Pork tenderloin with black currant sauce

Cook the jam together,
add butter

Have you ever made sauce from black currants and eaten apples instead of potatoes? Well I found this French recipe from one cooking book I got as a present. Curiosity made me to try this dish and I loved it.

 

For four people have:

800 g pork tenderloin
4 apples
2 dl of black currant jam
Butter
Cinnamon
Salt
Pepper

Cook the apples and add
cinnamon

   (Frozen or fresh black currant berries)

Take the tenderloin out from the fridge and let it be in the room temperature for couple of hours. Fry the tenderloin on high temperature until it is golden brown on all sides. Take the meat on the side and put it back on the pan when the pan has cooled down. Add salt and black pepper on the meat. Cook the tenderloin on low temperature under a lid for 15-20 minutes.

Cook the sliced apples for 10 minutes in oil or butter and mix the cinnamon in the end.



So good!

Take the meat on the side and let it rest inside a tin foil. Cook together the black currant jam with some butter on the pan you cooked the meat on. If you want you can add some fresh or frozen black currant in the sauce.

Place the apple slices first on a plate, then the tenderloin and pour the sauce on top.

Bon app!

Pumpkin soup

Jack-o-lantern

Halloween is near and I wanted to make my first jack-o-lantern ever. It turned out to look really nice for my first lantern J I guess people usually throws the inside of the pumpkin away but I decided to make a soup out of it.

1 pumpkin (you will need about 500 g of its meat for the soup)

2 carrots
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
Chili (fresh or powder)
1 dl cream
1 l of vegetable bouillon
Coriander
Salt
Pepper

Open the pumpkin on the top and use ice cream spoon to get the meat and the strings out. Wash the seeds and let them to dry. You can roast the seeds in the oven in 160 degrees for 20-30 minutes.

Chop the onion and garlic and cook it lightly on a pan with oil (or butter) and chili for 1-2 minutes. Add the pumpkin meat and the carrots and cook the mix for few minutes. Add the bouillon and let it cook for 20 minutes. Mix the soup with a hand blender. If you use the hand blender you can use actually everything inside from the pumpkin, not the just the meat but also the “strings” where the seeds were.

Blend with hand blender



Use ice cream spoon
to take out the meat

What you need is...



Serve with coriander and
roasted pumpkin seeds

Add the cream and let it boil once. Taste with salt and pepper and serve with fresh coriander and roasted pumpkin seeds. Try the soup also with some goat cheese like chevre ;)
 

Happy Halloween!

White chocolate mousse with touch of mint



Mix the egg with chocolate

This dessert doesn’t need any long presentations: white chocolate mousse.

 

For four people you need:

 

3 dl cream

3 egg yolks

150 g white chocolate

Dark chocolate with mint taste

 

Melt the white chocolate either in a water bed or on a low temperature in a casserole. Be careful when melting the chocolate because it can burn
easily. Let the chocolate to cool down a bit and then mix the egg yolks in it.

 




Mix the egg mix with
whipped cream

Whip the cream and add the egg mix in it. Stir it well.

 

Break the mint chocolate into small pieces and mix it with the mousse. Before serving let the mousse to be in a fridge at least an hour.

Chicken in red curry

This is just one version of red curry. I have used here chicken but you can also try it with salmon. For spice up the red curry more you can use fresh chili. Remember that the hotness of chili is in its seeds.

Ingredients:

4 dl coconut milk

300 g sliced chicken
3 teaspoons of red curry paste
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
2 carrots
4 thin slices of fresh ginger
Lime leaves
Lemon grass
2,5 dl chicken or vegetable bouillon
2-3 teaspoons of soy sauce
1-2 teaspoons of fish sauce
1 spring onion
Bok Choy leaves
(Juice of ½ lime)

Fry the chicken slices to golden brown in soy oil. Add the sliced onion, garlic and carrot pieces and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the red curry and coconut milk and stir it well. Add the soy sauce, fish sauce, bouillon, ginger, lemon grass and lime leaves. Let it cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the bok choy leaves and spring onion during the last minute of cooking. If you like the taste of lime you can add also some lime juice in the end of cooking.

 Serve with sticky rice.

Macaroni casserole



This Finnish classic reminds me about my childhood. It was my absolute favorite then and it still tastes so good. I will only tell about the milder basics of the recipe, because nowadays I have turned this classic into my version with garlic, sweet pepper powder, rosemary, chili and other herbs and spices I like. You may also try this casserole with blue cheese etc.

What you will need?

5 dl macaroni
400 g minced meat
2 eggs
5 dl milk
1 onion
Salt
Pepper
Sugar




Mix the macaroni and meat together.

Pour the egg milk on
macaroni.

Set the oven to 175 °C. Cook the macaroni according to the instructions on the macaroni bag. Fry the minced meat with onion on the frying pan adding salt and pepper.



