Chili-salsa

And the dinner continues and what would tortillas be without a good salsa?

With right ingredients homemade salsa is the best.

One pot of chilantro
3-4 tomatoes
0,5 - 1 red onion
1 green pepper
2 red chilis (fresh or dried)
2 limes
olive oil

Cut the tomatoes in half and press the juice out of them. Dice the tomatoes, onion and green pepper. Cut the chilantro and chili. Mix all the earlier mentioned ingredients in a bowl and press lime juice on it. Pour some olive oil and season with salt.

To prevent the extra liquid in salsa remember to press the
juice out of tomatoes.

Pickled red onion

Home-made pickled red onion are easier than you think.

As I had authentic Mexican dinner for my friends, of course, I had to serve pickled red onion with tortillas.

2 red onion
0,5 dl vinegar
1 dl sugar
1,5 dl water
5 slices of unpeeled ginger

Cook quickly vinegar, sugar, water and ginger and then pour it on the sliced red onion. Let the onion to pickle over night.

Serve on top of a tortilla.

Achiote marinated pork

Authentic Mexican tacos, so good :)

This recipe I got from a friend of mine who also loves Mexican food. First I had a problem if I could find achiote paste in stores but luckily I found a little shop selling Mexican ingredients for cooking. They even had stuff for tamales which I am gonna try in future.

I had dinner for 4 people and there for I only had 1,2 kg of pork shoulder:

1,2 kg pork shoulder
3 tbsp achiote paste
2 tbsp chili powder or chili flakes
1 tbsp minced garlic or garlic powder
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
2 dl vinegar
2,5 dl pineapple juice

Slice the pork shoulder. Mix all the ingredients well together and pour on the meat. Marinate minimum of 2 hours. I had the meat in marinate over night.

Pile the meat on top of each other and place pineapple rings on top. Cook in the oven for about 2 hours in 150 ºC.

Cook in low temperature for about 2 hours.

Cut the meat in small pieces so it fits your tacos or tortillas.

Hot sauce from Aji Mirasol

I wanted to make New Mexican red chili sauce but found only Aji Mirasol from the local store. Here I have combined a New Mexican chili sauce recipe with a Aji Mirasol sauce recipe I found on Internet. The fresh chili is calledd Aji Amarillo and they come from Peru.

Ingredients for the sauce.

This recipe will give you 0,5 l of chili sauce:

20 dried pods of Aji Mirasol
3 cloves of garlic
half large onion
7 dl water or vegetable buillon
1 tsp dried oregano
0,5 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp vinegar

Remove the stems and the seeds from chili pods. Pour the water in a casserole and add the chilis, garlic, onion and oregano. Boil the mix on low fire for 15 minutes. Let it sit for 10 more minutes.

When the chilis look like this you can put them into a mixer.

Put everyhing into a mixer with cumin and vinegar and mix it to a smooth chili sauce. Season with salt.

Wonderful chili sauce for instance to use in tortillas.

Lamb shank

Ingredients could not be easier.

We are in the half of October and during fall and closer to winter food is getting heavier and richer in taste. Today I have tried something I have never tried before - lamb shack. I had this many years ago in England and I just love the long cooking time for the meat.

For 2 persons you need:

3 tbsp flour

a small bunch of chilantro

salt

pepper

2 lamb shanks

2 carrots

1/4 of celery root (one big slice)

1 red onion

1 dl apple juice

0,5 dl balsamico

400 g mashed tomatoes

2 tsp coriander seeds

thyme

4-5 cloves garlic

Mix the flour, chilantro, salt and pepper and roll the lamb shanks in the flour mix. Cook on a frying until golden brown. Take the meat from the an and place it in an oven pot.

After rolling the lamb shanks in flour mix cook them on
a frying pan until golden brown.

Dice the carrots, celery root and red onion. Cook the vegetables for 5 minutes with oil. Pour the apple juice and balsamico and cook until it is almost like syrupy. Add the mashed tomatoes, thyme and coriander seeds.

Pour the sauce on the lamb shanks and finally add the whole garlic cloves.

Cook in 130-140 °C for about 6 hours. Make sure you add a bit water if it starts looking dry. Once a while you can also pour the sauce from the oven pot on top of the meat.

Serve with mashed potates and salad.

After bout 6 hours you may enjoy your dinner.

Plum pie

Serve well cooled.

Summer went amazingly quickly and so did August. I have been busy with work and cooking. Now when the fall is here and it is plum season I wanted to try this amazing plum pie recipe.

