Undoubtedly, Brussels sprouts are the most underrated and undervalued vegetables today. Many grocery store managers don’t even bother to offer them in their produce departments. Yet, properly prepared Brussels sprouts can be delicious and healthy.
Although very different in appearance from kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, cauliflower and broccoli Brussels sprouts belong to the same family (Brassica oleracea).
The plant originated in what is today Pakistan or Afghanistan, and was cultivated for centuries to look the way it does today.
In the 16th century, Brussels sprouts enjoyed enormous popularity in northern Europe, and many English books of the time contain recipes, mostly adopted from Belgian sources.
Today, many varieties exist – jade E, Lunet, Oliver, Silverstar YT and Valiant are prolific and yield anywhere from 1 – 1 ½ kg. Per stalk. Brussels sprouts are rich in folic acid, iron, vitamins A and C. They are fibre rich, calorie poor (six Brussels sprouts contain 60 calories), and rich in antioxidants. Overcooking results in an unpleasant sulphury taste. Grating and adding it to salads is a better way of preventing halitosis.
Making an incision at the bottom of each Brussels sprouts allows penetration of heat and may prevent overcooking. You can slice them, and sauté in butter or olive oil with some salt and pepper.
Always look for firm sprouts with bright green leaves. Store in paper towelling placed in a plastic bag and refrigerate for up to a fortnight.
Canada produces approximately 1300 tones.
October to November are peak harvest times.
Serve Brussels sprouts with roast beef, game stews, and otherwise with strongly flavoured food.

Brussels sprout and mushroom stew

Yield 4 portions

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 large shallots or one small onion, diced
3 anchovy fillets (optional)
250 grams assorted mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 clove of garlic, minced
tt freshly ground black pepper
tt salt
375 ml chicken stock
600 grams Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
1 sprig fresh thyme or .25 tsp dried thyme

In a large sauté pan, heat the oil. Add shallots or onions and cook for approximately 3 minutes. Add anchovy fillets, mashing them until they disintegrate.
This should take one or two minutes.
Turn up the heat. Add mushrooms, and cook until softened. Add chicken broth and stir to loosen clinging bits at the bottom of the pan. Add Brussels sprouts and thyme and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, cover pan, and cook until Brussels sprouts are tender. This should take approximately 8 – 10 minutes.

Guest Writer – Hrayr Berberoglu E-mail or interested in his books?.

Homemade everyday pizza which is healthy and very good!

This is the pizza we are making about every Saturday except in the summertime. It is healthy, very good and easy to make. We begin with the paste. Mix together 4 dl flour, a little salt, 2 spoons olive oil and 1.5 dl water (temp. 50 degrees Celsius) mixed with yeast. Let it rest for about 30 min.

We use a rolling pin on the paste to get it thin. It is not that hard it takes max 3 min. A little more to clean up afterwards but not that bad.

We oil the baking tray with olive oil and put the paste and all ready purchased pizza sauce.

We are tight on the cheese and use 16% low fat type. Remember this is an everyday pizza.

Today we are using ham, paprika and leek, don’t have on too much as the pizza is getting soft and fluffy.

Then it is time to enjoy the pizza with a glass of soda or wine. It is great with pizza as you can vary on the topping and you will have yet another taste. Do you have any point of view or suggestions?

Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.   Post writer – Morten – E-mail

Whole roasted chicken.

We are talking about whole roasted chicken and the best way to get it juiciest with crisp skin. This is the way to do it:

1. Set the oven on max temperature.
2. Marinated the chicken if you wish. We used paprika powder and olive oil this time.
3. Put the chicken on a grid with a roasting tin under with some water in it.
4. Roast for about an hour and some. We use about an hour and 10 min until it has that golden brown colour. Turn them after about 45 min.
5. Serve with rice/salad and a good wine.

I don’t think it can be done any simpler. If you have an oven with that rotating grill element DON’T use it, the juice from the chicken will only drip off.

Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.   Post writer – Morten – E-mail

I quickly ordered one, and after a while the waiter served it. I now order tajine whenever and wherever possible. Tajine is a North African specialty that is comforting, friendly, inexpensive, forgiving, delicious, and fragrant. It requires a glazed clay pot with a tight fitting lid. It is easily obtainable in morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and even Egypt. In North America specialty stores may stock it, but charge extraordinarily high prices. You can substitute the authentic tajine pot with an enamelled cast iron pot, or even use a dark roasting pan. The word is derived from Greek tegonon (frying pan).

