An accidental Thai dinner

Sometimes things that go wrong, actually go right. My dinner plans for the evening was to make a salad with some bruschetta, a fish soup and some grilled pine apple with mascrapone cream, using collected scraps laying around. I started by making a fish stock from some frozen, raw shrimp i found in the freezer, some leftover mussels from two days ago and an assortment of vegetables. Having strained the stock, I proceeded to add the canned tomatoes, only to find that the can of tomatoes I had in the pantry was coconut milk! Shitpanic! So Thai style noodle soup it was:

Noodle soup with fish and leftovers
The stock:
vegetable oil
200 g shrimp with shells
blue mussels in theirs shells
1 onion
1-2 sticks of celery
1 carrot
1 l water

The Thai:
1 can coconut milk
5-10 lime leaves
1-2 red chilies, chopped
1 tsb strong chili powder
1-2 tbs Thai chili paste salt

The goodness:
200 g halibut, cut in cubes and lightly salted
150 g surimi (crab stick of good quality, not the cheap crap)
1/2 a squash
sweet peas in the pod, cut in half

The stuffing: Thai rice noodles

Heat the oil and fry the shrimp until lightly browned. Don't worry about overcooking the shrimp, they will be sacrificed to the Gods of Compost. Add the rest of the ingredients for the stock, sweat for a while and cover with water. Let the stock simmer for 30 min, strain and return to the pan. Add the Thai stuff and season to your liking. Bring a kettle to the boil and cook the noodles until done (not al dente!). Just before the noodles are done, add the rest of the ingredients to the pot and turn off the heat. Simmer without boiling for 3-5 min. Put a generous amount of noodles in a deep dish and cover with the soup. This time not having canned tomatoes saved the evening.

Sjöslag med slagsida

My poor friend Geir. He bought half an organic lamb. He defrosted half a ribcage, and had to go to Murmansk for a week. Seldom I've heard so much pain and sorrow in his voice, as when he called me and asked if I would not "take good care" of if. I did. I invited the cava club for Sunday dinner. They brought the drink, Geir-in-absentia provided the lamb, and I took care the rest. We had a beautiful evening, and got both full and plenty cava-happy.

Slagsida

Marinade:
1 ribcage of a lamb
red wine vinegar
olive oil
garlic
2-3 tbs tomato pure
1 tsb dry thyme
2 tsb dry sage
1 tsb dry rosemary
3-4 cloves of garlic pureed
salt

Salt the ribcage properly. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade, and rub into the meat. Let marinate for 24 h. Cook the ribcage in the oven at a low temperature, around 80 C for 4-5 hours.

Sauce:
Deglaze the pan containing the lamb drippings with red wine, and strain into a sauce pan. Try to remove as much of the fat as possible. Reduce until good, and thicken slightly with starch. Correct the seasoning, and enjoy.

Serve with halved potatoes baked in the oven with olive oil and salt at 200 C until nicely browned on top. And some greens. And the sauce. H.E.A.V.E.N.

For starter we had a soup I nicked from Heston Blumenthal. The original used pumpkin, but this works too.

Celery soup

2 onions
50-100 g butter
1 kg celery bulb, cleaned and cubed
full fat milk
salt

Melt the butter, add the chopped onions, and fry at a gentle heat until it smells nice. Add the cube celery bulbs and water just to barely cover. Cook under a lid until very tender 20-30 min. Puree in the blender, strain through a very finely meshed sieve, and return to the pan. Add milk to the desired consistency and season with salt. That's it. Simple and beautiful.

Kudos cava klubben for a nice evening.

Salmon on top

One of the benefits of living in Tromsø is the short distance to the wilderness and high, snowy mountains. From late February until early June the skiing season is full on. Since there is only one little knob of a hill with a skiing lift, the proper way to go skiing is to glue a pair of skins to the underside of your skis, and walk up any mountain you see fit. Or, more likely, one you are fit to climb. Because it's hard work. Really hard.