This recipe is for a pie casserole of a 30 cm in diameter:

Pie dough:

140 g butter

1,5 dl sugar

1-2 eggs

3 dl flour

4 tbsp oat flakes

1,5 tsp baking powder

Filling:

150 g plums (sliced)

2-3 dl vanilla flavored quark

2-3 dl sour cream

1 egg

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

Set the oven for 175 ºC.

Mix the butter and sugar well together. Then mix the egg. Mix the flour, oat flakes and baking powder in a separate bowl. Mix the flour mix with the butter and sugar mix.

Spread the dough on a pie casserole that has been oiled.

Spread the dough on an oiled pie casserole.

Pour the vanilla flavored quark on the dough and spread evenly. Place the sliced plums on the quark. Mix the egg, sugar and vanilla sugar with sour cream. Pour the sour cream mix on plums

Slice the plums and place on the quark. After this pour the
sour cream mix on the plums.

Bake the pie in the oven for about 40 minutes. Serve cooled.

Bake the pie in the oven for 40 minutes or so.

Sweet cherry pie

Sweet and juicy cherry pie is good with ice cream.

This summer I tried something wonderful - a sweet cherry pie. The pie is really soft and juicy but I think it would be interesting to try the pie with a harder pie base.

Here is the recipe:

Pie base:
75 g butter
0,5 dl sugar
1 egg
1,5 dl flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Filling:
0,5 l cherries (remove the stones)
2-3 dl sour cream (this depends on how moist you want the pie to be because there is a lot of juice in the cherries themselves)
2 eggs
0,5 dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

Set the oven to 175 °C.

Mix the butter and sugar well together. Add the egg and mix again. Mix the flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar and finally mix it together with the egg-sugar mix. Spread the dough to a pie casserole. If you have a bigger pie casserole than 24 cm in diameter you might need a bit more dough than in this recipe.

After you have removed the stones from the cherries add them on the pie dough.

After removing the stones place the cherries on the pie dough.

Mix eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar and lemon juice with sour cream. Pour the mix on the pie.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes in 175 °C.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Red currant jelly

Perfect for cheese!

I got red currants from my mother-in-law without any idea what to do with them. Finally I found a recipe for red currant jelly and it was really easy to make.

For 1 jar of jelly you will need

1 kg red currants
2-3 dl water per kilo of berries
800 g sugar for a liter of juice

Add the water and red currants in a casserole and let them to boil under a lid on a low fire for half an hour.

Boil the berries in 2-3 dl water on a low fire for 30 minutes
under a lid.

Strain the juice from the cooked berries.

Let the juice to boil for couple of more minutes. I had about 0,5l juice so I only had about 300-400 g of sugar. Add the sugar slowly to the juice stiring it all the time until the sugar has dissolved.

Slowly add the sugar to the boiling juice.

Let the juice to boil for another 15 minutes and remove the white foam that appears on top.

Take some juice with a tea spoon and pour it on a cold plate. Draw with the spoon in the middle of the juice drop and if it gathers on the spoon the jelly is ready. If not, then add some more sugar and let it boil a bit more.

Boil the jelly jar before using it. Pour the ready jelly in a jar and close the jar immediately. Cool down before placing it in a fridge.

Red currant jelly is perfect with meat, cheese plate etc.

Lemon curd tart

Garnish with berries for example. My baby girl made the
finger marks on the top :)

I have made lemon curd tarts before and I have also published a recipe in November 2014 in this blog. Here is a new recipe with small variation compared to the old one.

Tart base:
170 g butter
1 1/4 dl sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla sugar
4 1/4 dl flour
(salt if you are using non-salted butter)

Lemon curd:

grated zest of 4 lemons
1 1/4 dl lemon juice
3,5 dl sugar
115 g butter
4 eggs
pinch of salt

Mix the butter and sugar together. Add the vanilla sugar. Mix the flour with the butter mix. Press the dough in to a pie pan and put it to the fridge for about an hour to cool down.

Set the oven to 175 °C.

Put a tin foil on the dough and fill it for instance with rice. This will prevent the edges of the pie to fall down when in the oven. Put the dough in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove the rice and tin foil and let the tart be in the oven for another 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool down the tart after taking it out from the oven.

Tin foil and rice will help you
to keep the edges of the tart
up.

For the lemon curd you need to grate the zest of the lemons. Avoid the white part because this will only give bitter taste to the curd. Take the lemon juice you squeezed from the lemons aside. Mix the lemon zest and sugar together. Add the butter that is at room temperatue and mix well together with the sugar mix. Add the eggs to the mix. Finally, add the lemon juice and salt. Mix well.

