Column Ever thought about illustrating food instead of photographing it? Here are a few essential tips from illustrator Jessie Kanelos Weiner. 

In a world where we are regularly inundated with food porn, I find food illustrations refreshing. Particularly when it comes to recipes, food illustrations allow a way of guiding the reader as to what the food should look like, but without any judgment attached to the end product. Follow a recipe in a cookbook with a photograph, and you might be disappointed by the end result, which is normal, given that you didn’t spend 18 hours styling and shooting it. Follow a recipe with an illustration on the other hand, and the comparison of your culinary creation and the image is easier to digest.

While I am no food illustrator, I do love sketching food, and it’s something I would like to be better at, so I figured there was no better way of doing just that than by talking to a professional. My friend Jessie Kanelos Weiner is a talented illustrator and stylist, and while she doesn’t just work with food, her food illustration portfolio list is long. Her new book “Edible Paradise: A Coloring Book of Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables“ is out next February.

I caught up with her to learn her essential tips for people who want to get into food illustration, not only for some useful insight, but more importantly, for some inspiration.

Invest in the best materials within your means. 

“It is the same « you are what you eat » mentality . Good work isn’t a reflection of expensive supplies, but it can take the quality to the next level.  I use a set of 30 or so Windsor & Newton pot watercolors.  I replenish only once or twice a year so it isn’t a huge hit on the wallet.  However, good quality watercolor paper adds up.  I stock up on 100-page blocks of Canson Montval 300 g/m2 watercolor paper which clears up my mind from ever worrying about running out.”

Think about what makes food appetizing to the eye and try to recreate the same qualities.

“Color, reflection, contrast, depth and texture are all qualities that go into the creation of a successful dish.  And they are all vital to recreating it 2–dimensionally, too.”

Learn the basics of Photoshop. 

“Because a huge component of creating and sharing work now is digital, learn the basics in Photoshop to clean up images before posting them to the internet.”

Look look look draw. 

“A few years ago, in a grueling interview for an MFA program at NYU (which unfortunately didn’t come to be), the distinguished professor interviewing my portfolio told me  « you don’t look enough when you draw. You draw what you think something is, but you don’t back it up with enough  firsthand information ».  She was right. Really look at the subjet at hand.  How do the elements interact ?  Study the positive and negative spaces.  What are the darkest and lightest areas ? Drawing what you « think » an eggplant looks like is mental block when you can actually look at it firsthand.”

Start a blog, an Instagram or a Tumblr. 

“I started a food blog about my life in France in 2011.  Knowing my embarrassing photographic abilities, I added illustrations instead.  It gave me the confidence and the platform to start considering pursuing illustration professionally.  When I finally did, I had a body of work and plenty of feedback from readers to give me a boost of confidence to do so.”

Find inspiration. 

“I love Instagram for following illustrators’ processes, techniques and new projects.  For example, I was recently inspired by Clym Everden (@clymdraws) who has started creating short illustrated GIFS, inspiring me to think about simple animation.  Now I just have to figure out how to do it.”

You can follow Jessie on Instagram for more illustration inspiration.

Related on EcoSalon

The Other Food Porn: Foodie Underground

An Illustrated Recipe for Swedish Cinnamon Rolls

Drawing Fashion Exhibits Illustrates a Dying Art

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Illustrations: Jessie Kanelos Weiner

The post How to Draw Food: Essential Tips from a Food Illustrator – Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Because Spiral Hams are so 1970.

It’s Easter again and I’m planning to treat myself and guests to some cured trout. To cure trout I use the same method and ratio as when I make traditional Scandinavian gravlax. The recipe below is plain and simple. Not much more is needed for this delicate treat, but if you want to try something different you can add other flavors. Elderflower, ginger, crushed juniper or a shot of aquavit work really well. The list is endless.

Besides salmon and trout you can use this same method to cure other types of fish. Mackerel is an excellent option, and Keiko over at food blog Nordljus cured a good looking seabass with a scent of licorice. As I love licorice, I decided to add some toasted fennel seeds to my cure this Easter, which I think will go really well with the mild trout flavor.

For curing:

• 1 kilo (2 lb) trout fillet
• 1 teaspoon freshly milled white pepper
• 4 tablespoons salt
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• Bunch of dill
• Toasted whole fennel seeds (optional)

For decoration:

• Fresh dill
• Lemon

Note: The trout should be frozen one or two days before you start the curing. The freezing will eliminate unnecessary bacteria.

