China Crumpet

As usual when I am trying to cut back on the calories, I suddenly have an irresistible urge to bake sweets. So I figure, forget the calories, life is too short to care.

Here is my easiest and fastest recipe for from scratch cookies. They are marvelously independent, take a couple of minutes to whip up, need almost no ingredients and taste like a lazy afternoon with a good book under a sun-umbrella with the sea lapping a few feet away. If you want that bounty-bar (but better) effect, melt some good quality chocolate in a bowl set over a hot water bath and cover them with a luscious layer of chocolate or two once they’ve cooled.

For about 16 cookies you will need:

50 g butter, softened
2 eggs
1 dl (3/4 cup) sugar
5.5 dl (2 1/4 cup) grated, unsweetened coconut

NOTE: If you like you can also add the zest of one lime and a tablespoon or so of dark rum. But they are fine without these add-ons.

Set the oven to 200°C. Mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl, you should have a fairly firm batter. Butter an oven tray thoroughly or line with greaseproof paper (they seriously stick so this step is crucial!). Taking about a tablespoon of the mixture at a time, distribute the batter evenly on the tray and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden and crispy looking. They need some attention in the oven as they are a little burn prone.

Enjoy while listening to Bob Marley.

It was my husbands birthday yesterday, and since we are in complete havoc with the launch of our new company image only days away, making a big night out of it was completely out of the question. Also, the Beijing air yesterday was so thick you could cut it with a knife, not really conducive to a celebratory spirit. But as usual, I  seemed to manage to spend a couple of stray minutes drooling over yummy looking recipes on my favourite foodie websites. It was (as has been the case a lot lately) Food & Wine, with the recipes you’ll find a little further down the page, that made me decide that it would be absolute SIN not to do something a little special. Why not at least make a little cozy home cooked meal? They do say after all that the way to a man’s heart (or was it wallet??) is through his stomach!

For my birthday last year we feasted on game birds and buttery polenta, so I thought it would be fun to make a little tradition of it and serve pigeon as the main course. With it, we had a rich onion compote and golden corn cakes, courtesy of chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. To start, we had zingy little chickpea crostinis and to finish, a rich and absolutely wicked red-wine chocolate cake. The meal delicious and surprisingly easy to make – I found myself humming around completely stress free while cooking, not a normal sight while attempting to cook without hubby’s master knife skills around in my miniature kitchen.

I am listing these recipes in the order I cooked them, not in the order we ate them – obviously. Although, it was tempting to eat desert right when it was done!

THE DESERT

I began from the finish by baking the red wine chocolate cake. For this delectable treat (seriously, you need to make this) you will need:

2 cups (5 dl) flour
3/4 cup (2 dl) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
225g unsalted butter, softened (yes, tones and tones of butter)
1 3/4 cups (4 1/2 dl) sugar (uh huh, tones and tones of sugar too)
2 large eggs
1/2 vanilla pod, cut in half and seeds scraped out (you could use vanilla extract or a potent vanilla sugar)
1 1/4 cups (3 dl) dry *cheap* red wine
Icing sugar, for dusting (more sugar, to be sure)
Whipped cream, for serving (oh kill me now…)

Preheat the oven to 175°c. Butter and flour a large cake pan. In a bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk the butter with the sugar semi-violently until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until incorporated. Add the vanilla and beat for 2 minutes longer. Working in two batches, alternately fold in the dry ingredients and the wine, until you get a lovely, gooey, dark brown batter that smells like a drunk pastry chef.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes (or while you shop, no sweat), then turn it out onto a rack to let it cool completely. Dust the cake with icing sugar and serve with whipped cream.

While the cake was cooling, we actually went shopping for a little gift. It ended up being very food related, and we will probably both use it. But I am glad hubby was as glad as I am for his brand new hand mixer.

THE MAIN

When we got home from shopping, I got started on the birds. They are small and a little finicky to deal with but the end result is sooo worth all of the work. Basically, just butterflied the birds after cleaning them and seasoned them with salt and pepper. Couldn’t have been easier.

They need to go high up in a 200°c oven for about 30 minutes or until the skin is golden and crisp. When the birds are done (this is for 2 pigeons, about 500g or 1lb each) and are out of the oven, sprinkle them with:

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon curry powder
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

This will give them a really nice spicy finish.