Mix the lemon zest and sugar together.

Heat up the curd on a low fire until it starts to thicken. Mix the curd all the time. Remove the thickened curd from the stove and pour it on top of the tart.

On a low fire cook the curd until it thickens. Do not let the
curd to boil!

Let the tart to cool down, place it in the fridge after this and serve it on the next day.

Just amazing yellow colour!

Kimchi fried rice

Serve with a fried egg.

Here is another recipe I have used the wonderful chili paste called gochujang. All you need basically is rice and kimchi.

You will need:

3 dl rice (it will be around 6-7 dl when cooked)
2 dl kimchi
1 dl kimchi juice
1 tbsp gochujang
0,5 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
spring onion
fried eggs

Cook the rice and sprinkle heated sesame oil on it. Mix the rice.

Squeeze the juice from kimchi, this will be the kimchi juice. Mix gochujang and soy sauce with with kimchi juice until completely dissolved.

Kimchi juice you will get by squeezing it out from kimchi.

Chop the kimchi and fry it on a pan until it gets brown. Mix the cooked rice with fried kimchi.

After stir-frying the kimchi and rice pour the kimchi juice
and mix well.

Now pour the kimchi juice mixture over the the rice and mix well. Cook until the color is brown.



Garnish with spring onion and place a fried egg on top. You may also season the kimchi fried rice with soy sauce if you need some more saltiness.

Gochujang marinated pork

Serve on rice and green salad and garnish with
chilantro and mint.

I saw on TV one cooking show where they used a Korean chili paste called gochujang. I had no idea how it would taste like but I had to buy some. The end result with gochujang marinated pork was excellent!

You will need:

400 g pork loin
0,8 dl gochujang chili paste
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp grated ginger
1,5 tsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
0,5 tsp sugar
salt
pepper

2 dl rice
half an iceberg lettuce
1-2 tomatoes
half a cucumber
1 spring onion
chilantro
mint

Mince the garlic and grate the ginger and mix them together with gochujang, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, salt and pepper. Mix the marinate with thinly sliced pork loins and let the meat to marinate about 2-3 hours or more.

Marinate minimum of 2 hours.

Cook the meat on a pan with some oil until the meat gets caramelized and is thoroughly cooked.

Cook until the meat is caramelized.

Cook the rice according to the instructions in the package. I used jasmine rice in this recipe.

The green salad you can do how ever you like but I used iceberg lettuce here. Chop the lettuce, slice the tomatoes, cucumber and spring onion.

Chop the chilantro and mint. Don't mix these with salad.

Place first the rice on the plate, then the green salad and finally the pork. Garnish with chilantro and mint.

So hot and spicy, but still so good.

Bon app!

Donughts

Cover the donughts with sugar.

Finnish donughts or whatever donughts may not be healthy but they are good :) I usually make donughts only once a year because cooking them takes so long time.

You should get around 30-40 donughts with this recipe:

50 g yeast
5 dl milk
2 eggs
2 dl sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cardamom
14-16 dl flour
1,5 dl oil or softened butter

Warm up the milk to your hand temperature and mix the yeast in it. Then mix the eggs, sugar, salt and cardamom in the milk. Finally start adding the flour until you get the desired consistency. Then add the oil or softened butter and mix well.

Let the dough to double its size.

Let the dough to rest until it has doubled its size. Bake small balls from the dough and make a hole in the middle. Let them rize again.

Make small balls from the dough.

Heat up the cooking oil and cook the donughts in the oil until they are golden brown.

After you have made a hole in the middle you can
cook them in oil.

Place the donughts on a paper so the oil soaks in the paper.

Cover with sugar and enjoy :)

Bread with linseeds

Bake the bread in the oven for about an hour.

I have made bread rolls before but not a whole bread. I thought the bread would rise a bit more but maybe next time :)

Anyways, here is the recipe for two loafs:

500 g rye flour
500 g flour
1 dl linseeds
2 tbsp oil
2 tsp salt
50 g yeast
5 dl sour milk
3 dl water

Mix the yeast to the water that is you hand temperature. Add the sour milk, salt and linseeds. Mix well. Mix the rye flour and flour together and start adding the flour mix to the liquid. Finally add the oil.

Mix the dough for 5-7 minutes and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Mix the dough about 5-7 minutes and let it rest about 30 minutes.

The dough should double its size.