It’s not hard to fillet the trout yourself. The benefit is that you can use the remaining parts (except for the guts) to make an excellent stock together with bay leaves, carrot, celery, onions, dill stalks, and some herbs like thyme, salt and pepper.

If you still think this is too messy, ask your fishmonger to fillet the fish for you but remind them that the skin should be left on.

When you have your fillets ready, rinse them in some cold water and pull out any remaining bones with a pair of pliers.

Mix together salt, sugar and pepper. Rub the fillet with some of the mixture and sprinkle the rest on top of the fillets. Wash the dill and chop finely. Put the fillets together, meat against meat with the chopped dill and (if you like) some toasted fennel seeds, slightly crushed, in between. Wrap the fish in plastic foil. Let the fish cure in the refrigerator with something heavy on top for 48 hours. Turn them now and again.

After two days, unwrap and clean the fillets. Start to slice the trout at the end of the fish into thin diagonal slivers using a fillet knife (or any other suitable knife). Garnish with some dill branches and slices of lemon. They can be served on toast or dark bread. However this fish is sensational on a thin “knäckebröd” topped with a drip of Hovmästarsås. Enjoy!

Hovmästarsås

Stir together 3 tablespoons mustard, 1 egg yolk, 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon brown sugar with plenty of chopped dill. Slowly start dripping in a little less than a 1/2 cup of olive oil into the mixture while stirring continuously (just like you make mayonnaise). If you add the oil too quickly the mixture can separate. The result should be a thick sauce. Season with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Before buying any fish check with Seafood Watch for the most sustainable options.

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Recipe: Cured Trout for Easter appeared first on EcoSalon.

Multi-tasking mint finds a new home in a recipe for a warm salad.

Every summer I enjoy fresh mint from my own little garden. I grow three quite common types: pepper, lemon and Water Mint. All three work really well for cooking and I use them regularly in teas or as a flavor in different kinds of drinks. A few crumpled leaves together with elderflower cordial are a perfect match (with or without gin). Crushed with ice and Lime Mint makes for fantastic mojitos or a refreshing ingredient in a Pimm’s Cup.

It’s easy to grow mint but if you’re not careful, mint plants can rapidly take over your garden plot. Their roots are aggressive and hard to exterminate, so best to plant them in pots or at an unused part of the garden where they can grow freely without interfering with other growing treasures.

There are many different types of mint, some more common and others more rare. A more rare example are mint plants that have the scent of different kinds of fruits such as pineapple and strawberries. There is even a mint that has a clear flavor of chocolate. Not sure what I would do with this kind of mints but it’s funny as pineapple, strawberries and chocolate are all great companions to mint. For example in this strawberry salad, you can switch basil for regular mint.

Earlier this year in Marrakesh, I got inspired by the simple way they use mint in different kinds of salads. The salads were often just tomato, peppers and red onion cut into tiny pieces and blended together with finely chopped mint leaves, a squeeze of lemon and olive oil. Simple and delicious.

Anna Brones‘s mother makes a fresh mint pesto and it sounds perfect drizzled over a potato salad or even a grilled lamb chop. When the summer is here you may prefer something cool to eat instead of hot meals from the stove. A fresh red pepper and tomato salsa is an excellent choice. And a watermelon and feta salad makes a perfect starter or as a side for grilled meat and vegetables.

One of my latest treats is this simple and warm Zucchini & Feta Salad that is great to serve together with vegetable patties.

Warm Zucchini & Feta Salad

(for 2-4 people)

One – two zucchini
Olive oil
Some salt
Some chili (fresh or flakes)
One or two clove of garlic
Lime
¼ lb (100 g) feta
About 10 leaves of fresh mint

Wash the zucchini and cut thin slices along the long side (you may want to cut the zucchini in half crosswise first). Sprinkle some salt and olive oil over. Heat up a pan with some chili and fry the zucchini slices at a semi high heat (you may also put them on the grill or roast them if you like). Just take a few at a time as they shouldn’t touch each other while cooking. When the slices start to brown, turn them over. Just before they are done squeeze some garlic over. When the garlic has melted and the zucchini has a nice color, transfer them over to a serving dish. Repeat until all zucchini slices are done. Squeeze some lime and drip it all over the salad. Cut or crumble the feta and sprinkle it over the salad together with finely chopped mint. Season with salt and pepper if needed. Serve immediately.

