FIELD NOTES on Asian Cooking

My friend and I went to a few Asian stores in town and came home with all kind of goodies.  The plan was to make a Korean Inspired dinner.  We ended up making Pho, Green Curry dish with Spaghetti squash (sooo good)  and Short ribs that melted of the bones.  The “Go-Chu-Jang” is a Korean chile-paste that I also recommend you get if you are into Korean cooking.  This one was not too spicy but nice flavour

 

 

I´m taking down all the recipes we made so I can do this again someday.

My Field Notes

First of all, you need to have lots of chile, garlic and ginger.  I made green curry and used ginger, jalapeno and garlic with a bit of coconut milk and made a paste in my Nutrabullet.

Green Curry with Spaghetti Squash

• Green curry Paste
• Chinese Cabbage, finely cut
• Carrots, finely cut
• Red Pepper / Green pepper, finely cut
• And the star of the show Spaghetti Squash
• 1 can coconut milk
• Noodles or rice to serve it with

Heat oven 190°c  Cut the squash in half, brush with olive oil and a little salt.  Bake for 50 minutes or so.

Oil on a pan, all veggies sauteed except the squash. Green curry paste and coconut milk mixed in, then I scooped out the Squash and mixed it with the rest on the pan.

You can add Mung bean sprouts to the dish, I served it with the pho and had some with this dish on the side.

 

My friend made the short ribs, she slow-cooked it to perfection in a slow cooker.

The sauce with it was so good.  I don´t have the exact recipe but if you google “Korean Kalbi sauce” or “Bulgogi” you get lots of good recipes.

I made mango sauce, spicy Pear-Apple sauce and Thai sweet chile sauce.

The Thai sweet sauce is SO EASY TO MAKE, that way you know what you are eating and like I do, I choose my garlic well.  (I prefer Italian, but this time I used Spanish)

 

I have already blogged about Thai sweet chile sauce here.

One of the tricks I learned was to blacken the ginger over an open flame on the gas stove.

Mango Sauce

• Mango (fresh or frozen)
• Chile
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Cilantro
• Salt
• Pepper
• Umami Paste from Clearspring

In a pan heat up some garlic, ginger and chile.  Add mango, I used frozen one, salt and pepper.  Let it simmer for 5 – 10 minutes.  I use my Nutrabullet to mash it into a sauce.  Add lime and finely cut cilantro.

Apple-Pear Sauce

• Few apples cut them in cubes (I used 4)
• Few pears, cut in cubes (I used 2)
• Chile
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Cilantro
• Salt
• Pepper
• water- for simmer

Same method as the Mango sauce.  Heat up the spices, add apples and pears and add a little bit of water for simmer, about 10 minutes.  Get the sauce into a blender, mixer to make a smooth sauce.

I bought UMAMI paste with Chili from Clearspring.  It is really good and really gives good flavour.

The Pho was made with Oxtail broth.  I put oxtails in simmering water and cooked it for at least 3 hours.

I didn´t have anis stars, so I used Chinese 5 spices.

Here is a recipe for PHO I made a few years ago.

 

We also made rice paper veggie rolls.  So so so delicious and so so so fresh!

Veggie Rolls in Rice Paper

• Rice Paper
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Red Pepper
• Fresh Mint
• Fresh Cilantro

Wet the pice paper and fill it up with goodies.   The magic here are all the dipping sauces I made.  They all go well with this dish.

I googled a lot when making this dinner and to see how to make rice paper rolls I recommend browsing through videos on Youtube.

Here are some links that help me out.

 

Rice Paper Rolls

Spaghetti Squash

Very good video about PHO

Short Ribs

PHO with Jimmy Ly at Munchies

 

This one for later

Spring Rolls

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce

 

If you have not followed the cooking with Maangchi on Youtube I totally recommend her, such a cool lady.  Her Mung beans are very very good.

 

The Northern Lights were dancing like crazy this weekend. It´s not easy to go to sleep when the view from your bed is like this!

