Grilled Halloumi with ruccola and red onion – Field trip to the forest

We took a walk in the forest yesterday, I was interested in seeing how the mushroom were growing, since we have had a lousy summer sun wise and lots of rain!  The mushroom season in Iceland is usually around mid of July.

They were looking good and so is the weather forecast for this week, finally no rain!

 

We don´t have many big forests in Iceland and there is a joke that goes like this:

What do you do when you get lost in an Icelandic forest?

…You stand up.

The trees in the forest are often rather small.

The forest close to where I live

Hvalfjörður

For all you who are enjoying your warm summer I have a great dish for you.  Halloumi cheese.  It is best grilled, it does not melt.  Next time on the patio I recommend the Halloumi salad, grilled flat bread and a glass of good crispy white wine.  You can grill the cheese and the flat bread on the BBQ.  I used the Panini grill since, like I have mentioned, we have had a crappy weather this summer.  

Grilled Halloumi with ruccola and grilled flat bread

• Halloumi cheese
• Ruccola
• Red onion
• Pizza dough

Slice the cheese, about 1/2 cm thick.  Finely dice the onion.  Put the salad on a plate, arrange the cheese and the onion on top and serve with flat bread.  For the flat bread,

I rolled out the pizza dough in a pita bread size, and grilled t in the panini grill.

Simple and awesome flavor!

Deep fried cod with almost Remoulade

I bought a lot of fresh fish the other day, some of it I put in the freezer but the cod I wanted to cook right a way.

When we lived in Madrid there was an old bar that was serving deep fried salted cod and it was very good.  We washed it down with glasses of red wine, and I say glasses in plural, since the glasses were tiny, but that was the fun thing.  They served you more wine when they saw an empty glass on the house.

It was an old place with old interior, nothing fancy but the atmosphere was great.  It was mostly older local people that came there.

In Spain in many places people throw the napkins on the floor…very Spanish…

I recommend you serve Crianza in small cheep glasses with this dish…
Deep fried cod

For the batter:

• Flour
• Beer
• Salt
• Smokey & Sweet paprika spice

About one cup of flour and one of beer, (so it looks like a pancake batter).  A teaspoon of salt, pepper and paprika.  Mix well.

The Cod:

• Cod
• Salt
• Pepper
• Oil for frying

Salt and pepper the cod.  Cover the cod in batter.  Deep fry

It is also awesome to use salted cod if you can get your hands on that.

A minute before serving the cod my husband threw it out that it might be good to have a little sauce with it, maybe a Remoulade .  Since we don´t have anything like that in our fridge I made a sauce.

A cold Almost Remoulade

• 3-4 Pickles
• 1/2White onion
• 3-5 tbsp Sour cream
• 3-5 tbsp Homemade mayonnaise
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tbsp Good Dijon like mustard
• 1 tbsp Maple syrup
• Pepper

Put everything in a blender and mix well.  Serve cold

Tortilla Española, kid friendly

I´ve been browsing through old photos, from my travels since 2002. I traveled a lot with my husband, we have been to about 30 countries together. We have always loved food and we have done lots of exploring the culinary culture of each country we visit.

I am going to pick out some highlights from our travels once in a while, food related moments that are memorable to me.

The first being a restaurant in Malaga, it was up in the neighborhood we lived in. We spent a month in Malaga studying Spanish, it was a fantastic time. That was back in 2002.

Bodegon de Gurpegui

The restaurant I am talking about is called Bodegon de Gurpegui. What was cool about it was the decor and a canary bird that was flying around the restaurant.  The food was good.

OOOOH! Now I want to take the family to Malaga. I love Spain, been all over and Andalusia is fantastic. I recommend it.

Andalusia is known for fish and shellfish, Gazpacho, dry-cured ham and frying food in their delicious olive oil.

BUY GOOD OLIVE OIL. To do so, you need to find a small store specializing in good food products run by people you can trust are importing the good stuff. There is so much scam in the olive oil business. I get my oil from a local organic corner store, an extra virgin olive oil from Sicily.