Illustration by Johanna Kindvall

The post Minty Zucchini & Feta Salad appeared first on EcoSalon.

How to make delicious egg noodles for stews.

Årsta fältet, a flat field in a suburb of Stockholm, may not be the most exotic place to visit in the capital city of Sweden. But somewhere in that field I had one of my most peculiar food memories ever. It was there I ate spätzle (or maybe it was Hungarian nokedli) for the first time in my life. The spätzle was served with a rich goulash that we made in a hanging cast-iron pot over an open fire. This is that kind of moment that is hard to recreate.

The goulash was amazing but it was the spätzle that won my heart. Since then I’ve been treated to spätzle again and again and I love it as much every single time. However, not many cooks have been able to share their recipe as they cook it by instinct and without any instructions. Fair enough. I just had to start figuring out my own way.

I started by playing around with different recipes I found online. The result was often not that great, which probably had more to do with the choice of flour than the recipe. I discovered that, for example, pastry flour (why use that in the first place?) made the batter taste really floury in an unpleasant way. I also tried adding fresh grated potatoes but then it became halušky (potato noodles). At some point I gave up and started to use just regular wheat flour.

Recently, I followed Steen Hanssen’s recommendation to use dinkelmehl (spelt flour). The spätzle became darker and had a slight nutty taste. I liked it.

Spätzle Batter
(2-3 people)

3 eggs (depending on size)
¼ cup of lukewarm water
About 1¼  cups of spelt flour or regular flour
A pinch of salt
Some freshly grated nutmeg
A couple tablespoons of butter

Heat up some water until its just lukewarm. Mix together eggs, water, nutmeg and a pinch of salt. Gradually start adding flour, little by little. Make sure to avoid creating lumps. The dough has got enough flour when its a little stretchy and easily falls off your spatula without breaking. If you get the dough too stiff, just add some more water. Let the dough rest for about half an hour.

There are many different ways to “form” the spätzle and it’s probably very individual which method you may prefer. I have tried some techniques with more or less success. I think using a spätzle lid is the easiest (see image above).

Heat up some salted water in a large pot that will fit the spätzle lid nicely (see below for other methods). Bring the water to a boil. Lower the heat. Place the lid on top of the pot and add ¼ of the dough on top. Start to press the dough down with a spatula (often comes with the lid). Stir around the spätzle a little so they don’t stick together. The spätzle are done after about 2-3 minutes when they float up to the surface. Use a skimming ladle to fish them up. Repeat above steps until the dough is finished. Adjust the heat if necessary. Add some melted butter to the spätzle so they don’t stick together.

Serve the  spätzle with a rich goulash, creamy mushrooms or baked in the oven topped with cheese.

Other methods
Another technique is to use a pasta strainer, preferably those with larger wholes. My stainless steel strainer worked fine, even if it was a little clumsy, the spätzle came out tiny and delicate. Just let the strainer rest at an angle on the edge of the pot (see image above) and use a soft spatula to press down the batter through the holes into the hot water.

If you want larger spätzle you can use a smaller chopping board and a chef knife or a bench scraper. Place one batch of dough on the chopping board and let it rest at an angle at the edge of the pot. Start to cut small pieces of the dough right into the boiling water. Know you’ll get better with practice!

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Spätzle: German Egg Noodles appeared first on EcoSalon.

Celebrate Fat Tuesday Swedish style with this classic recipe.

By nature, I am not a follower of recipes. This is most likely my mother’s influence. Just as creative in the kitchen as she is with her artwork, the most common response to “What’s in this? It’s delicious! Can you write down the recipe for me?” is “Oh, I don’t really know exactly what I put in it.”

She does of course have some standard recipes that she can recite off the top of her head, but for the most part, she is a student of serendipity and chaos theory.

As it turns out, like mother like daughter.

When friends ask for recipes I actually have to go home and remake whatever food they’re looking to add to their cooking repertoire, simply so that I can figure out the exact measurements. Apparently “just enough of [insert ingredient]” doesn’t work for most people.

But there are those dishes for which I throw habit out the window, and commit to taking time to being a diligent cook that sticks to a recipe. Sometimes, there is no room for error.