Greek traders of antiquity introduced this cooking technique in the region when they roamed the Mediterranean Sea, east to west and back. Tajines are easy to prepare but require long cooking tie. If your timing is off and you forget it in the oven, do not worry! Tajine is very forgiving.

Here is a recipe you ay want to try.

1 kg lamb shanks
4 tbsp olive oil.
2 onions sliced
1 cup beef stock
1 28 oz can peeled plum tomatoes
2 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 14 oz can chickpeas
125 grams sun-dried mango’s trips (may be omitted or substituted with other dried fruits i.e apricots, apples etc)
bunch of mint
bunch of coriander
Heat the oven to 160 C

Sear shanks on oil (a) and place in casserole. Cook onions in the same pan and pour over shanks. Add stock to pan, and dissolve clinging meat pieces. Add tomatoes, spices to casserole and bake covered for 1-½ hours. Mix drained chickpeas with mango slices. If desired add, ½ bunch mint and ½ bunch of coriander and continue cooking for another 10 minutes.

Serve with couscous, crusty bread, plain rice or whipped potatoes.

Bon appetite !

Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.   Post writer – Hrayr Berberoglu – E-mail – Read his books?

Although Morocco is far from Scandinavia I have found a couple of restaurants that serves it:

http://www.casablanca-svendborg.dk/
http://www.restaurantmarrakech.no/
http://cafebeirut.monalisahuset.no/

Feel free to add to the list if you know of more places!

Morten Pedersen

Salad with cabbage is crunchy!

ingredients:

• cabbage
• leek
• sweet corn
• tomatoes
• cucumber
• paprika
• feta cheese
• black olive
• 1 TBS olive oil + a little Balsamico.

Easy to make, just cut the ingredients up and mix it together. The amount you decide dependent on how hungry/how many you are.

Bo Appetite!

We had it together with roasted chicken (hole) and a wine.

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Game Casserole with Deer.

This is healthy and good food that warms on a cold winter evening.

The recipe:

1 kg of game meat (we did Deer this time). Cut it in big dices.
A little butter
Pepper/salt
Rosemary/allspice
10 Juniper berry (powdered)
1 Bouillon cube
6 dl water
2 TBS soy sauce
1 TBS wine vinegar
2 big red onions chopped large pieces
2 dl mushrooms (we used chanterelle this time)
3 TBS Maizena Corn Starch
3 bay leaf dried

The making:

It is very easy; I started with the meat and a frying pan and a little butter. Then I moved the meat over to the casserole and did the same with the onions and the mushrooms. Then you can add all the rest except for the Maizena. Let it cook until the meat is tender, then add the maizena and give it a couple of minutes and it is ready! As you can see on the picture I had a little of sweet corn in, but that was just because I had a half can opened from yesterday.

Serve it with potatoes, carrots and mountain cranberry.

The wine:

And of course a wine recommendation at the end; Crozes-Hermitage from Guigal. Click on the link to read more about it on Winesworld.

Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.   Post writer – Morten – E-mail

The turkey

Since we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving or having turkey for Christmas dinner we decided to have it on the last day of 2008. The bird was about 5.5Kg and we roasted it in the oven on 160 degrees Celsius. It has a built-in thermometer so we thought it would roast for about 3 hours, but it popped much earlier. So it got a little hectic at the end in the kitchen, but it turned out just find.

The stuffing

The stuffing was made of bacon, mushroom, parsley, bread and a little sour cream. We do like to try out different kind of stuffing; this one was quite nice except of the bread that got a little mushy.

The sauce

We used the heart, liver, neck and gizzard and cut it up in pieces. Then we cooked it in water for about an hour and used the juice for the sauce. The bird was roasted on a grid with water under it, so we got a little juice for the sauce her to.

The result

We were happy with the result of the roasting, even though the bird was finish before the time we had estimated. I had planned for setting up the temperature on the oven the last half hour to get more golden color on the bird, but had to leave that out.

The wine

My choice for wine this evening was a 2004 Vosne-Romanée from Arnoux. The wine review you can read all about it in Winesworld, but I can say that we were very pleased with the wine.

2009

We do hope 2009 will give us and all our readers many happy times and may good moments with a lot of great food and wine.

Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.   Post writer – Morten – E-mail

Lutefisk is made from air-dried or salted/dried whitefish (normally cod, but ling is also used), prepared with lye, in a sequence of particular treatments. The watering steps of these treatments differ slightly for salted/dried whitefish because of its high salt content. The first treatment is to soak the stockfish in cold water for five to six days (with the water changed daily). The saturated stockfish is then soaked in an unchanged solution of cold water and lye for an additional two days. The fish will swell during this soaking, attaining an even larger size than in its original (undried) state, while its protein content decreases by more than 50 percent, producing its famous jelly-like consistency. When this treatment is finished, the fish (saturated with lye) has a pH value of 11–12, and is therefore caustic. To make the fish edible, a final treatment of yet another four to six days of soaking in cold water (also changed daily) is needed. Eventually, the lutefisk is ready to be cooked.

Cooking
Lutefisk does not need any additional water for the cooking; it is sufficient to place it in a pan, salt it, seal the lid tightly, and let it steam cook under a very low heat for 20–25 minutes. It is also possible to do this in an oven. There, the fish is put in an oven proof dish, covered with aluminum foil, and baked at 225 °C (435 °F) for 40–50 minutes.

Eating
In the Nordic Countries, the “season” for lutefisk starts early in November and typically continues through Christmas. Lutefisk is also very popular in Nordic-North American areas of Canada, especially the prairie regions and the large Finnish community at Sointula on Malcolm Island in the province of British Columbia, and the United States, particularly in the Upper Midwest and Northwest. From October to February, there are numerous lutefisk feeds in cities and towns around Puget Sound.

Red Wine
It is a little bit difficult with red wine, but perhaps a Ripasso would do nicely. The best wine is fruity with some tannins.

Giacomo Montresor Valpolicella Classico Rip. Capitel della Crosara 2006 NKr.: 145.-.

Source: Wiki

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Pinnekjøtt (literally “stick meat”) or Dried mutton ribs is a traditional Christmas dish in the western parts of Norway. Pinnekjøtt is salted, dried and sometimes smoked lamb’s ribs which are re hydrated, usually 12-24 hours in pure water and then steamed, usually, but not necessarily, over birch branches, and served with potato and mashed rutabaga. Traditionally, beer and aquavit are served with pinnekjøtt, but it has become increasingly popular to drink red wine instead, perhaps since wine is becoming more popular in general.

source: Wiki

Red Wine to the dish:

Château Ferran 2006 NKr.: 197.-.

Zenato Valpolicella Cl. Superiore Ripassa 2006 NKr.: 183.-.

Niepoort Vinhos Batuta Tinto 2005 NKr.: 499.-.

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This recipe is one of 3-4 traditional Norwegian Christmas dinners. Here are the recipes and some tips on matching red wine:

Ingredients:
500g of ribs pr. Person, Salt, pepper and water.

The Recipes
Saw through the bone so the ribs can be pulled apart for serving. Score the rind. Rub with salt and pepper 1 or 2 days before roasting. Pour 2 dl (3/4 cup) water into the roasting dish, and cover the ribs with foil. Roast in the middle of the oven at 230°C for 30 – 40 minutes. Remove the foil and lower to 200°. Roast spare ribs for a further 1 1/2 hours and midribs for a further 2 – 2 1/2 hours. Leave for 20 minutes before carving.
Serve with pork sausage patties, Christmas sausages, the juice, sauerkraut, cranberries and any other family favorites.

Here are 4 wines that we have tried out:

1. Masi Passo Doble Malbec Corvina 2006 for about 130.- NKr.

2. Château Ferran 2003 for about 170.- NKr.

3. Bodegas Lan Gran Reserva 1996 for about 189.- NKr.

4. Niepoort Vinhos Batuta Tinto 2004 for about 499.- NKr.

Click on the wines to read more about them and to see how we liked them.

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Fårikål (lamb in cabbage) is a traditional Norwegian dish, consisting of pieces of lamb’s meat with bone, cabbage and whole black pepper. In fact it has been voted the national dish for Norway. It has its own fan club and they have a special day in September which is the day of the fårikål (the last Thursday in September).

It is a very simple dish to make. You need three ingredients: Lamb, cabbage and pepper. Begin with a large casserole and lay it in layers. Start with the meat then cabbage and whole black pepper. Stop when the casserole is full. Add some water about 3 dl and maybe a little salt.