A classic Spanish dish is the Tortilla Española. If you have kids, this is something they might like.

Tortilla Española

• 6 potatoes
• 1 onion
• 6 eggs
• Olive oil for frying
• Salt and pepper

Cut pealed potatoes in cubes, 1-2 cm thick and thinly slice onion. Heat olive oil in a pan, add potatoes and onion. Turn it around in the pan until soft and brown.  Beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper, add them to the pan.  Cook for about 3 minutes on medium heat.  Turn the omelette around, best way to do that might be by transferring the omelette to a plate and add it back to the pan then with the other side down.

Serve it warm or cold.

We took a trip to Morocco from Andalusia. O MY! The spices you can get there, I must say the food culture in Morocco is very different from Iceland. I am a big fan of Moroccan kitchen.

Morocco

Cuban sandwich – on a stick

If you read my post about Cuban Sandwich I posted the other day you should know all about Cuban Sandwich.  I love this combo of ham, cheese and dill pickles.  The other day I had smoked ham from Christmas,  I had good cheese and I had dill pickles.  I had tooth picks.

I cut the ham, pickles and cheese in little bites and put it on the tooth picks, It looked like this.  A great snack for a cocktail party.

Thai sweet chili sauce & cream cheese – best dip for nachos

I find it an experience to name my kids.  I “exposed” the name of my baby boy last weekend.  It was a name I would not have Imagined I´d ever name my boy.  I don´t know anyone personally with this name and it is not very common.  Both my husband and myself were totally sure when we saw it in a name-book that this would be it.  It suited him perfectly. We used it for a while before we told everyone to see how it grew on him.

In Iceland you have 6 months to name your baby from when it´s born.  So you don´t have to have a name ready before you give birth.  I like that, we named him little before his 3 month birthday so we got to know his personality and we saw that this name suited his personality.  If we would have had to name him the day he was born I probably would have chosen another name and even something already in the family.

I could go on and on about naming babies.  I am very happy with the name we found for our boy.  His name is Fróði.  It means “wise” and also “being full of life´s energy” .  The English version would be Frodo and probably most famous for being the name of a character in The lord of the rings.

Now I am going to give you a ecipe for the perfect party dish.  This is a combo you must try.  If you are going to meet friends  and need to bring something to pick on this is it!  Look no further, try it! TRY IT.  It is the easiest thing ever.  Buy nachos, any kind you like, maybe 2 different types ( the blue Doritos goes also well with this).  Buy cream cheese and Sweet Thai chili sauce.  If you have extra half an hour make your own chili sauce.  It´s easy!

Thai sweet chili sauce and cream cheese

• Sweet Thai chili sauce
• Cream cheese
• Nachos

Scoop out the cream cheese on a plate.  Pour the chili sauce over the cheese.  Serve with nachos.

This is soooo goood.  i have not served this to one person who doesn´t like it…i mean LOVE IT!

The singer that surprised me

I love Spain and the food culture there.  I lived in Madrid few years ago and I got the chance to travel around.  We went to Rioja, it was in December, not quite the tourist season, but it was really nice.  No tourists, good food and lots of nice Red wine.  We went to Logroño, Laguardia og Haro.  I am sure the atmosphere is different during summer and I will visit Rioja again one warm summer day.

Our first stop was at a gas station and where else but in Spain can you get a great red wine at a tapas bar in a gas station.  I had Callejo, Crianza 2005.  That was a good start on a great culinary trip.

Logroño was awesome. So many tapas bars, door to door.  We met 2 older local guys and they took us all over town to great bars that served brilliant tapas.

Culinary highlight: Bar that sells nothing but wine and grilled meat on a stick.

Cultural highlight:  An old man sat in the corner. He looked lonely.  When we got in our 2 friends started singing Flamengo,  The old man in the corner lit up, he came over and started singing as wel.  He sang like an coir boy.  what a voice!!