If there’s one baked good that has to be made perfectly, it’s the Swedish semla. Also known as fastlagsbulle or fettisbulle, it is a flour bun filled with almond paste and topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar. Historically it was made for fettisdagen, Fat Tuesday. But we live in the modern day Western world, where eating decadent food doesn’t usually come with too many restrictions, so in Sweden, you can find semlor decorating the bakery shop windows just after the New Year all the way through Easter.

Having learned last year the danger of trying to tweak a recipe to my own standards – even my mother still cringes that I thought using whole wheat flour instead of pastry flour would be a good choice – I pulled out my copy of Swedish Cakes and Cookies, the modern and translated version of a classic that you can find in any Swede’s cookbook collection.

I was committed to making a good semla. Which meant of course measuring perfectly. But you can only veer from regular habits so much. I soon realized that the recipe didn’t call for cardamom.

Fail.

I added in two teaspoons.

Oh, there’s no recipe for almond paste? I certainly wasn’t going to trek to the gourmet food store and buy some (I do have my limits after all). So I made my own, purely guessing on what almond to sugar ratio I should use.

Plenty of mixing, rising, kneading and oven to cooling rack transfers later, I had a kitchen table full of semla buns and a full French press. If there’s one baking production that pays off, it’s a semla. Especially one made with ample cardamom and homemade almond paste.

Note that this recipe makes 10-12 buns. Unless you have a crazy coffee get together for an army planned, don’t make the semlor all at the same time. The buns store well in the freezer, and can be defrosted for when you want to fill them with almond paste and whipped cream. Which means you can make one now for yourself, and serve your friends later. Smaklig måltid!

Classic Swedish Semlor
Ingredients

• 100 grams butter (7 tablespoons)
• 1 ¼ cups milk
• 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 4 cups flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup sugar (if you want a sweeter version, you can use up to a ½ cup)
• 1 egg
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons powdered cardamom

Filling

• 2 cups blanched almonds + ¼ cup sugar blended in food processor
• Inside of buns
• ½ – 1 cup milk

Topping

• Whipped cream
• Powdered sugar

Directions
1. Melt butter in a saucepan and add the milk. Heat until the liquid is warm to the touch.

2. In a bowl beat the egg and add in yeast, salt, sugar and milk mixture. Combine baking powder and flour and mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl and let rise for 30 minutes.

3. Place dough on lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Form into round balls and place on greased pan. Cover with tea towel and let rise until double the size.

4. Brush the balls with a beaten egg. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 450F. Let the buns cool.

5. Cut off a circular “lid” off of each bun and set aside. Scoop out inside of bun with a spoon or fork. Mix in a bowl with almond paste and add enough milk to make a smooth mixture. Fill buns with mixture and top with whipping cream. Place lid on top of whipping cream and garnish with powdered sugar.

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Celebrate Fat Tuesday With Swedish Semlor appeared first on EcoSalon.

Mackerel swims to the lead when it comes to being the “right” fish to eat and we’ve got a recipe to back up the claim.

Lately, I haven’t cooked or eaten fish. There is no good excuse for this other than I have been confused about which fish is “correct” and safe to eat. Many of you probably already know that we should be careful which salmon, shrimps and tuna we choose to eat, that we should really start to cook and eat other fish that are more sustainable and healthy. But that is not an easy task, as which fish to eat varies from country to country (and it can vary even in the same country).

I’m happy that one of my favorite fishes, mackerel, seems to be a safe choice, both in Sweden and the U.S. According to EcoSalon food clolumnist Vanessa Barrington, Mackerel doesn’t have high levels of mercury (except for the king mackerel which has) and the fishing method used doesn’t damage the bottom of the sea. Mackerel has a rich flavor and you don’t really need to add much to enjoy this fish. It’s great in soups, filleted or cooked whole (see below) and can be roasted, baked or poached. You can also smoke or cure it.

Mackerel makes me long for summer, especially Swedish summers when the sun doesn’t go down until around 11pm. When I was a little girl we often went to the west coast to rent a boat and fish all day. Mostly we caught Cod and Mackerel but sometimes we also got Garfish. In the evening when we all were hungry and tired we would get back on land or find some tiny unsettled rocky island, collect firewood and broil mackerel over an open fire. The whole fish was stuck on a wooden stick (cleaned and gutted) and just simply seasoned with salt and lemon.

