Those fresh asparagus from Uus-Kongo farm at the Central Market have become popular. For example, there was none left when we made it to the market on Saturday morning. Granted, we got there shortly after noon (well, not exactly a morning, I know), and considering the market opens at 7am, the chances we'd find anything so special and delicious were small anyway. Same with fresh morels and new season's beetroot. None left.. But at least I managed to put an asparagus order in for Tuesday (Monday's crop was already counted for). Yesterday morning I got almost a kilogram of beautiful, fresh asparagus, so last night we had another asparagus meal. The dish is inspired by this Arla recipe, but ended up being something rather different, as I remembered the ingredients and the process wrong (used...
I had the most exiting discovery at the Tallinn Central Market (Keskturg) yesterday morning - fresh, local asparagus. Having got used to eating fresh and seasonal asparagus during late Spring/early Summer in Scotland, I was not inspired - not even a little bit - by the sad-looking Dutch specimens on offer here. As far as I was concerned, asparagus wasn't grown here in Estonian. Or let me refrase it - asparagus is widespread in Estonia, but as in asparagus fern you see in flower arrangements, and not as a vegetable. It was to my great delight then that I read from the May issue of Oma Maitse that one of the farms near Tallinn grows this delicate vegetable. The Uus-Kongo talu - that's how the farm is called - has a stand at the Central Market, so early yesterday morning I decided to pop...
I cooked another dinner for the Estonian gang last week here in Edinburgh. Introducing them to the local cuisine, we feasted upon brinjal masala, chicken korma, gobi matar, strawberry shrikhard, and masala chai . Indian food is extremely popular in Scotland, and here's my version of a home-cooked Indian feast. All cooked from scratch, not a ready made curry paste or sauce on sight, although I did use a shop bought curry powder for the korma. And it was all on the table within an hour. Not bad, I think, for my first full Indian feast..Brinjal Masala or deep fried aubergines/eggplants.(Praetud pommuviilud)The recipe for deep fried aubergines is from the October 2000 issue of Waitrose Food Illustrated, and I modified it only slightly. Instead of 2 large aubergines I used 6 baby aubergines...
I’ve been cooking a lot with carrots recently. To be more precise, I’ve been eating loads of carrots recently – most of them end up on my table as juicy carrot sticks for nibbling. But since discovering that carrots are yummy with orange and rosemary, and that they pair well with ginger, feta and mustard seeds, I’m keen to try even more new ways with them.Here is a tasty recipe for a Moroccan carrot salad with cumin and garlic, Jazar Bil Kamoun Wal Toum, from Claudia Roden’s beautiful last book, Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon. I only bought the book a fortnight ago, and it's full of really temtping and tasty sounding recipes. This was the first recipe I tried from the book, cooked in a flash for a light lunch on Sunday.As I used smallish young organic carrots...
Here's a recipe for a French celeriac salad - you know, just in case you've got a wrinkly celeriac hiding somewhere in the bottom drawer of your fridge :) Now that the spring is nigh, there's no need to keep those winter stand-by staples either..Makes a good side dish to grilled white fish. Don't overcook the celeriac - you want some trace of crunchiness in your salad. Oh - and 'celeriac' is known as 'celery root' in the Northern America.Celeriac Salad(Prantsuse sellerisalat)Adapted from December 1998 issue of Kodukiri Serves 4300 grams celeriac/root celery50 ml mayonnaise1 Tbsp Dijon mustard1 small garlic clove, mincedsaltblack pepperfew celery or parsley sprigs to garnishPeel the celeriac and slice thinly (4-5 mm) and then cut into thick julienne. Blanch in a slightly salted boiling...
Here I am singing praises to the Queen of Vegetables, Alanna, again. I have discovered great carrot recipes in old handwritten cookbooks (K's grandma's carrot ragout); in heavy printed tomes (Moroccan carrot salad with cumin and garlic, Jazar Bil Kamoun Wal Toum from Claudia Roden's enchanting Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon); in online cookbooks (gingered carrots with feta cheese from the Swedish Arla site; carrots with rosemary and orange from the Finnish Finfood site). Fellow bloggers have inspired many a carrot meals of mine. Of course, there are those ever-wonderful roasted carrots with mushrooms, courtesy of Kalyn. But when it really comes down to it, then Alanna rules. I've already praised her carrots with African spices, and now I've discovered her cumin-scented...