THE SIDES

The corn cakes are a great side and completely surprising. Definitely a keeper recipe for the Mauritzon household! You will need:

fresh corn kernels from about 4 ears (in a pinch, use canned corn – a bit more than 1 1/2 can)
1/2 cup (1 1/2 dl) milk
1/4 cup (3/4 dl) heavy cream
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 1/4 cups (3 1/4 dl) flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

In a blender (or with a new hand blender!), combine 2/3 of the corn with the milk and puree until smooth. Add the heavy cream, eggs and egg yolks and blend. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and whisk in the flour, baking powder, salt and the remaining corn kernels.

In a large nonstick skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Spoon rounded 2 tablespoon-size dollops of batter into the hot skillet and cook over moderately high heat, turning once, until golden, about 5 minutes. Transfer the corn cakes to a rack and keep warm. Repeat to make the remaining corn cakes, using the remaining 1 tablespoon each of butter and olive oil; adjust the heat if necessary. Serve hot.

Before I started frying the corn cakes though, I started up the onion compote. It bubbled away while I fried the corn cakes and was perfect by the time everything was finished. It needs a little bit of love and a stir every now and again to make sure it doesn’t burn but other than that it is easy peasy. I love onions and this is a great way of serving them and making the otherwise humble veg a star.

You will need the following for 2 servings:

3 large onions
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons water
salt
pepper
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

Slice the onions. Melt the butter in a large skillet and add the onions, cook on a low heat until very soft, about 10 minutes. Add water so that they do not dry out. At the end of the cooking time, season with salt, pepper and the lemon juice.

The final plating looked like this:

Onion compote on bottom, topped with corn cakes, topped with the pigeon. For an even better looking plate, lightly dress some greens in olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and pile around.

But before we plated and ate the main though, there was of course the starter, which I started cooking last.

THE STARTER

For this tangy chickpea crostini you will need:

2 large shallots, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon minced rosemary
1/4 cup (1/2 dl) extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
One can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 tablespoons water
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar or white wine vinegar
4 five cm-thick Italian bread slices, toasted

Heat a skillet with a glug of oil and add the shallots. Cook until a little soft but not brown. Add the rosemary and the chickpeas. Add the water and cook/mash the mixture until you get a thick, chunky mash. Season, add the vinegar, cook for a few seconds longer and then pile on to the toasted bread slices. Drizzle some olive oil over the crostinis to finish.

There will be some chickpea mixture left over once you finish but it’s all good, it is a delicious mix to munch on with a bread slice when the need for a yummy little snack kicks in. The mains kept warm while we ate these little flavor bombs and the cake was delicious room temperature with a dollop of whipped cream.

THE END

Et voila! A romantic and delicious 3 course dinner is created in under an hour.

This was a great a meal to cook as it was to eat and I am so surprised that things in the kitchen went so smoothly! I guess all it needed from me was a little reverse thinking and planning. A good recipe probably helps too!

What do you do to make things less hectic when cooking? Do you have any fun birthday dinner traditions?

Today, we celebrated a century old Skånish tradition, Mårtensgås. It was my first time, so I was very excited. Jonas was excited too and we had a blast in the kitchen cooking this up. Mårtengås is a holiday where you eat a main course of roasted Goose, apple sauce, red cabbage and potatoes with “black soup” made of pigs blood as an appetizer and apple cake (tart, crumble… I don’t know what to call it really) with vanilla custard for dessert. We are substituting the black soup for a crab soup, as I don’t really trust Chinese pigs blood… call me crazy. This means however, wrestling a couple of fine young crabs to the ground, cutting their guts out and eyes off and chopping them in half alive. Gruesome but true. Now they’re in the freezer getting all nice and numb… Viscious! The meal is definitely not slimming but we never eat butter or cream any more so tonight we thought we’d treat ourselves. It’ll probably make us sick, but I’m used to that so it should be fine.

Mårtensgås is celebrated in honor of St. Martin, a French saint. It is said that he once tried to hide away in a goose pen because he was a hermit and the town had just elected him bishop – he was too shy to face the crowd. Anyway, the geese thought he stunk so they started cackling and gave him away. He was so pissed off at the geese that he declaired they should be eaten once a year, as punishment. Nice guy.

Anyway, we thought this was wicked good, so here you go world, have fun cooking and enjoy!