Now this is not easily done every day but there are definitely ways to enjoy fish at home all year around. My latest recipe was created after I got inspired by Melissa Clark’s recent article on whole roasted fish. The article was such a great reminder that it’s about time to start cooking whole fish again.

Roasted Mackerel with Buttered Shallots
For two

One or two whole mackerel (about 1-1 ½ lb)
One lemon
Freshly ground pepper
A splash of olive oil
One shallot
10 sprigs of fresh thyme
About 2 oz butter

Clean and gut the mackerel. Take a paper towel to pat the fish dry. Rub inside and outside of the fish with one or two slices of lemon. Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the fish. Slice the rest of the lemon thinly and chop the shallots finely. Fill the stomach of the mackerel with some of the slices and leave about half for later when serving the fish. Place ½ of the shallot into the cavity together with a few sprigs of thyme. Place the fish in a greased baking pan. You can also bake on top of foil on a baking tray. Sprinkle some olive oil over and roast the fish at 400°F for about 20-30 minutes. The fish is done when the meat is white and the meat easily loosens from the bones.

While the fish roasts, melt about half of the butter and saute the rest of the shallots on a really low heat until soft. At the end add more butter and plenty of thyme.

Serve the fish with buttered shallots and a squeeze of lemon together with roasted vegetables such as parsnips and carrots. The mackerel is also great with a simple salad made of roasted red pepper, feta, watercress and toasted sunflower seeds.

Here is some more good stuff about fish…

The Good Fish of the Pacific Coast
Seafood Watch Check out their apps for Android and iPhone
WWFs fisk guide (Sweden)

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Mackerel: The Ethically Correct Fish appeared first on EcoSalon.

Moroccan cooking inspired by the streets of Marrakesh.

The best tagine I have ever had is the one I cooked myself while attending a cooking class in Marrakesh, Morocco. It’s probably also the only proper tagine I have ever had. Raja (the cook), who really did most of the work that day, also led me carefully and demonstrated every step in how to make traditional Moroccan dishes such as salad, Berber bread and chocolate-layered semolina pancakes. I watched and learned. Smelled and ate. It was absolutely my best day in Marrakesh.

The day started at an indoor market in Mellah (one of the neighborhoods inside Medina) where I could pick meat and vegetables for the cooking lesson. The market had everything from meat (even live chickens), vegetables, bread and milk. We got some beef, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, chili and olives for the tagine and some apricots, eggs and dark chocolate for desert.

The salad we made was really simple and fresh. Just finely chopped onion, cucumber, yellow pepper and tomato. Seasoned with a splash of olive oil, salt and freshly chopped mint.

The beef tagine was cooked in traditional ceramic tagine cookware on low heat for about three hours. At the bottom we arranged onions, garlic and chopped fresh cilantro. The cookware was placed on the stove and the heat was set to low. The meat was placed on top and spices (ginger powder, cumin, paprika, salt and black pepper) were added at the edges around the meat. When the meat had been turned once, we arranged carrots, potatoes, zucchini, one whole chili, ½ lemon, olives and parsley on top. Lastly we poured in a mixture of both olive and sunflower oil. Before the tagine “hat” was placed on top, a little water was added. Now and again we scooped up the cooking liquid and poured it over the vegetables and meat. In this way all ingredients got a nice taste of the spices without moving them around.

The Semolina Berber Bread  we made was baked on top of the stove in a skillet. In Morocco, bread is  served with almost any meal during the day and a must when having tagine. Raja’s recipe used only semolina flour but I stumbled upon some breads in the city that seemed to have a mixture of semolina and wheat flour. Unfortunately they were not as nice. Our local deli (a hole in the wall) in Kasbah sold something that looked like a rye version of the bread.

The sweet dessert semolina pancakes were really the thing that won my heart and also something that was new to me. These pancakes should not be mistaken for the more well known pancake, begrhir. Begrhir is a yeast based semolina pancake that is often served for breakfast with honey. These pancakes are baked on only one side and the yeast create decorative holes on the surface. Raja’s dessert pancakes were sweeter and made with baking powder. They create similar decorative holes but are baked on both sides.

Below I have tried to translate Raja’s semolina pancake recipe as best I could. Raja used a typical Moroccan teacup when measuring the ingredients, so her cup measure was slightly less than a standard measuring cup. My recipe is as close as I could come!

