Oven tomatoes and garlic

This is the most simple and the most amazing way of preparing tomatoes. It is the Spanish way, and Spanish know their tomatoes.

They were served to us as tapas at one of the many tapas bars we visited in Spain this summer.
After some 45 minutes in the oven the taste of the tomato gets concentrated and the garlic transfers into a roasted mushy divine.

Oven tomatoes and garlic

serves 2
4 small tomatoes
6 garlic cloves in their skin
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven, 180C. Cut tomatoes in halves and drop some olive oil on each half. Season with salt and pepper. Put in the oven together with the garlic and roast for about 45 minutes. Time depends on how big the tomatoes and garlic are. The garlic should be soft and mushy when squeezed.
When done, squeeze some of the garlic on each half of the tomato, season more if necessary, drop some more olive oil if you like. I also sprinkled some dried oregano.

Rapeseed, 3rd part

When I returned to check on the rapeseed it was gone. The farmer had done his harvest.

I did find couple of straws on the side of the road and this is how the seeds look like when ready for harvest:

I cannot imagine how many of these tiny seeds you need to get one litre of rapeseed oil. I would have loved to find out and to continue the story about how the cold pressed rapeseed oil is made, but unfortunately my story about the rapeseed field ends here.
And as I mentioned before I only use cold pressed rapeseed oil, I never heat it and I store it in the fridge.

Mango Mexican way

Mango seasoned with salt, chili and lime is typical street food in Mexico. Whole mango is peeled and often cut to look like a flower, seasoned and sold on a stick.
Incredibly delicious, but as it is a bit tricky to eat whole mango on a stick I decided to cut it in cubes for this homemade version.

Cut each side around the mango bone so that you have two nice mango halves. Now cut cubes in each side, try not to cut through the skin. Flip the mango inside out, and you will have cubes out.

Peel of the cubes and put them in a bowl. Cut the mango flesh around the bone and add it to the mango cubes. Squeeze some lime juice over, sprinkle with some salt and chili powder.

Cherries

I love cherries. They are one of my favourite fruits. As a kid I have spent many summers sitting up in the cherry tree, picking and eating. The coolest thing was to eat the cherry-pit as well...not so cool anymore.
Cherries can be sweet (left) or sour (right) in taste, and there are many variates of each sort.

Sweet cherries are meaty in texture, they are less juicy than the sour cherries and it is easy to remove the pit. It was these cherries I was eating up in the tree and even today I only eat them fresh, no baking here.

Sour cherries on the other hand are very juicy, dark red and it is bit harder to remove the pit. They are really sour and flavourful so these are the cherries for cooking and baking.

And when it come to the baking, cherries and almonds are the perfect match. So I decided to make my favourite almond cake, Spanish cake called Tarta de Santiago. It is made of equal parts of eggs, sugar, almond flour and flavouring, very simple and very delicious.
I also wanted to use strudel dough (my latest obsession) and so was this sour cherry cake born.

Sour cherry cake
serves 6
3 eggs
200 gr sugar ( I used mixture of muscovado and cane sugar)

200 gr ground almonds (I used toasted almonds)
200 gr sour cherries
1,5 tbsp amaretto liqueur

2 dl bread flour
pinch of salt
1,5 tbsp oil
about 5 tbsp warm water

2 tbsp melted butter
2 tbsp sugar (from those 200 gr above)
2 tbsp ground almonds (from those 200 gr above)

baking dish 25x15 cm (1,3l)

Make the strudel dough , divide in 5 equal parts and let it rest for one hour. In the mean time pit the cherries. When the strudel dough has rested stretch each part individually. Brush the baking dish with melted butter and cover the bottom with one strudel sheet. Brush the sheet with melted butter and sprinkle some of the sugar and ground almonds over it.

Repeat until you have used all the strudel sheets. Do not sprinkle any sugar and almonds on the last sheet.

Preheat the oven, 180C. Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy and light in colour. Add amaretto and ground almonds. Blend carefully until everything is incorporated. Pour over the strudel layers, spread cherries over the almond filling and bake for about 30 minutes. Cute when cold. It tastes even better the next day.

Mexican chocolate pudding

When I saw the recipe for Mexican chocolate pudding in Gourmet I had to make it. I love everything about Mexican chocolate, it is too perfect. And this pudding recipe is using almond milk so I was very curious about how it will influence the flavour. And what can I say, excellent influence.

I have changed the recipe just a bit, I used muscovado sugar and less of it, I added more cornstarch and left out the butter completely. I also cooked the pudding the way I always do.

One important thing when it comes to the cinnamon. There are two different cinnamon types, Ceylon and Cassia. I learned this when I went to Mexico for the first time. In Mexico Ceylon cinnamon (right) is used, but in Sweden Cassia (left) is used.

The taste is really different so when you make Swedish cinnamon buns you have to use Cassia and when you make Mexican chocolate you have to use Ceylon. Otherwise they don´t taste as they should.