I've never met Rosmariini (= Rosemary = she) & Pippurimylly (= Pepper Mill = he), the couple behind the Finnish-language Pastanjauhantaa blog, but I think we'd like each other, if we did. We've got a pretty similar taste in food, you see, and keep recreating recipes from one another's blogs. Pippurimylly was inspired by my posts for the slowly braised Dutch beef dish, draadjesvlees (see here) ; the small feta and spinach omelettes (see here); and most recently my savoury blue cheese and beetroot muffins (see here). And vice versa - it works the other way around, too. I've knicked many recipe ideas from the neighbouring Finns (for example, roasted asparagus with Parmesan and numerous other weekday dinners that I haven't blogged about) . But that's what good neighbours are for, isn't...
Pumpkin is a wonderfully forgiving vegetable. It patiently sits in the darkness of your larder (that also doubles as a garage in our house), waiting for months on end until you feel ready to use it. Every now and then there's hope that the end is near. I brought it into the kitchen for a few days in early January, planning to make Johanna's wonderful blue cheese and roasted pumpking quiche again, but eventually took it back to its place in the garage. In early February, we had to move the pumpkin indoors again, as the temperatures fell way below -20ºC and we needed to make sure the pumpkin survived the coldwave. But still it didn't make it to the kitchen and was returned to the garage a few days later.The pumpkin was finally brought into the warmth of our kitchen a week ago. The...
All responsible Estonians went to the polls last Sunday to elect 101 representatives to our national parliament, Riigikogu (unless they had cast their vote on the world's first parliamentary e-elections earlier, that is). To mark the occasion, K. and I had invited some friends over on Sunday night to feast on the cheese (toma della valle, toma al peperoncino and robiola rustica) and ham (la coppa, salami rustico, lardo di Arnad, bresaola, mocetta) we had brought back from our Italian skiing-holiday, while watching the election results on the telly. During the five-hour eating, chatting and TV-watching session, we enjoyed the antipasti I had made during the day, and the tiramisu (K's first attempt, and very good one at that). There was plenty of food, though not much left over (we were 16...
My dear K turned 35 last November, and his mum included two precious items in her present - his grandmother's handwritten cookbook from 1934, as well as his great-grandmother's handwritten cookbook (in three slim volumes!) from 1894. Precious! As I promised last month, I'll be cooking from these handwritten cookbooks a lot during the coming months, as they were full of tempting and surprising recipes. These beef rolls, for instance, included ginger in the recipe - and I thought that Estonian dishes back then only used salt and pepper...Here are the first two recipes I tried from the 1934 booklet. They're next to each other in the booklet, so I assume they're meant to be served together. They definitely did go well together, which is not surprising, as the more modern versions of these...
I realised last week that 'thick leeks' in Scotland must be much smaller than 'thick leeks' in Estonia. Otherwise I wouldn't have ended up with so many leeks after making the cock-a-leekie soup for Burns Supper. Sue Lawrence's recipe prescribed 6 'long, thick leeks', which I dutifully bought. However, after halving and rinsing and slicing just three of these monster leeks, I realised I already had more than enough. As I didn't use all the leeks I had bought for the soup course, then I had lots of leftover leeks after the party. Suddenly I remembered a recipe for a leek souffle on the Danish Arla site, which I had bookmarked a while ago. I adapted a little, resulting in a savoury souffle made of a simple bechamel sauce and sliced leeks - easy and different.A savoury leek souffleServes 625...
At the dinner party almost a fortnight ago, the smoked salmon and dill tartlets were followed by a plate of creamy red risotto. The inspiration for this dish came from Anne's beet risotto with garlic, fava beans and goat cheese. However, as I had realised during a recent beetroot and cheese experiment, I knew I wanted to use a blue cheese in my beetroot risotto. Furthermore, the dish had to be vegetarian. Some recipe twisting and tweaking later, I served the following dish to my guests. .Beetroot & blue cheese risotto(Peedi- ja sinihallitusjuusturisoto)Serves 62 Tbsp olive oil1 Tbsp butter4 medium red onions, peeled, halved and finely chopped2 garlic cloves, finely chopped3 large raw beets (about 600 grams), peeled and cut into small cubes350 grams risoto rice (I used carnaoli)2 litres...