Then place the casserole on the stove and let it cook on low heat for about 2 hours; until the meat is finish cooked and you can see it when it slips easily from the bones. You must not stir in this process! The whole dish makes it selves.

Then it is time to serve it hot and steamy with some potatoes. It is a job to do before you can eat it to take away the whole black pepper, but that is a part of the tradition.

Wine tips for this dish is a little tricky but you can try this one: Misteri ( ICRF ) or this one: João Pato Touriga Nacional.

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We have been in Italy and tasted lasagna and decided to try to create our own version. Aka lasagna – the Italian way. And here is the result, the recipe and photos:

Meat sauce
————-
3.5 kg minced meat
3 dove garlic
12 rasped carrots
4 bottles of Dolmio pasta sauce (500g) with extra spices

white sauce
——
500 gram butter
flour ca 3dl
white pepper
3 bouillon cube ( chicken/turkey )
ca. 3/4 nutmeg
ca. 3 L milk
some sugar

–

Pasta
———-
10 egg
1 kg pasta flour
little olive oil

We start with some ingredients. We have a big form, so it goes with a lot of minced meat. Cook minced meat with chopped garlic. Then put in the pasta sauce and grated carrots.

This is the Ingredients for the white sauce. I will not go into how to make white sauce here, but it should taste good of pepper and nutmeg.

Here is the finished fried minced meat with pasta sauce and carrots.

Real homemade pasta is a must and everyone is helping out.

Start by adding a thin layer with minced meat.

Then we add a layer of pasta sheets and covers with the sauce. It is important to get the edges good covered with sauce. The mid need not be 100% covered.

After some work it looks like this.

After 1 hour and 15 minutes it looks like this. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees with a little higher temperature at the end. Cover the top the first half hour. With this recipe we have food to 15-20 people. We were 8 this time and ate half.

Finally, I can sit down and enjoy dinner with a glass of red wine.

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Pastry
——
3.5 dl of all-purpose flour, 30 g. sugar, 110 g. butter, 1 egg.

Make an ordinary pastry, part the butter into dices and mix everything together. Let it stand in the refrigerator for 1 hour. This is important for the pastry to be nice to work with. Roll it out and make it a little bigger than the baking tin. Brush the form with butter; do not use liquid it wills just flows down from the edges. Add it so carefully into the tin and have the pastry go over the edge. Fill the baking tin with a bag of rice / boiler, so it covers the bottom. This is to prevent the pastry from creeping down. Bake it in the oven at 180 degrees C. for 10 minutes.

Blend 3 dl with red currants and 3 dl with raspberry and some sugar. Let the mixture be a little sour than you want the result to be. We’re going to have icing sugar on top and it makes it much sweeter afterwards. Mix in 3 tablespoons with cornstarch. Let some of the red currants be whole and crush the rest. Put it in the tin and bake for 25 minutes.

Let the pie be cold before you cut off that’s too much of your pastry around the edges. This way it is possible to achieve a fine and round edge. The form I used here is far too high in relation to the pie so it will not be 100% ‘pretty’. Make icing with lots of room essence and have at the top. Ornaments with what you like.

Then it’s just to enjoy.

The ripe fruits are golden-yellow, soft and juicy, and are rich in vitamin C. Cloudberries occur naturally throughout the Northern Hemisphere from 78°N, south to about 55°N, and very scattered south to 44°N mainly in mountainous areas. Cloudberry is the official flower in Finnmark, Norway. The plant can be about 30 cm height and has a crawling trunk.

Cloudberry cream:
Ingredients:
4 dl full cream
3 dl Cloudberry with adequate castor sugar

Just mix it together. Use it on waffles or just eat it from a bowl. In Norway in some families it is a tradition to have cloudberry cream on Christmas dessert.

Recipe
—
Begin with tuna in the bottom, then a little dill and shrimps. Continue with asparagus and mussel. Scampi around the edge and shrimps, asparagus, dill on the top. Mix together the marinade and pour carefully over the salad.

ingredients
—
Tuna fish
Dill
Shrimps
Asparagus ( boiled )
Mussel ( steamed )
Scampi ( fried in oil & garlic )

Marinade
—
1 Lemon
1 dl extra virgin olive oil
Black pepper
1 Pinch salt
Chopped dill

- smoked salmon
- roasted sesame
- grated Parmesan cheese
- fresh thyme
- fresh basil
- salad
- extra virgin olive oil on the top