Mexican chocolate pudding
adapted from Gourmet serves 2
4+1 dl almond milk
3,5 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp muscovado sugar
4 tbsp cocoa powder (I used one with 10-12% cocoa butter)
1/2 tsp Ceylon cinnamon powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 vanilla bean

Put 4 dl almond milk in a saucepan. Scrape the vanilla bean and add to the milk together with the pod. Put the milk to boil.
In a small bowl mix all dry ingredients, slowly add 1 dl cold almond milk, whisk until everything is smooth. When the almond milk is boiling, take out vanilla pod and remove from heat. Add the cornstarch mixture, whisking all the time. Put back on the heat and and let it boil on low heat until it thickens, couple of minutes. Do not whisk that much as the cornstarch might go thin. Divide between two bowls and let chill.

Rapeseed, 2nd part

Rapeseed is continuing to grow. A month later and beautiful yellow flowers are gone but pods are much bigger. The seeds are already visible but completely green. I guess it will take some more weeks and a lot more sun to get these ready for oil pressing.

I was checking the world statistic of rapeseed production and Germany is actually at the 4th place. Speaking of statistics ¨The Food and Agriculture Organization¨ of the United Nations keeps statistics of worlds commodity production. You can search by commodity, country, continent...it is quite addictive!

This is top 10 worlds commodity production in 2007:

1. cow milk
2. rice
3. cattle meat
4. pig meat
5. chicken meat
6. wheat
7. hen eggs
8. soybeans
9. buffalo milk
10. vegetables

Atole

This week it looks like the summer has disappeared for a while. Temperatures have dropped down to 15 degrees and it is really cold for June (well, almost July). Not good at all. But the cold summer days would feel even colder if it wasn't for a Mexican drink called atole that can cure any cold summer day!

Atole is warm drink that is made with water, thickened with Mexican corn flour and flavoured with fresh fruits, chocolate, beans. Some atoles are made with milk and thickened with oats or cornstarch, there are quite few variations. This atole is made with pineapple and is perfect for a cold summer day.

Atole de piña

serves 2
4 dl water
2 dl fresh pineapple, puréed
4 tbsp corn flour for tortillas
sugar

Mix the water and the corn flour in a saucepan. Sieve the puréed pineapples into the sauce pan, if pineapple is not sweet enough put some sugar. Cook everything on low heat until thickened, about 10-15 minutes. Serve hot.

Currywurst

Currywurst is German national dish from Berlin. It is basically pork sausage that is fried in oil, sliced and served with curry-tomato sauce and curry powder. On the side you can find either french fries or bread roll, ketchup and/or mayonnaise.

It is so popular in the entire country that it is ranked top 5 favourite dish of the German. Bavaria might be kingdom of the sausages but Berlin currywurst is the Queen of them all.

Currywurst turns 60 this years and as the birthday present in August it is getting its own museum, Currywurst museum. I do not know if I would visit the museum but a currywurst when in Berlin is a must!

Sweet buckwheat dumplings

I wrote about semolina soup dumplings before and now it was time to test the sweet version of these dumplings. They are made of wheat semolina but I bought some buckwheat semolina and decided to use it instead.

Last time I made soup dumplings by soaking semolina in butter and egg, but sweet dumplings are made by cooking semolina in milk and adding egg when cooled. Just like when cooking semolina pudding, except that the mixture has to be very thick so that the dumplings can hold their shape.

The sweet buckwheat dumplings turned out delicious! I love how the buckwheat flavour comes forward, and the breadcrumbs and strawberries make a perfect match.

Sweet buckwheat dumplings
serves 2

1 dl buckwheat semolina
1 dl milk
2 tbsp butter
1/2 vanilla bean
zest of half of lemon
1 small egg

2 tbsp butter
6 tbsp breadcrumbs
2 tbsp muscovado sugar

strawberries to serve with

Pour the milk in a sauce pan, add butter and scraped vanilla seeds, the vanilla pod and the lemon zest. Bring everything to boil, take out the vanilla pod, add semolina, stir and cook for about 2 minutes until you have a very thick mixture. It should be so thick that it holds shape firmly. Let cool.

Heat the butter in pan, add breadcrumbs and cook on low temperature until the breadcrumbs get some colour. Add muscovado sugar and let everything sit in a pan.

When the semolina is cold, add egg and blend well. You should have somewhat softer dough but it should still hold its shape well. Divide the dough in 4 pieces. With wet hands form round balls. Bring a sauce pan with water to simmer, shape the dumplings again if they have become bit flatter on one side, put into the water, cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.

When dumplings are cooked, drain well and add to the pan with breadcrumbs. Shake the pan until the dumplings are covered with the breadcrumbs. Serve with sliced strawberries.

Strawberry field

The first strawberries of the year have arrived and this year we were lucky enough to be able to visit a strawberry filed for some strawberry picking.
It was tons of fun, and strawberries were too perfect: red, ripe, juicy, flavourful and sweet. I always go for small strawberries because the taste is more concentrated than in bigger strawberries. Smaller one ripen faster as well, and having fully ripen strawberries is the key to their flavour as they do not ripen after being picked like some other fruits.

And these flavourful strawberries will be eaten just like they are, or at the most sliced and enjoyed with other fruits. Nothing more.