Cauliflower bread packed with protein

My super healthy fitness queen neighbour shared a recipe in a local home decor magazine here in Iceland, her house is btw amazing.  I couldn´t resist trying the recipe in the hope of getting the body she got.  The bread was delicious but I´m the same…It takes more I guess.

I didn´t have goji berries or tablespoon of Parmigiano so I skipped the berries and used a handful of shredded mozzarella, and she uses 2 tablespoons coconut fat, I used olive oil.

Cauliflower Bread

• 400g cauliflower
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup wheat germ
• A handful of shredded cheese (Parmigiano or mozzarella)
• 2 teaspoons rising agent
• 2 tablespoons oil (coconut or olive oil)
• 3 cloves garlic (preferably organic)
• Luke of goji berries
• Oregano or some pizza season & salt ( a tablespoon or two)
• Sesam seeds or a blend of your favourite seeds on top

 

Put the cauliflower in a food processor, mix well.   Separate the egg white from the yolk.  Whip the egg white stiff, but use both white and yolk for the bread.  Blend everything carefully.

Grease the baking mould with butter, for example, pour in the mixture

Bake for 40 minutes at 180-200°c

 

I served it with chickpea curry, it also might be good with hummus.

 

So, we got the best weather in July that has ever been since the beginning of logging weather measurements.  Icelandic people love talking about the weather so this really made our summer!

My beautiful countryside.

Roti – Indian flatbread

I was looking into videos making roti on a gas stove and then tried it myself and guess what, It totally works!  My roti has never popped like it did straight on the fire.

I have a video clip on instagram:

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A post shared by Soffia (@thehousebytheseafoodwaves)

You can use classic roti dough or even pizza dough.  I´ve tried both.

Use flour:water about 2:1

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup warm water
• a teaspoon salt

Mix well, cover and let sit for an hour or so

Or use a classic pizza dough, everything you need to know about making one you can find here:  HOW TO MAKE PIZZA DOUGH

 

When making roti, start by rolling out the dough, I make them about 5-6 inches.  On a medium – hot pan heat it for 30 seconds on both side, then flip it over on the gas flame.

You can find good videos on how to at youtube by searching for roti gas stove

 

 

 

 

 

 

First post for a very long time

I´ve been wanting to start blogging again, mostly because I´ve been cooking quite a bit and not writing down the recipes and therefor forget them.

One of the reasons I stopped is because the standard of food blogging was so high, people were posting amazing photos of food, and what I also learned is it was even fake food, like sour cream for ice cream and things like that.  I just wanted to cook, snap a photo and eat.

Since my photos were not professional and I didn´t have time to make the blog a full time job I got overwhelmed of the standard and  lost some interest.

I´m going to post the recipes I like with real photos and no pressure.

I bought Jerusalem Artichokes and decided to make a soup, I also had a very nice head of cauliflower.

All ingredients in a pot with 1 liter of water.  I used Red Thai chili paste, Sweet Thai chili sauce and curry to spice it up.

I saved one Jerusalem artichoke and sliced it thinly with mandolin, put it on a baking sheet, drizzled olive oil and salt over it and baked for about 15 minutes at 200°c.  Watch it closely so it doesn´t burn.

Cauliflower Soup

• 1 head cauliflower
• 3 Jerusalem artichokes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 teaspoons Red Thai chili paste
• 2-3 tbsp Sweet Thai chili sauce
• 1 tsp curry
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 liter water

I used magic wand (food processor) to blend it rather smooth.  Served with homemade bread buns.

 

 

Salmon fiesta at lunch time and never ending food scandals

So, I guess most of you have heard about the horse meat scandal.  In Iceland they decided to take examples from Icelandic food products to see if they found horse meat in it.  There was no horse.  I guess since we eat a lot of horse in Iceland they would just say it contained horse meat.  But the “funny thing” was, they tested a beef pie from one company and it contained ta taaaaa…no beef, just no MEAT at all, not even a horse.  30 % of the pie was supposed to be beef.  I guess you can call it a vegetarian beef pie.

Like I´ve said so many times, stop buying all this processed and ready made food.  I know making everything from scratch is hard, but it is so rewarding and worth it.