A really nice aspect of this activity is having luch at the top of the mountain. Or slightly below, when the wind is howling at the top. When you reach the top after some hours of hard work, you are hungry, tired, and sweaty. Soon you will be very cold too, so you need to set your priorities right. So, the first thing to do is to get naked. Second priority? Get some dry clothes on, and an extra layer of warm clothes. Third priority: Lunch time. Opinions vary, but the traditional Norwegian thing to eat on top of a mountain is ice cold chocolate and oranges!!! What the hell!? Can you come up with something less satisfying than that? Cold chocolate tastes of bitumen and chalk, and oranges are totally useless fruits in the first place. Granted, most people also bring sandwiches and a thermos full of hot drink. But still.

I'm pretty convinced that I have come up the the ultimate tour food on top of a mountain. It's extremely simple too, and anyone who has tried this can attest to its satisfying powers. Actually, more like powers of ten: Good bread with heaps of thinly sliced, fatty gravlax on top. Top quality cold smoked salmon will suffice too, but gravlax has the edge. The fish should be glistening from healthy, tasty fish fat.

Here is my granny's recipe for gravlax:

300-500 g piece of absolutely fresh salmon fillet from the upper part of the fish
1 tbs caster sugar
coarsely ground black pepper
a bunch of dill, chopped
coarse sea salt

The piece of salmon should be very fresh, and have a smell somewhat reminiscent of cucumber. Preferably the piece should be from the upper part of the fish, as this part is fattier, especially the abdominal meat. Any grayish white lumps of fat can be cut away and discarded, since too much is always too much. Sprinkle a dish large enough to hold the fish with coarse sea salt and lay the fish on top, skin side down. Sprinkle with sugar, black pepper and quite generously with sea salt. Then cover the fish with the dill. Cover with cling film, place a weight on top and put in the fridge. A good weight can be made from a small plastic bag filled with water (check that there are no leaks, or you'll end up with brined salmon). After 12-24 h remove the weight, and wait another 2-4 days before it's ready. You'll know when. To serve, cut very thin slices diagonally to make them wider with a more pronounced and beautiful marbling. Best eaten on toasted good bread with a bit of butter. '

Here is a recipe for a bread that goes well with gravlax:

Day 1:

100 g coarse rye flour
150 g whole wheat flour
150 g strong wheat flour
4 g fresh yeast, or 1 g dry yeast
400 g water

Mix well, cover with plastic and rest at room temperature for 12-18 hours

Day 2:

The starter from day 1
600 g strong wheat flour
20 g salt
20 g malt syrup
250-270 g water

Mix all ingredients well, and wait 20 min. Knead for 8-12 min on medium speed, or for 10+10 min by hand with a 15 min rest in between. Put the dough in a proofing box (any big plastic box with a lid will do) which has been greased with vegetable oil. Every 15-20 min, carefully,without tearing, stretch the dough and fold it like and envelope onto itself. Repeat 3-5 times. Then let the dough proof at room temperature for 2-4 hours. It contains very little yeast, and rises slowly in the beginning. When proofed, shape rolls, buns, loaves what ever you like, and place the breads on parchment. Sprinkle generously with flour and cover with plastic. After one hour, turn the oven on set to 275-300 C. When the breads have doubled, score with a serrated knife and pop them in the hot oven. Toss in half a glass of water in the bottom, and close the lid. Turn down the heat to 225 C, and bake for 25-35 minutes, depending on size. Let the bread rest on a grate for 2-4 hours before eating.

Penne Al'Arrabiata from the Death Star canteen

I got home from work tonight, hungry and in dire need of something quick and warm with a reasonably high snack factor. At first I thought of just making a salad with warm-smoked mackerel, since I had one lying around. Although warm-smoked mackerel has a high snack factor, the mackerel wasn't warm anymore, and I was not in mood for experimenting with hot iceberg lettuce. Besides, I really felt like pasta with a hot sauce, topped with a heap of Parmesan cheese. Very snacky. With a salad on the side.

After scavenging the fridge, Penne Al'Arrabiata was clearly the best option. Here is the recipe I came up with:

Soffrito:
1 small onion
1 small carrot
1 stick celeriac
2-3 tbs tomato puré
1-3 cloves garlic
1-2 tbs oil

The rest:
1/2 dl cream
1-2 dl water
1 tbs Sambal Manis
1 mozzarella or similar
salt

Fist make the soffrito; Grate the carrot and very finely chop the onion and the celery. Heat the oil, and fry on a gentle heat until not smelling raw anymore, add the coarsely smashed and chopped garlic and the tomato paste. Fry until it does not smell of raw tomato paste.
Add the Sambal Manis, the cream and the water and season with salt. Just when the pasta is ready, add the shredded mozzarella, or as in my case, the yet-another-not-quite-successful-attempt-at-making-mozzarella-cheese, give it a quick mix, voilá done! Plate the pasta, nicely topped with a generous amount of sauce and an even more generous lot of Parmesan cheese. Can''t really go wrong.

