The Absolute Supper - Carrot salad / Gulrotsalat / Sałatka z marchewki

The last meal of 2008 consists of the following:

Didrik's rice (cooked rice spiced with turmeric and other good stuff)
Chicken breasts marinated in rosemary and slices of lemon, fried with garlic
Carrot salad


For the carrot salad you will need:
2-3 carrots, shredded
1-2 tablespoons of parley, chopped
3 tablespoons of olive oil
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of crushed coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar

Mix carrot and parley in a large bowl. Mix all the spices, olive oil and lemon juice in a small bowl until the sugar har melted. Add the dressing to the vegetables and mix well. Store in the fridge for an hour or so before serving.

Cheers and see you around next year!

Taco à la Sørkedalen

Sørkedalen is a place where I lived for a good while after moving to Norway eight years ago. In many ways an idyllic place and a source of many good experiences in my life.

Foodwise it was a place of many good tastes and great freedom. One of the dishes, served typically on a Friday evening and made with chicken breast, was taco. Or perhaps "taco". I'm sure it had little to do with the original - also because it was served with lompe - but it was good and easy to prepare. Later on I have developed my version of taco à la Sørkedalen. I have retained the lompe instead of taco shells which are impossible and greasy and full of conservants anyway, and mixed my own taco seasoning, rather then rely on a readymade one.

Due to a phenomenon dubbed by the newspapers as a price war about minced meat I bought into it, so to say, and made my taco with minced meat this time.

For this you will need:
Taco spice mix made at home (recipe below)
some 500g minced meat or any other source of protein (beans, quorn)
1 medium onion, chopped
a few button mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon of oil
150 ml of water
6-10 lompe (2 packets of it) or taco shells, if you have to
tomato, cucumber, ruccola, sprouts, bell peppers, any other vegetables you like (washed and cut into pieces)

For the spice mix use:
1 tablespoon of plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder
1 teaspoon of paprika powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Mix everything in a small bowl.
Meanwhile heat the oil in the frying pan. Add your proteins with onions and mushrooms and fry until almost done. Add the spice mix, stir well, then add water and let it simmer until the water is almost gone.

Place a lompe on a plate, fill it with everything, roll and eat.

Vel bekomme!

Also I strongly recommend reading the Wikipedia entry on lefse and lompe since it is not well known outside of Norway. In case you would want to serve it to the underaged, the mix is slightly more spicey than the usual stuff.

Avocado salad and a lazy dinner / Avokadosalat og en lat middag / Sałatka z awokado i leniwy obiad

This recipe comes from a well-known vegetarian cookbook - I have modified it only slightly. If you have time, prepare the dressing first and store in the fridge for an hour or so.

You will need:
1 tablespoon of good olive oil
2 tablespoons lime juice (you can use lemon instead)
1 teaspoon grated lime rind
1 teaspoon soft brown sugar (less if you use white sugar)
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 small red chilli, seeded and finely chopped

Combine everything in a small bowl, make sure you stir the dressing until the sugar melts.

2-3 ripe avocados (use a spoon to empty the skins)

I made it just yesterday and the dressing is enough for two generous portions. Sweet and hot - perfect for avocado. And all the other vegetables I used yesterday. Below you see it served with corned beef and loads of green stuff. In other words: nice and lazy dinner if you simply find some suitable protein source to go along with it.

Tom Kha Gai / Tajska kwaśna zupa z kurczaka

I have tried this one at Yaya's in Oslo - and possibly at Far East earlier this year. It's warming and it looks good and, as I hope to demonstrate here, it is also easy to make at home. All the Thai ingredients were supplied by Interfood at Brugata. Btw: I wish I knew what all the other things they have in refrigerators there were...