After this put the dough in two loaf casseroles. Sprinkle some water on top and cover with plastic. Let the dough pieces to rest about an hour.

Let the dough to rest in the loaf casseroles under plastic foil.

After 1 hour the dough should double its size again.

Bake the bread in 200 °C for 45-60 minutes.

Tagliatelle with scampi and lemon

Tagliatelle with scampi and lemon.

A good pasta can be with a tomato-based sauce but why not with sour cream. This recipe is one of my favorite pasta recipes because it is tasty and fast to cook.

For 2-3 persons:

7 rolls of whole wheat tagliatelle
10-15 scampis (peeled and clensed)
2-3 dl crème fraîche
2 garlic cloves
1 shallot
half a red chili pepper
0,5 lemon
parsley
salt
pepper

Cook the pasta according to the instructions in the package.

Peel the scampis, mince the garlic, slice the chili and shallot. Put everything on a pan and let them simmer until scampi is orange on both sides.

Cook the scampi on both sides until orange.

Pour the crème fraîche on scampi and mix well. Grate some lemon zest in the mix and add some lemon juice. Mix again and season with salt and pepper.

Mix the sauce with pasta and then add generously some parsley.

Stewed berries

Stewed berries or as I would say berry soup is my favorite from my childhood. You can use what kind or berries you wish. I don't cook the berries because I want to preserve the vitamins. Heating destroys the vitamin C.

Here is the recipe:

mixed berries
2-3 l water
1-2 tbsp potato flour
0,5-1 dl sugar

Add the sugar in water and cook the water to boil. Mix the potato flour in a glass of cold water. Pour the potato water in the boiling water and mix all the time. Take the casserole from the stove when the first bubble appears on the surface.

Add the berries to the base. I used frozen berries for this recipe.

Spring rolls with peanutbutter chicken

This weekend I made spring rolls for the first time. I improvised the filling and did not use minced meat but instead I used chicken.

3 chicken breast fillets
handfull of Chinese black mushrooms
2 large carrots
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp peanut butter
soy sauce
hoisin sauce
fish sauce
pepper
chili or sriracha sauce
spring roll pastry

Defrost the spring roll pastry. Put the black mushrooms to the water for 30 minutes if you are using dried mushrooms.

Cut the chicken meat into small pieces and fry golden brown on a pan. Add minced garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the peanut butter and according to your taste a bit of soy sauce, fish sauce, hoisin sauce and sriracha. Season with black pepper.

Slice the carrots into thin slices. Slice the soaked mushrooms into slices.

Place the pastry sheets so that one corner is towards you. Place some chicken, carrot and mushroom slices on the pastry. Now roll the corner closest to you over the filling, then roll the corner on the right over the roll and then the left corner. Now you can roll the spring roll over the last corner. On the last corner I used some egg so that the rolls would not open.

Cook the rolls in oil. Dip the rolls in sweet chili sauce and enjoy!

Lasagne

Serve with fresh salad.

This was my first time I made the lasagne sauce from scratch. Next time I might try to do the lasagne sheet as well, but we will see.

For four persons you will need:

Tomato sauce:
400 g minced meat
half an onion
3 garlic cloves
1 can of crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp tomatopuré
1 small can mushrooms
1 carrot
1 dl water
parpika powder
salt
pepper
basil leaves
thyme

Cheese sauce:
30-50 g butter
3 tbsp flour
6 dl milk
60 g grated parmesan cheese
salt
white pepper

Cook the meat thoroughly. Add the chopped onion, minced garlic, chopped carrot, crushed tomatoes, tomatopuré, mushrooms, salt, pepper and paprika powder. Finally add 1 dl water and let the sauce to cook on low fire for about 10 minutes. Chop the basil and thyme and mix them in the sauce at the end of the cooking time.

Prepare the cheese sauce by melting the butter and add the flour stirring all the time. Add the milk and stir well. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the sauce gets thick. Add the parmesan cheese and let it melt in the sauce, mix well. Season with salt and white pepper.

While the tomato sauce is cooking you can start cooking
the cheese sauce,

Oil the casserole. Pour some of the cheese sauce on the bottom and then add the tomato sauce. Place lasagne sheets on top. Then repeat by pouring the cheese sauce, tomato sauce and placing the lasagne sheets making layers. Start and finish the lasagne with the cheese sauce. Spread grated emmental and mozzarella cheese on top and cook the lasagne for about 35 minutes in 225 °C.

Serve with fresh salad.

Cook 30-40 minutes in 225 °C.