May the sauce be with you,
Sir Lord Baron von Vaderham

Cod roe recipes

For completeness sake I'll add my cod roe recipes. Cod roe comes packaged in surprisingly sturdy, semi-transparent bags, with a mesh of not particularly appetizing blood vessels under the surface. They also very chewy, and not at all pleasant to eat. The proper viking way of (over)cooking them is to simply drop them into boiling water and wait 20-30 min. They come out gray, hard and brittle, looking like the giant scrotum of a dead, waterlogged junkie. Not quite my cup of tea.
So, what can be done? Firstly, cut open the sacks, and using a spatula carefully dislodge the million small eggs into a bowl. Then add 1% salt by mass and whatever spices you might like. Here are my favorites:

1. Finely ground allspice
2. Finely chopped onion
3. Double cream
4. All or any of the above
5. Nothing, let the roe shine in all it's glory

You can also add one egg yolk per ca 200 g of roe to bind it together a bit more. Now divide the roe into 300-400 g portions and pour it onto some heat resistant cling film (i.e. Glad wrap). The roe is quite viscous, so it will not flow out before you have time to react. Wrap the film around the roe and shape into a nice sausage, twist the ends to tighten a bit, and tie off. Steam the sausages in a double boiler until you reach a core temperature of 56 C. Let cool, unwrap and slice. Makes a delicious little side dish, or as topping for a piece of rustic bread with butter. Mayo is also good.

Here are some thoughts: When the roe is uncooked it has a beautiful orange color. When cooked, no matter how carefully, it turns a dull gray. Adding carrot juice could work really nicely (together with the egg yolk) both for taste, sweetness and color. Turmeric or saffron might also help relieve the problem, and provide both depth and flavor. I have not experimented extensively with cooking temperature, but as with fish in general, the lower the better usually. Cod is unfortunately very often infected with the anisakis worm and other parasites, so unless the roe has been frozen first, you need to make sure you reach a core temperature which kills all parasites.

Cod Liver Paté, recipe 1

500 g fresh and fatty cod liver
1 onion
1 small bunch of fresh thyme
black pepper to taste
5 g salt
1 dl bread crumbs or 2 slices stale white bread

1 egg

Clean the cod liver: Cod liver happens to be the favourite playground for the anisakis nematode, and there can be hundreds of them on a single large liver. Since you are going to puree the liver and cook it, they are not a problem per se, but they are the ultimate spoiler of a healthy appetite. By removing the thin membrane covering the liver you remove more than 80% of the worms. Using a pair of tweezers, remove the remaining worms.

Combine all ingredients except the egg, and whizz in a food processor to a smooth paste. Mix in the egg, and let the mixture rest for a while in the fridge so the bread softens and the onion gives off as much taste as possible. The purée is quite runny, and not paste-like. Strain the purée through a moderately fine-meshed sieve. You will be left with a ladlefull of goop, which makes nice compost. Pour the smooth liver mixture into an oven-proof dish, and bake on a water bath at 160 C for 30-40 min until done. Let cool, unmould carefully and serve.

This paté is partially bound by starch, and has a bit more substance and bite to it. It can therefore be unmoulded.

Cod Liver Paté, recipe 2

500 g fresh and fatty cod liver
1 onion
1 small bunch of fresh thyme
white pepper to taste
5 g salt

1 dl double cream
2 eggs

Clean the cod liver: See recipe 1.

Combine all ingredients except the egg and the cream, and whizz in a food processor to a smooth paste. Mix in the egg and the cream. Strain the purée through a moderately fine-meshed sieve. Pour the liver mixture into an oven-proof dish, and bake on a water bath at 160 C for 30-40 min until done. Let cool, and serve directly from the mould.

This paté, or terrine, is very soft and has a nice velvety consistency. It tastes fantastic on a small piece of toasted bread.