For the soup you will need:
2 cm bit of galangal (which is the kha in the name of the dish), peeled and sliced
2 whole small chillies
2-3 leaves of kaffir lime, broken along their stem to release the flavor
2 stems of lemon grass, cut in pieces 4-5 cm long
1 can of coconut milk (400ml; I use the light variant)
500ml vegetable stock (Vegeta was my choice here)
2-4 tablespoons of fish sauce (skip it if you find its smell/taste funny/revolting or if veggie)
juice of ½-1 lime
1 whole garlic clove
1 tablespoon of sugar
100g or more of button mushrooms cut into fours
1 chicken breast cut into pieces (more if it is a main course; if you are vegetarian, use more mushrooms instead – you are then making a tom kha het)
coriander or vårløk (what do you call it in English?), chopped and used as garnish



Prepare the stock in a large casserole. Make sure it is not too hot when you add coconut milk stirring gently. Heat while stirring and add galangal, chillies, lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves. Let it cook for a few minutes, then add garlic, fish sauce and sugar. You might want to check the taste now and see if it needs more of anything, before adding chicken and mushrooms. Boil until the chicken is done. As the last step add lime juice and stir. The soup should be creamy and yet sour. Pour into small bowls and garnish.



Namnam!

Now, the slight problem I have is that I am left with a few pieces of galangal, loads of kaffir lime leaves and too many small chillies to use. Any good ideas what to do with small red chillies? Should I make pickles? Or flavor a bottle of vodka with them? I will be preparing a green curry today but there is no chance I will use that much of everything. So, if anyone among my friends, acquaintances, or colleagues here in Oslo is interested, I can share. Just drop me a line. Beacuse if not, I will spawn a legion of devils here. Like this one:



And you wouldn't want that, would you now?

Fast food - not so fast, part 2

This one is the most obvious: homemade hamburgers. I made these when a friend of ours visited us with his two sons. Memo to myself: kids and dijon mustard do not combine well. Otherwise I think they liked the hamburgers - at least enough to eat up.

You will need:
600g beef mince (that is slightly better than minced meat, does not have to be beef at all)
a pinch of salt, or two
1/2 teaspoon of crushed black pepper
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped (optional, depending on wheteher you want your garlic in the dressing)

Dressing:
kesam or sour cream or something even lighter
either lemon juice and chopped chives, or chopped garlic

You will also need:
wholegrain hamburger bread, or indeed any other kind of bread you want to serve
slices cucumber, sliced tomatoes, salad and so on

Heat the oven to warm the bread. Fry the hamburgers. I wonder if there is anything vegetarian that you could substitute for meat? Perhaps Miss White Elephant knows the answer?

Smacznego!

And remember to enjoy your weekend!

Zucchini (courgette) soup / Zupa z cukini

This is perhaps The Soup in my household. I must have made it some ten-fifteen times and never seem to get bored with it. (Pity I forgot to take a picture last time I made it.) Is's fast, it's cheap, it's light. The recipe comes from a popular vegetarian cook book, with several modifications.

Here's what you will need:
1 medium to large onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 medium to large zucchini, grated
1 medium carrot, grated
2-4 button mushrooms, chopped (optional)
1 corn of allspice
a few corns of black pepper
1 bay leaf
vegetable stock or anything similar
a pinch of chilli powder
a tablespoon of oil

Heat the oil in the bottom of a large casserole, fry the onion, garlic and button mushrooms together. Add grated zucchini and carrot. Heat for a minute or two, add all the spices and vegetable stock (about 1 liter) or 1 liter of water with a suitable amount of vegetarian broth powder (e.g. Vegeta by Podravka). Bring to boil and simmer for ten minutes.

If you need your protein add a cut chicken breast fillet or two and cook until it is done.

Smacznego!

Fast food - not so fast, part 1

I sometimes find myself craving for unhealthy fast food. The problem is that in the light of articles such as this one, or this one, or even this one, I am being effectively deterred from satisfying my little cravings.

Thus I have started making the food I think I want at home. Fast food purists may disagree and argue that e.g. kebab is best at this or that place in Oslo. Still I prefer my light variants of fast food - just look at teh pictures in the articles above.

Here comes the first recipe: my almost kebab with light dressing



Prepare the dressing first. You will need:
1 container of light sour cream/kesam or 2 of rømmekolle
2 teaspoons of sweet papika powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of coriander seeds, crushed
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 clove of garlic, crushed
maybe some salt

Mix everything in a bowl and place in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.
Heat the oven and prepare a few pita breads (wholegrain, if available).

For the kebab part you will need:
2 chicken breast fillets of quorn fillets or any other kind of protein source you prefer
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon of chilli powder (or less...)
1 teaspoon of crushed black pepper
1 teaspoon of coriander seeds, crushed
chopped parsley
rice oil

Fry your protein source with onion, garlic and the spices above. Serve with the dreassing, a nice salad and pita bread.



to be continued...