Sweet Semolina Pancakes
Serves 2-4 people

One egg
½ cup sugar ( I used sucanut)
½ cup milk (+ more if batter is too thick)
¾ cup semolina
One teaspoon baking powder
¼  sunflower oil (optional)*

Zest from one lemon**
One teaspoon ground cardamom**

I don’t really remember the order Raja mixed the ingredients together but I did it this way: Whisk egg and sugar until well blended before adding the milk. Mix together semolina flour and baking powder. Add the semolina mixture to the batter and whisk well together (make sure there are no lumps). Add the oil, lemon zest and cardamom. Let the batter rest for 15-30 minutes before baking the pancakes.

Heat up a frying pan with some neutral oil (if using nonstick you don’t need any oil in the pan). When the pan is hot lower the heat to medium. Spoon up some batter in the pan with a sauce ladle (You may need to add more milk to the batter if it’s too heavy. It should be fairly easy to pour into a pan). When the pancake has nice decorative holes and starts to get firm on top, flip the pancake over. The other side should now have a nice brown color. Press down the pancake with your spatula so the pancake doesn’t rise. Continue until done. Repeat until batter is finished.

It may take some time to get used to how much batter you need for every pancake. A finished pancake should be about 1/8” thick.

Serve the pancakes with sour cream and seasonal fruit and berries for breakfast or brunch. I loved it with a simple apple & orange fruit salad spiced with mint and chopped pistachio. The pancakes can also be done as Raja’s desert, layered with melted dark chocolate (she added some neutral oil to the chocolate) and topped with fresh mint and fruit of your choice. Serve it cool when the chocolate is firm.

*Raja used some neutral oil in the batter and fried the pancakes in a non-stick frying pan. As I didn’t use a non-stick pan I learned that the pancakes got a little greasy with oil both in the batter and in the pan.  They still tasted great but got firmer and easier to handle with oil only in the pan.
**Raja didn’t flavor her pancakes with cardamom and lemon, instead she used 1-2 teaspoons vanilla sugar. I just didn’t have any at home when re-creating the recipe. Both versions are equally delicious.

If you planing to go to Marrakesh and want to participate in a cooking class, I can warmly recommend Raja’s class. Contact Jean Peres at Riad Dar One for details and booking.

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Cooking Lessons in Marrakesh appeared first on EcoSalon.

Warm up cold winter days with a glass of Glögg.

With or without snow there’s not too many things as heart warming as glögg (Swedish traditional mulled wine) around Christmas. The rich smell is so welcoming it’s no wonder it’s such a successful way to treat your friends. Last winter I had to warn my guests that even though the wine was served hot it was not low on alcohol.

Like other Swedes I’m used to buying glögg already spiced at the Systembolaget, which is the one and only company that can sell liquor in Sweden. Systembolaget has an impressive selection of wine from all around the world and they have over 40 different kinds of glögg, both with and without alcohol. There is even a white glögg which is commonly served cold as an apertif at parties around Christmas. With a selection that great it’s hard to even think of making your own unless you’re a Swede living abroad. Being one of those people, I started making my own and can’t ever imagine going back. At Christmas I want my own glögg. And the glögg has to be done with some drama by caramelizing the sugar.

Glögg

One bottle of red wine (a decent full bodied wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah)

Spices
3 cinnamon sticks
One teaspoon whole cloves
One teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 orange peels
5 whole cardamoms
One small piece of ginger, chopped
20 raisins
A couple of dried figs

For caramelizing
one cup (240 ml) rum
1/3 cups (75 ml) brown sugar

To serve with
Blanched almonds
Raisins

Heat up the wine but be careful, the wine should not boil. Drop all the spices into the warm wine, turn the heat off and let rest covered for at least 4 hours (best overnight).

Sieve the spices from the wine and heat it up in a saucepan. Again make sure it doesn’t boil. In the meantime prepare a stainless strainer filled with the sugar. When the wine starts to get hot, place the strainer over the saucepan. Pour the rum over the sugar and light the alcohol steam below. Let some of the sugar drip into the wine mixture before adding to the wine (if you wait for all the sugar to melt, the alcohol will disappear with the flames). Take the saucepan from the heat and cover with a lid to stop the flames. If you think the glögg is too sweet you may add some more wine or rum.

Serve the glögg in small cups together with some blanched almonds and raisins in every glass. Glögg is also great with gingerbread cookies.

