🙂

So what are your favorite things in the kitchen then?