And if you are too lazy too cook, just boil potatoes and fish and serve it with a good pinch of real butter, homemade even 😉

 

This summer we were at home with our new born and the neighbors were on a summer vacation so we had lots of food fiestas.  One took place at our house at lunch time.  The men had been outside working on the houses (we are both building our houses).  I was in the kitchen and made a lovely meal, worth writing down.

This was a healthy and a very tasty meal. Barley goes very well with salmon.

I made Teriaki Salmon with barley salad and teriaki dressing.  The Teriaki was made of  mirin, soy sauce and sugar.

Barley salad

• Barley, boiled
• Ruccola
• Avocado
• Tomatoes
• Red pepper

Cut veggies, mix well.

 

Christmas Count Down…5 – Ugly Cookies and Fluffy muffins

I made the ugliest cookies ever.  They are probably the tastiest I´ve ever made …but I din´t have good quality time when making them…stressed about 100 other things I should be rather doing aaaand I am not a good cookie baking the first place.

 

THANKFULLY I have a 3 year old and I can tell everyone that she helped me make them… she really did for the first hour but when it came to decorating it was all me.. yes I have photos and yes I will post the recipe very soon…BECAUSE they are really good.

This was a winning recipe for an Icelandic Food Magazine for a Christmas baking recipe and I know the girl who won, that´s why I wanted to try them.  They are really good cookies but all I can say, make sure you have time to make them because it takes at least 3 hours to do this recipe properly.

BUT, I like to bake muffins  because it´s no fuzz when it comes to mixing the ingredients, you just put everything in a bowl and whisk it together with a fork or a wooden spoon for few strokes,  the less you mix the better I´ve heard.

I´ve been doing the same recipe (with blueberries)  for a while, but decided to try a new one, a chocolate one.  I saw a tasty photo of a muffin with a recipe to try.  I changed it a bit by using butter instead of oil and a little bit less sugar.  It was a good one.  Very fluffy and not too sweet.

Fluffy muffins

• 1 3/4 c flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tablespoons cocoa (a good one)
• 3/4 c sugar (I used a liiiittle bit less)
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 c butter (or 1/3 oil)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 tablespoons espresso coffee
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Handful of good chopped chocolate

Put dry ingredients in a bowl, mix.  Add the rest and mix well with a wooden spoon or a fork or something.

Enjoy with a cup of tea or glass of milk…or red wine

Window 19…

Christmas count down 10… Cucumber salad

Today I went out to buy all the Christmas presents.  I had already figured out what to buy,  and I don´t buy that many because in my family it is a tradition only to give gifts to kids under 14 years old.  I like that tradition, the presents are for the kids, the food and wine and getting a little bit of holiday vacation with family is for us grown ups.

Now I am celebrating Christmas with 2 kids for the first time.  For me, the excitement of opening presents are through my kids, or kid, because the younger one is only few months old 🙂

I am totally doing Christmas differently after having kids.  Before it was about travelling the world with my boyfriend when we had our Christmas vacation.  Now it´s about baking cookies, making Christmas decorations and staying with my family and relax in the country, making traditions. (But I am sure we will do new things every year…and probably go to a warm country one Christmas…)

In Iceland, over Christmas, people eat a lot of fat food and VERY SALTY food.  In between it is important to eat healthy food.  I, in general eat healthy over Christmas, I do a little bit of the salty and fat with the pork on Christmas Eve.

With all the fat and salt, a cucumber is a really nice treat.  Cucumber goes so well with all kinds of food.  It´s refreshing.  With Mexican, Sushi, Indian, Icelandic, you name it.  I find it essential in my taco (but not in burrito, only taco shells…) with all kinds of sushi, in Raita with Indian food and I love it sliced on rye bread with Icelandic lamb paté.

I made this cucumber salad for a sushi party the other day.  It´s simple and again, REFRESHING!

Cucumber salad

• Cucumber
• Spring Onion
• Mirin

Mix it all together.  Serve with….what ever 😀

Opening number 14

Christmas Count Down …14 – Home made corn tortillas (and plain flour)

Do you tell your kids that there is a Santa Clause?