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Glogg: Swedish Traditional Mulled Wine appeared first on EcoSalon.

Swedish Advent coffee gatherings and the must have baked good of the season.

The season of Advent is upon us. In Sweden, Advent is holy, not just because it represents a religious tradition, but more practically it celebrates and honors light. Every Sunday through Christmas a new candle is lit, until the four long candles in the Advent candlestick are burning in unison. Throughout the month of December, windows blaze with the traditional triangle shaped candelabra, bringing a hue of gold to the otherwise dark and long winter nights.

Just as candles are an integral part of celebrating Advent, so are pepparkakor. Gingerbread cookies are the staple of Swedish Advent coffee gatherings and celebrations and the must have baked good of the season.

I grew up, every December, carefully rolling out gingerbread dough. In the early years, it was an awkward dance of pushing and pulling a rolling pin about half my size. Flour tended to go everywhere, and I would end up grinning with dough pieces stuck all over me. Yet my mother simply left me to it, and if I rolled too hard and the dough got stuck to the countertop, I was forced to find a solution myself.

Dust with flour, roll, pull up dough, flip over and repeat until just the right thickness to slice into with a Swedish cookie cutter. These cookie cutters were carefully kept in a large tin – which had at one point in the early 80s held Danish butter cookies certainly purchased at duty free on one of her connecting stops in Copenhagen. Hearts, pigs, Christmas gnomes, the classic gingerbread couple; I loved, and still love, sorting through and picking out my favorites. Feeling lazy? There were always the Franska Pepparkakor to make, a much simpler process of rolling out a log and slicing the cookies. In fact, if Swedish Jul for Dummies were a book, this recipe would be in it.

But pepparkakor are one thing, and a pepparkakshus (gingerbread house) is quite another; same dough, same concept and yet when you move from cookie to house, baking takes a completely different level of culinary creativity.

Enter, my father. Not known for his kitchen prowess – to his credit he is well versed in the world of exotic, black teas – gingerbread house making was his turn to put his carpentry and mathematical brain to use in an area normally left to my mother and I.

In his mind, a pepparkakshus was a serious matter. This is why, two decades later, we still have the same designs, meticulously drawn onto graph paper and cut out with an X-Acto knife, kept in the same, yellowed folder, “Jul” marked in red pen on the outside.

He put the same energy into crafting our annual pepparkakshus as he put into building our own house. Case in point: the pepparkakshus was always constructed with melted sugar, a binding agent that no child under the age of 12 should ever play with. But once dad had constructed the house, I got to decorate it, and he would watch as I sloppily poured icing all over the top, at first attempting to make a design and later resorting to the excuse “I just wanted to make it look like it snowed on the roof.” Fortunately like any good father he was never upset at his daughter’s decorative destruction of his architectural masterpiece.

Of course every kid-friendly holiday treat has to have an adult alternative, and beyond the pepparkakshus, my father’s other seasonal claim to fame is a mean batch of glögg, Sweden’s mulled wine. Whereas expertly crafting gingerbread houses was probably more of a fatherly duty, glögg was a personal masterpiece, picked up at about the same time that he wandered into the Nordic lands and stumbled upon my enchanting mother.

There has never been an Advent that I can remember that he didn’t have a batch brewing in our cast iron, red enamel pot- a kitchen item that’s probably as old as I am. During the month of December it sits there on the back left burner, ready to cook up another round. For not being a man of the kitchen, I can call my father at any given moment and he can rattle off his well-mastered glögg recipe as if he were reciting multiplication tables, which is helpful since even in a studio apartment, December is not December without the smell of glögg warming and a plate of pepparkakor.

Two years ago my father sent me a gingerbread house kit from a trendy grocery store that will remain nameless. The result was disappointing. No planning and no process, without even getting to the taste issue and the fact that the kitchen didn’t smell like spices. Tradition requires commitment, and for the month of Swedish Advent that commitment is making a good batch of pepparkaksdeg (the dough) and baking out a batch of cookies and constructing a house, no matter how old you are.

Now to find the glögg mugs.

