Forest berry crumble

Place the berries on a
oiled casserole

As there are still some warm summer days left what would be nicer than a warm pie with berries.

250 g berries
75 g butter
2 dl flour
1 dl brown sugar
1 dl white sugar
1 dl oat flakes

30 min 180˚C

Put the oven to 180˚C. Mix the flour, sugar and oat flakes with butter. It does not matter if there are bigger pieces in the dough. Put some oil on a casserole and berries on it. Spread the dough on the berries and put the casserole in to the oven for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

After this you can take the pie out from the oven. I wanted to have a crispy crust so I turned off the oven and left the pie in there for another 20 minutes before serving it with vanilla sauce.

Pulled pork - Slow cooking

Pork loin and marinade

I heard from a colleague of mine that slow food is now becoming a trend in Stockholm. He told me about pulled pork that is an American barbeque dish with many different variations from state to state. You need pork loin, but it is up to you what kind of a sauce you will use: sweet barbeque, mustard or liquid smoke. I used the liquid smoke and I have combined different recipes I found from Internet when making this dish.

For 4 people you will need:

About  1 kg of pork loin

1 dl ketchup

0,5 dl mustard
2 tablespoons of tomato purée
1,5 tablespoons of brown sugar (or more)
0,5 dl apple cider vinegar
1,5 tablespoons of Worcester sauce
1 tablespoon of liquid smoke (you can use less or more depending on your own taste)
1 teaspoon of tabasco

Prepare the sauce the day before. Mix all the ingredients together. Put the pork loin in to a plastic bag and pour the sauce on the meat.

The next day let the meat to be in the room temperature about 2 hours. I usually do this to avoid that the meat is not too cold when I start to prepare it. Set the oven to 100˚C. Put some olive oil to a crock pot and place the meat in it under tin foil. Let the meat to cook for some 8 hours.



Let the pork be under tin
foil for 8 hours.

Take out the tin foil from the meat and let it cook for 10 minutes in 225˚C. This will give a crispy crust for the pork. Take the pork out from the oven and let it rest under tin foil for 30 minutes.




Cut the meat in small
pieces.

After this cut the meat in small pieces using 2 forks. Put the pieces of pork back to the crock pot and mix it with the sauce that was left in the pot from the cooking.

Serve with white bread.




Serve it on top of white bread.

Mussles

Mussles

This dish I cook quite often because it is pretty simple. You only need some mussles and vegetables. Before you start preparing the food make sure you wash the mussles a bit and remove “the beard” from them. If you notice any shells that are broken throw those mussles away. It is important that you only use mussles that are alive. This recipe is for 2 people and usually 1 kg of mussles is enough.



Cook the vegetables
in olive oil.

1 kg mussles

1 celery
2 shallots
2 carrots
½ fennel
1 turnip
2 cloves of garlic
2 dl white wine
Olive oil
 Water
 


Add wine and water.

Cut the vegetables. Put couple of table spoons olive oil in a large casserole and add the vegetables. Cook the vegetables for a couple of minutes and then add the wine and water until the vegetables are just about under the water. Cook for 4-5 minutes.

Add the mussles to the boiling water and let them be steamed under a lid until all the mussles are opened. To make sure that mussles are opened during cooking you may carefully shake the casserole.

Enjoy the mussles with white bread and butter. If you see mussles that are still closed after cooking throw them away and do not eat them. 
 

Eat only mussles that are open.

 

Mustard chicken with red onion and tomato salad

Use tinfoil to keep the
grill clean

It is a barbeque season so why not to put something nice to the grill. When cooking chicken I usually take it on the safe side, but today I found a recipe that sounded exciting – chicken with mustard.

1 lemon

2 garlic cloves

4 tablespoons of mustard

2 whisks of rosemary

Olive oil

1 whole chicken or 2 large chicken legs

After 45-60 minutes the
chicken is ready

Squeeze the juice from the lemon and mix together with mustard, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, chopped rosemary and pressed garlic. Season the chicken with some salt and pepper. Rub the mustard mixture carefully on the chicken. Grill the chicken in a very low temperature about 45-60 minutes or until the bones separate from the meat. A hint: if you want to keep you grill clean put some tinfoil on the grill and place the chicken on the foil.

Serve the chicken with
lovely tomatosalad

Serve the chicken with some new potatoes and red onion & tomato salad. For the salad you need 4 cut tomatoes, ½ sliced red onion, ½ teaspoon of vinegar and a bit of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Rhubarb soup (Stewed rhubarb)

Sliced rhubarb

Another of my favorite summer desserts is rhubarb soup or stewed rhubarb like someone would call it. The recipe is really easy and this time I don’t have measurements for water and so on.

For this soup I used two rhubarbs that I cut in pieces. You cook them in water for few minutes until the structure of the rhubarb breaks. Mix 1-2 tablespoons of potato flour in a glass of cold water and mix it together with the boiled rhubarb. When you see the first bubble in the soup take the cattle away from the stove. After adding the potato flour do not let the soup to boil anymore. Add sugar according to your own taste. If you like the soup a bit sour don’t use that much of sugar. I used about 0,5 – 1 dl of sugar for a sweet soup.

Rhubarb soup with vanilla ice
cream

Serve it with vanilla sauce or vanilla ice cream.

Cream of shrimp soup

Frozen shrimps

On the last day of June a nice Sunday lunch is a summery creamy soup with shrimps. This time of the year you can get fresh shrimps, but also frozen ones suit well. I once saw on TV how they made this soup and it looked like that anyone could make it. This recipe is for 3-4 persons.

 

I used a bit bigger pieces
of vegetables.

1 kg shrimps
2 tablespoons of tomatopuré
Olive oil
4 dl white wine
2 carrots
½ fennel
2 celeries
2 shallots
3 dl cream
Salt
Pepper
2 tablespoons of corn starch (Maizena)

Decor with chive and serve with some white
bread.

Peel the shrimps and cook the scales for a few minutes in olive oil. Add the tomatepuré and wine. If you prefer not to use wine just use water in stead. Pour water until the covers are under water and cook on a low fire for 20 minutes. Sieve the stock and the cut vegetables in it. Cook for some 10 more minutes. After that you can add the cream and taste the soup with salt and pepper. Mix the corn starch with cold water and pour it to the soup. Do not let the soup to boil in this point anymore. Now you can add the peeled shrimps to the soup. It’s important that you don’t cook the shrimps because otherwise they will become like gum.

 
Enjoy!

Rhubarb pie (Rhubarb crumble)

Every summer it is a big joy when you can get rhubarb either from your local store or from your own garden. Here is one version of this classic summer dessert.

Springle the sugar on rhubarb.

2-4 long rhubarbs
Sugar
Brown sugar
150 g butter
2 dl flour
1 dl oat flakes

Put the dough on rhubarb.

Don’t forget to set the oven to 200 ˚C. Slice the rhubarbs to thin slices and place them on casserole that has bit of oil on it. Sprinkle sugar and brown sugar on rhubarb slices. You can also put a hint of vanilla sugar on them, too.

Serve the pie warm with vanilla custard
or vanilla ice cream.

Blend the flour, oat flakes and some sugar (according to your taste) with the butter. Put the dough on the sliced rhubarb in the casserole. Place the pie in to oven and let it be there 20-30 minutes or until it is golden brown. Serve it, for instance, with vanilla custard.

Bon app!