In Iceland we have 13 santas, we call them jólasveinar – yule lads.  They are weird little guys.  13 days before Christmas they start coming to town, one every day  (they live up in THE mountains, where ever that is… : ) )

Kids put their shoe in the window before going to bed (starting when the first guy comes to town, 13 days before xmas) and when they wake up the yule lad left a gift in the shoe. But if a kid has been naughty they get a rotten potato. My mom had to tell me theses lads were just a made up fairy tale because I didn´t like those crazy guys in my bedroom while I was sleeping.  They are loud and annoying.

Now, I have a 3 year old and I am telling  her about those yule lads, and I can not lie to her that they really exists  I guess I will tell her it´s a fairy tale.  Do you think that´s terrible?  Do you think it´s important for a kid to think that 13 weird creepy guys really exist when they do not?  For me it is not a fond childhood memory, we don´t have a sweet fat guy for a santa.   Did I tell you about those yule lads mother, o my o my.  She is terrible.  She eats children.  So, should I really lie to my daughter that Gryla exists? Gryla, that´s her name, eats children?   If she will believe that the lads exists their mother comes with that package.

Telling or not telling…For me I look at it through my experience of knowing they are a good story and I love it.  I enjoyed the yule lads when I was little  more knowing that they were just a good story.  I got sweets and gifts in my shoe, but I knew it was my mom who put it there.  I really liked that and when I was little I thought I had a really nice mom giving me those nice things in my shoe when the rest of kids thought they were getting gifts form 13 creepy looking lads.

You can read about the yule lads here and there you find the photo of them in a larger format for further reading to see if you´d tell your kids these guys are real…

Before I talk about food lets open window number 10

I found a method to make the tortillas soft after heating them on the stove. I did what I do when I make Icelandic flatbread.  After cooking the flatbread/tortilla I dip it in to a bowl of cold water and from there in a tea towel.

Corn tortillas

• 2 cups masa harina
• 1 1/4 cup water
• Pinch of salt

Mix everything together.  Make balls from the dough, golf ball size.  Flatten.  Bake on a dry skillet.  Dip  the tortilla in water and then keep under a moist tea towel.

This is a great video on how to make tortillas.

My favorite toppings on a tortilla is home made tomato salsa, avocado, arugula  creme fraiche and ground beef that I spice up with fresh garlic and chile pepper, fresh cilantro and salt.  (I usually write chile pepper instead of chili pepper…I guess it´s the Spanish version.)

Christmas Count Down …16

Tomorrow is 2nd of advent. That´s a good day to spend in the kitchen or doing something nice for Christmas, make gifts with the kids or nice Christmas ornaments.  Plenty to do and it doesn´t have to cost much, it´s more about spending time together …awww.  Sweet, right? But true.  (This is my second red wine glass talking…)

I was browsing pinterest, that place is full of nice Ideas.  I came a cross this one just a minute ago and wanted to post it because I think it´s cute and easy to do.  If you have smaller gifts it could also me nice to make little snowman.

 

(Here is the link to the original post from the website housebella.com)

Where we live in the country we have a forest close by.  Every year people can come there and cut their own trees for Christmas.  I guess we will be going next weekend.  We went last year and it had snowed so much that we sank in the snow up to waist sometimes.  It was a great time and this is now a family tradition.

We went with our friends from next door.  They came, 2 minutes later they found a tree.  But me, I was running around…that tree…no, that tree…no wait, maybe that tree…until I had to make a decision… I saw a tree it looked good from one side but the other…not so nice.  But it was charming, not perfect but charming. It looked real and I loved it.  I will try to find a photo of it after I decorated it and post tomorrow , I found this one from the outside…It was a big tree, almost 3 meters.

(Still building the house…this was a year ago)

Day 8 and my moms birthday so off I go to a birthday party, have a great weekend!

Christmas count down…20

I love Charlie Brown. Doesn´t this  get you in the right mood?

And number 4.

This year x-mas is on a Monday so that means only 17 days until Christmas vacation for some of you working crowd…yay!