Pepparkakor (Gingerbread Cookies)
(About 75-100 cookies)

¼ cup (50 ml) heavy cream
2/3 cup (150 ml) light syrup* or molasses
Almost one cup (200 ml) sugar
3 ½ oz (100 gram) butter
One tablespoon ground ginger
One tablespoon ground cloves
One teaspoon ground cinnamon
One tablespoon ground cardamom
One teaspoon baking soda
3 cups (700 ml) flour (+ some for the rolling out)

Melt the butter and the syrup on low heat. Let cool before adding the other ingredients. Work the dough well. It’s important that the spices are freshly milled. Let the dough rest overnight in a cool place so the spices have time to fully develop their aromas. The resting will also make it easier to roll out the dough.
Roll out the dough and cut out shapes with gingerbread cutters. Bake in the oven at 375ºF (190ºC) for about 6-8 minutes. Keep an eye on them as they burn easily.

This dough can also be used for a gingerbread house. Just roll it out slightly thicker. Have fun!

This recipe is a modification of the original at the Swedish shop Svensk Hemslöjd in Stockholm.

*You can buy light Syrup (ljus sirap) at Ikea. You can also use ”Lyle’s Golden Syrup” that you can find in British food stores.

Franska Pepparkakor  (French Gingerbread Cookies)

1 cup (almost 250 ml) almonds, chopped
7 oz  (200 g) butter
1/2 cup  (120 ml)  sugar
1/2 cup (120 ml) molasses
4 tsp ginger
4 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp ground nutmeg
4 tsp cardamom
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp baking soda
3 cups (700 ml) flour
Cream butter, sugar and molasses.

Mix dry ingredients with almonds, then combine with butter, sugar and molasses. Knead together with your hands.
Roll dough into cylinders, about 12 inches long and wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Cut dough into 1/4 inch slices. Bake at 380 for 10-12 minutes.

This recipe is adapted from the Swedish classic: “Sju sorters kakor.”

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Pepparkakor: Swedish Gingerbread Cookies appeared first on EcoSalon.

Why go with just plain chocolate cake when you can add a hint of mint?

This summer in Sweden I was unhappy to find out that the small local egg farm up the road had closed down. I wasn’t sure why, and it all seemed odd as there was one rooster left, who was crying out loud, and sadly. Then one day, I spotted a mother sow in a field close to our house. She was proudly walking around in the mud with her new born piglets all around her. The farm also had free-range chickens, ducks and lambs. I was happy again.
The second or maybe third time I came there, the lady of the house said she had run out of eggs. I asked if I could order some for later that week.

“It’s impossible,” she said.

At a farm like theirs you can’t predict how many eggs the hens will provide. Some of the hens had also started to sit on their eggs. I felt both happy and sad at the same time. Sad that I had to walk home empty-handed and happy that someone listens to a hen’s nature instead of my craving for eggs.

“Oh well,”  I said and was about to leave when she said:

“I have duck eggs. They are great if you are making sponge cake.”

I went home and made the best Sticky Chocolate Cake I have ever made.

Sticky Chocolate Cake with a Bite of Mint

2 eggs (or one large duck egg)
1 cup sucanat*
4-6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Valrhona)
one teaspoon salt (less if using salted butter)
one cup milled almonds
4 oz butter
about 5 drops of peppermint extract**

some mint leaves (for decoration)

Whisk eggs and sucanat together in a bowl. Stir in the milled almonds, cocoa powder and salt. Drip a few drops of the mint extract (or essence, see below). Stir around and adjust with more mint to your taste. Add the butter and stir until smooth. Pour the mixture into a greased 9” spring form.

Bake the cake in the oven at 350 F (150°C) for about 15 minutes. The cake should just be set on top and sticky inside. Let the cake cool down. Decorate with some fresh mint leaves and serve as is or with some whipped heavy cream.

If you don’t like mint in your chocolate you can easily switch it to something else. Anna Brones here on Ecosalon spices her Sticky Cake with cardamom and serves it with a cranberry orange salsa. If you are craving for more chocolate this Chocolate by Brand over at David Lebovitzlist will keep you busy.

* Sucanat is a brown sugar type extracted from sugar cane. Its perfect to bake with and gives cakes and cookies a richer taste. In the US you can often find Sucanat in organic shops. If you can’t find sucanat you may use muscovado sugar or even regular brown sugar instead. When I’m in Sweden I use farin sugar which works really well too.
** I couldn’t find mint extract so I made an essence by soaking mint caramels with a shot of vodka over night.

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Sticky Chocolate Cake with a Bite of Mint appeared first on EcoSalon.