We begin with the apple’s, a humble little treat, perfect for autumn:

3 medium-large apples
butter
1 tbs ground cinnamon
3 tbs castor sugar
2 tbs plain, white breadcrumbs

Peel and slice the apples, arrange the slices in a greased, ovenproof dish with a diamiter of about 30cm, dolloping a bit of butter between the layers as you go. Mix up your dry ingredients and pour the mixture over the apples, finishing off with another dollop or two of butter. This goes in the oven at 175 degrees celcius for about 30 minutes or until the apples are soft and the sugar/cinnamon mixture has caramelized into a crusty layer on top.

For the custard you will need:
1 egg
2 tbs castor sugar
1 tbs potato or corn starch
4 dl milk (full fat)
1-2 tbs vanilla sugar
Whipped cream to taste

Whisk together the cold egg, castor sugar, starch and milk in a saucepan. Heat the mixture carefully until it thickens a bit, making sure it doesn’t boil. Leave to cool. When the mixture is cool it should be quite thick. At this point add the vanilla sugar and whipped cream. Don’t use an aluminium whisk for this or the mixture will turn a sickly gray colour.

Super simple but delicious crab soup

Get a couple of nice big crabs. They should be very alive! (You can use crabmeat and ready made stock for this but that totally takes the fun out of it… I mean, who can resist a bit of goo and gore??). After you clean the crab and take it’s meat out, boil the leftover shell for AT LEAST about 20 minutes to make a strong crab stock. Pour the stock through a sive, making sure there are no shell bits in the stock. You should be left with about 2-3 dl of strong crab stock. In order to make the rest of the soup you will need:

4 dl milk
1 dl cream
Your crab stock
a small pinch chilli flakes
a sprig of chopped, fresh dill
Your crab meat
Salt and Pepper to taste

This soup is super simple… you did the hard part with the crabs. Basically, just pour it all in a saucepan and heat up, cook for about 5-8 minutes or until the crabmeat is done. Make sure to season it well, you may need to add some fish stock.

The Goose!

We got a 5 kg goose from our bird lady, she is awesome… she cleaned it all up for us and chopped off/pulled out all the yucky parts. To cook simply:

Clean off the goose and pat it dry. Rub it with half a lemon, inside and out, and season it with salt and pepper, also inside and out. Cut up a couple of apples roughly and stuff the goose with them, along with some prunes. I used about 2 apples and 15 prunes. Secure the cavities, with toothpicks, string, whatever you’ve got, so that the stuffing doesn’t fall out. A lot of cookbooks called for “sewing up” the bird, but I thought that was overkill so I just used toothpicks. Place in a baking tray with tall edges and stick a meat thermometer, if you have one, into the meatiest part of the goose (we chose the breast). Pour some chicken stock around the goose into the bottom of the baking tray. Your oven should be on 180 degrees centigrade and the Goose will need a few hours in there with basting every half an hour or so. Ours took just under three hours to cook The temperature on your meat thermometer should read about 80-85 degrees when the bird is done. If the goose starts to look to brown (happened to ours after 45 minutes), cover with some aluminium foil. When it’s done, take it out and let it rest for a while. Voila! Not as hard as I had imagined.

Apple sauce

Why people don’t always make their own apple sauce is a mystery to me. All you need to do is cut up some apples and let them cook in a bit of water and sugar for a while. I even do it without sugar and use the sauce on my porrage in the morning. Anyway, for the goose condiment, cook about one and a half chopped, peeled and cored apples in some (just cover the apples, no more) water, about a tablespoon of sugar, another tablespoon of brandy and a very tiny pinch of chilli flakes. Cook until tender and saucy.

Swedish red cabbage

This is awesome. You will need:

a head of red cabbage (about 1 kg)
half a dl of syrup (golden, not maple)
half a dl of red wine vinegar
half a dl of water (or red cooking wine)
a good pinch of salt and pepper
8-10 whole cloves

Slice the cabbage into fine, long strips. I usually do this with a cheese slicer but Jonas does it with a sharp knife so I guess whatever works. Put it in the saucepan with all the other ingredients, mix well and cook it on low heat for about an hour.

Potatoes

Peel em, cut em up into small cubes and fry in a frying pan with a good pinch of salt until golden brown. Finish them up in the oven (while the goose is resting and you are

eating the soup) if not cooked through.

Sauce

3 tbs butter
1 tbs plain flour
4 dl goose juice (leftovers from the baking tray, after the goose is done)
1 dl cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter and stir in the flour making sure it becomes a smooth mixture, add your goose juice and whisk until smooth and light brown, add the cream and season. Easy peasy.