Prepare the egg and milk mix by mixing the eggs and milk together. Taste with some salt, pepper and a bit of sugar.

 



Serve with green salad.

Mix the meat and macaroni together and put it into an oiled crock pot. Pour the egg-milk on top of it.



Let the casserole to be in the oven for an hour. During the last 10 minutes you can sprinkle some cheese on top of it.

Serve with green salad.



Wontons and sashimi

Close the wontons by making them
into small "bags".

I love Asian food. It’s full of taste and flavours of all kind. Spicy, sweet and/or salty at the same time. I found wontons about a year ago when I read about them on a magazine. I call wontons Asian raviolis, but only tastier and crispier. You don’t need to make the wonton sheets yourself, because many Asian stores sell them frozen. In this recipe I used chicken, but you can make vegetarian wontons or use fish, pork or whatever suits to your taste.

Fried chicken as wonton filling.

 For five people you will need:

40-50 wonton sheets (I used one package)

300 g sliced chicken

Soy sauce

Ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce)

Sweet chili

Onion

Garlic

Soy oil

Wasabi powder. Add only a
drop of water.

Let the wonton sheets to defrost. Frie the chicken in soy oil until golden brown. Season according to your taste with soy sauce, sweet chili and ketjap manis. Add the pressed garlic and onion pieces. Let it cook on a low fire 5-10 minutes.

Place a small amount of chicken on wonton sheets and close them with your fingers. You can either deep frie them in oil or then prepare them on a pan with oil.

I also served sashimi with wontons. Slice the salmon in to thin slices.

Frie the wontons in oil.

For wasabi I have started to use wasabi powder. You just add a very small amount of water to the powder and mold the dough in to balls.

Serve the sashimi with wasabi, soy sauce and pickled ginger. Use sweet chili sauce as a dip for wontons. You may also serve some fresh bok choy leaves.

Honey braised duck breast

Duck – king of all birds. If you prepare it well you will have a tasty and juicy dinner. Some people do not like to eat meat red or pink but with duck you should leave the meat pink.

2 duck breast
Salt
Pepper
2 tea spoons of honey
2 apples
4 mushrooms

Let the duck breasts be in the room temperature for couple of hours before starting to cook them. When you start cooking them cut squares on the fat but make sure you do not cut the meat. Add some black pepper and salt on the fat side. Cook the duck first the fat side facing the pan for some 5 minutes. After this cook the meat side on the pan for 1 minute.

Take the meat out from the pan and place it on a baking tray. Spread 1 tea spoonful of honey on each of the breast pieces and put them in to the oven for 5 minutes for 180 degrees.

Slice the apples and mushrooms and fry them in the duck fat left on the frying pan. Put the apple pieces and mushrooms in the oven together with the duck.

Apple pie

Autumn is also season for apples. Cinnamon and apples are like made to each other. Here is one recipe of the apple pie we use.

6 apples

100 g of butter
2 food spoons of sugar
1,5 dl oat flakes
1,5 dl flour
Cinnamon

Slice the apples and place them on an oiled casserole. Put cinnamon on the top of the apples according to your taste.

Mix the butter, sugar, oat flakes and flour together and shread it on the apples. Cook the pie in the oven for ca 30 minutes in 200 degrees. Serve either with ice cream or vanilla custard.

Creamy chantarelle sauce

Mushrooms, I love mushrooms! When you mix them with butter, cream and flour the magic happens and you have the best sauce in the world.

Frie the chantarelles first without any oil or butter so that the water vaporizes from the mushrooms. Add oil or butter and frie the mushrooms golden brown. Add couple of food spoonfuls of flour and cook couple of minutes the mixture. Add 2-3 dl cream and let it cook slowly for some 15 minutes. Use salt and pepper according to your taste.

 

Yammi J

 

Lamb in cabbage

Season is here and every Norwegian is making “fårikål” or lamb in cabbage. In the old days the meat that was used to this stew was from the old sheep and for this reason the cooking time needed to be rather long. Nowadays the meat can come from the young animals and different parts of the animals, but the best meat is the meat that suits for a long cooking time.

 

You will need

 

Ca 1kg of lamb meat for stew
1 whole cabbage
Black pepper
Flour
Salt

Cut the cabbage in to slices or boats. When putting the meat and cabbage into a large casserole start with meat. Put the fat side towards the bottom. Add the cabbage and then lot of whole black pepper, a bit of salt and a bit of flour. Add then a layer of meat and after this cabbage, black pepper, salt and flour. Continue like this so long that you have made layers of all the meat and cabbage. Pour some 3 dl of water on top. The cabbage itself contains a lot of water so you do not need more than 3 dl to avoid burning the meat in to the casserole. Put the lid on and cook for some 4 hours on low fire.

Some serve this dish with potatoes but I think it is quite enough with only meat and cabbage. The dish is just simple and so delicious as such.