Pulled pork and coleslaw

First day of summer in Iceland was last Thursday, it´s a national holiday.  People dress warm and go out for a stroll in a parade with a big band and scouts holding the Icelandic flag.

Pulled pork

• A piece of pork shoulder
• Salt
• Pepper

Put the shoulder in a pot and fill it with water so the water goes over the pork.  Put in an oven for 6-8 hours at 150°c.

We were at a summerhouse and didn´t have a steak pot but thankfully we found a big pot that fit the oven and the pork.

When the pork is ready you need a good bbq sause to go marinade it with.  I made a pot of sauce and threw the pork in after tearing it a part from the bone, that was easy after all the cooking in the oven.

Use your nicest bbq recipe. It might be something like this.

• Scalott
• Onion
• Fennel
• Chile
• Garlic
• Brown sugar
• Sherry vinegar
• Can chopped tomatoes or can of tomato sauce
• Mustard
• Butter

Chop, melt butter, fry veggies, mix everything together, boil…

Coleslaw is a must with pulled pork.  It freshens it up a bit.  I did a homemade coleslaw and it was very good.

• Cabbage, schredded
• Carrots, shredded
• Creme fraishe
• Salt
• Pepper
• Apples, scredded
• Lemon juice (fresh)

I served it with melted mozzarella and fresh spinach  as well.  Use the best sandwich bread you can find. I used Ciabatta.  Even a homemade naan might be really good.  If you got no good bread a Mexican tortilla or a Roti might work.  (Homemade of course!)

While the pork was boiling we went for a drive around the country side and to see hot springs.  The weather was a bit cold so the hot water made lots of steam.

The group photo

The green.  Sweet colors of nature

The bubblee hot spring…very hot

Egg salad

What is the best food you´ve made or tasted this year?  Already almost two months done of 2013 and I feel like it was early January yesterday.  I´ve been keeping busy for sure and I´ve been cooking a lot and everything from scratch.   My favorite meal of 2013 so far are Chinese Dumplings I made the other day.  I will tell you all about it next time.

I was gonna slice some veggies to serve with bread.  Then I decided to cut it very small and throw it in a egg salad.  It was very fresh and tasty, perfect with my homemade sourdough bread.

Egg salad 

• Homemade mayo or sour cream, 3-5 tablespoons
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1-2 spring onions
• 1/3 cucumber
• Salt and pepper

Cut the eggs and dice all the veggies very fine.  Mix everything together with the homemade mayo or sour cream.  Season with salt and pepper, about 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 of pepper.

It got cold last week but the dogs at the farm next door didn´t mind it and were playing in the snow.  Thankfully this week it´s a bit warmer.

Cuban Sandwich

I was so sure I had blogged about my fetish for sandwiches.  The key to a good sandwich is a decent bread.  The bread MUST be good.  It can not be old, chewy or soggy.  Sour dough baguette is delicious, but each type of sandwich has the bread, like a meatball sub must be in a soft sub, not french baguette or grainy sliced bread, same with hot dogs, I can not stand it when people put a hot dog in a white sandwich bread and try to tell me it´s same as a hot dog bun…IT´S NOT! ….aaaah, I feel better not getting that out there :D.

Then I don´t want the sandwich to be dry but again not too much sauce.  Everything has to be in perfect balance.  The sauce should be flavorful but not overpowering and the meat should be fresh and not too processed (real ham not thin watery something pink that looks like ham).  Then there is cheese, good real cheese, not plastic!

I love Italian meatball sub, healthy avocado sandwich often called California sandwich, my Panini grilled ground beef ciabatta sandwich is awesome, a sandwich called King from a little cafe in Copenhagen I will never forget.  I shall make a special blog about that sandwich called King.

This is the only photo I have of King.

I am also a fan of open sandwiches, Scandinavian Style.  Rye bread with cured salmon (grav lox)

Then, one of my all time favorite sandwich is Cuban Sandwich.  I´ve read recipes and from there I made my own.  I even made my own Cuban Sandwich bread.

A Cuban Sandwich has pork, ham, mustard, cheese and pickles.  My favorite meal at Christmas is on the 25th.  We have smoked leg of pork (organic) at 24th, our Christmas eve in Iceland and I only have it so I can make the sandwich the day after.  Usually the pork is not smoked in a Cuban but I really like using the smoked meat.

For lunch on the 25th I was making Cuban Sandwich.   This is how mine was.

Cuban Sandwich with smoked pork

• Slices of the Christmas smoked pig
• Ham
• Good cheese, Swiss
• Mustard, sweet
• Dill Pickles, sliced
• Ciabatta

Cut the Ciabatta open.  Add mustard, cheese, pickles, ham and pork.  Close the sandwich and press it in a panini press for couple of minutes.

The trix:  Turn the ciabatta bread inside out, the cut part should turn to the panini grill and the filling is put on the outside of the bread, you see what I mean? Then you can butter it up a bit or brush it with olive oil for a golden crust.

Here is a link to an authentic Cuban sandwich recipe.

My kitchen – in the making II

Later my kitchen went to stage 2, in the making.  I found a table I  am going to use as an Island an bar stools I like.

All the shelves were made of timber  we used when building the house.  The table around the sink was an old door.

Then we took it all down!

Because we wanted to put up a wall, made of the timber we had outside in the yard.  It was very rustic with no paint on.  We actually had it like that for few months, then we painted it white.

A lot has changed since then, my kitchen looks a lot more like kitchen today. And this wonderful wall ended up green.

and when the kitchen was in this state I didn´t cook any big meals, but I used the panini grill a lot.  And one thing I did was grilling a baguette.  Instead of cutting it in slices I cut it in half, poured some good olive oil, salt and pepper  and then cut it into pieces after I grilled it.  Great snack.  Panini grill is a great invention.

The super duper awesome sandwich

This sandwich is so so so good. The combo is perfect. I am a ground beef fan, and don´t get me started on ground beef with melted cheese, match made in heaven!

The best bread to use with this one is focaccia or some sort of a soft bread. I made my own kind of a ciabatta made of a pizza dough. That worked well.

Get a good bread or make your own focaccia or ciabatta. Cut it in half.

Lay it on the table with the cut down.

Spoon few tbsp of mustard sauce on the bread. Top it with fried ground beef and few slices of cheese.

Make a sandwich

If you like jalapeno, slice a fresh one (or use canned) and put on top of the ground beef.

Put the sandwich in a panini grill and grill until the cheese has melted. (If you don´t have a panini grill but the sandwich in the oven.)

Serve with a glass of cold beer or some nice red wine.

Here is a link to video on how to make Ciabatta.

You can also make a pizza dough and form it as a ciabatta and bake in a 200°c hot oven for about 15 – 20 minutes. I love putting poppy seeds and sesame seeds on top of the ciabatta before baking it.

For the mustard sauce

• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2-3 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp sweet mustard
• 2-3 tbsp agave or maple syrup
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• Salt and pepper

Taste it often and add more of what ever your taste bud find missing, more syrup if you like it sweeter, more of Dijon if you like that…

For the ground beef

• 300 g ground beef
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut in small pieces
• Garlic clove, pressed
• 1/2 onion, cut small
• Dried oregano, 2-3 tsp
• Salt and pepper

Fry everything on a pan.

…don´t forget the cheese 🙂