There you can see him in the corner, before our new friends started singing…

And then he came over…

Started singing like an angel!

And that´s me and the singer that surprised me!

Teaching me not to judge by the look, he ain´t no Enrico Iglesias  but when it comes to singing he is even better  😀

Say cheese and when I met Kiefer Sutherland

We had a cheese and red wine fiesta.  What a combo!

And talk about cheese.  I was downtown Reykjavik one evening, having drinks with friends.  At a bar we saw a guy dressed up as a rabbit.  That was funny, at least funny after couple of beers.  We asked the rabbit if we could take a picture of my friend with the rabbit.  And to get them both in the picture I needed to step back and ask this guy to move a bit, that guy was Kiefer Sutherland.  I am sure we was more used to people asking rabbits to move so they could take pictures of him.

I´ve spent last 2 hours trying to find this photo, no luck, but I will post it when I find it.

Until then I got pictures of the cheeses we had the other night. This is fun, invite people over for dinner and serve cheeses, baguette and some good salami.

What to serve:

• Lots of fresh good baguette
• Few different types of cheeses
• Few types of salami
• Jam
• Red onion, thinly sliced
• Red pepper, thinly sliced
• Fruits, f.x melon, strawberries and grapes
• Red wine and White wine

My favorite combo on a slice baguette is camembert, jam, slice of green pepper salami with a slice of red onion and red pepper.

 

 

Avocado fries

These are yummy and a fun appetizer at a dinner party or a part of a buffet.

Avocado fries for 2-3

• 2 Avocados
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1 egg, beaten
• Salt
• Lemon pepper
• Any spice you like…
• Canola oil to deep fry

Cut the avocados in bits similar to French fries.

Dip them in beaten egg, then the bread crumbs.

Deep fry for 20-40 seconds, or until it gets a nice brownish color.

SAGARDI & CRAB SALAD

For those of you travelling in Spain I can recommend   a Tapas bar called Sagardi.  Their Crab salad tapas is really good and the sangria there cools you down on a hot summer day.

 Crab Salad

• 2 cups crab meet or surimi if you don´t have crab meat, chopped.
• 1 cup celery, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup red bell pepper, very finely chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 3-4 tbsp mayonnaise
• Salt and pepper
• 3 boiled eggs, only the white part
• Baguette

Everything is mixed well in a bowl, except the eggs and the baguette.  Put the Crab salad on a piece of baguette.  Shred the boiled egg white and sprinkle it on top of the salad.

it´s so easy to grow your own potatoes

You don´t have to have a garden or live in the country to grow your own potatoes, you can do it on your balconies as well. Here you can see how Jamie Oliver and his friends do it.

Last night I made a potato dish that was really good. As usual I had no Idea what to make when I got into the kitchen… Well I knew it would have something to do with a potato, since I spent the day growing potatoes in a garbage bag.

Potato and white wine with lemon

• Potato
• Rice (boiled)
• Garlic
• Ginger, fresh
• Sour cream
• Roasted seeds and Pine nuts (pumpkin and sunflower seeds)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Butter
• Cheese
• garlic chives

Cut potato in half, bake in oven until ready. The potato gets a brown hard thing when baked (on top) so clean it off with a knife, then take out all the potatoes with out harming the skin and put in a bowl. (This is a Jacket potato recipe)

In a pan or pot put in butter, garlic and ginger, then the cold boiled rice. Warm up the rice for couple of minutes. Salt it.

In the bowl with the potatoes, mix the rice with the potatoes, put in some sour cream, the nuts and seed and a little bit lemon juice. Salt and pepper. Put the mix back into the potato skins. Sprinkle with shredded cheese and put in oven on grill until cheese is melted. Sprinkle some garlic chives on top.

Served with a chilled white wine (Chardonnay) in a shot glass with a lemon!

Cheers!
Soffia