Rhubarb Sauce - Rababerkompot

Rhubarb Sauce - Rababerkompot

My mom made the first rabarberkompot aka rhubarb sauce as soon as the rhubarbs from our yard was big enough to use. The thin short rhubarbs was sweet and a clear sign that the summer was begun. 

Ingredients:

• 500 g rhubarbs

• 225 g sugar

• ½ vanilla bean pod, the seeds from

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400℉ (200℃).

Clean the rhubarbs and cut them into bite-sized pieces, place the in an ovenproof dish. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod and mix the seeds with the sugar. Sprinkle the sugar on top, and toss until the sugar is evenly distributed. Place the vanilla  pod in between the rhubarbs.

Bake the rhubarbs for 20-40 minutes until soft, and the sauce is thickened. If the juices evaporate to quickly cover the dish with aluminum foil.

Let the rhubarb sauce cool and use as a jam, as a sauce in desserts or eaten with a meat dish.

Enjoy!

Grove Hveder - Grove Hvedeknopper

Grove Hveder - Grove Hvedeknopper

Hveder is a white cardamom roll eaten before the Bededag aka Prayers Day in Denmark. This year I wanted to add a little fibers to the roll, while still keeping the roll nice and sweet. I think I hit the mark with this recipe. I didn't come up with a heathy version, but 1.6 grams dietary fiber per roll is a little better than 0.

Ingredients:

• 50 g live yeast or 4 teaspoons dry yeast
• 200 ml water, finger warm
• 75 g butter
• 150 ml buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 10 g (1¾ teaspoon) salt
• 5-10 g (3 teaspoons) cardamom
• 25 g buckwheat 
• 50 g quick oats (quaker oats)
• 100 g whole wheat flour
• 450 g all-purpose flour

Directions:

In a large bowl dissolve the yeast in the water. (Add a teaspoon sugar if you are using dry yeast, and wait until it starts to foam.) Mix in the butter, sugar, buttermilk and egg. Mix salt and cardamom with the flours, oats and buckwheat, and add that to the water-mixture. Hold some of the all-purpose flour back, because you want a soft smooth dough, and might not need it all. Knead the dough for about 7-10 minutes until the dough is shinny and elastic. Let the dough rise covered for about 20- 30 minutes.  

Pour the dough onto a lightly floured workspace, fold the dough over 3-4 times and divide the dough into 12-18 small balls. Place the balls only about 1 cm (about ⅓-½ inch) apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Cover the dough balls with a dampen kitchen towel, and let them rise for another 60 minutes. They are meant to grow into each other, you want the soft sides on your rolls, when you pull them apart.

Preheat the oven to 400℉ (200℃). (375℉ /190℃ for convection oven). 

Bake the hvedeknopper/rolls for 15-20 minutes until they are dark golden brown. Let them cool on a wire rack.

Before serving, cut them in half and toast them. Serve them hot with butter and jam or with a good cheese.

Enjoy!

Cold Brewed Coffee

Cold Brewed Coffee.

Why do you want to brew you coffee cold? Well, if you like an iced coffee, and don't want a diluted cup of coffee, this is the way to go. The coffee actually tastes sweeter than the same coffee brewed with hot water. Why is that? Some of the more bitter oils in the roasted coffee will only be extracted using hot water, while the cold water only extracts the sweeter flavor components. The real downside to brewing the coffee cold is the time aspect. You can't make yourself a quick cup of coffee, if you didn't think ahead to brew the coffee in advance. In a way you are substituting heat for time. Heat is a catalyst in many processes, and here we have to put in a long steep time, to get all the flavors extracted from the beans.

I steep my cold brewed coffee for 12-14 hours, before filtering it. The filtered coffee will last about 3-4 days in the refrigerator, but somehow it never last as long in my home.

I have become picky with my coffee. I only buy whole coffee beans, and grind them myself. But coffee beans are very different. I don't like the shiny beans you gets from the regular coffee at Starbucks and similar places. The more dry-looking or matte beans are not as bitter, and my grinder don't get an oily build-up from these. So I started to buy my coffee beans fresh roasted from smaller companies. My local Whole Foods carries a small selection.

 For the last year we have had a subscription on fresh roasted coffee bean from Blue Bottle Coffee. Every other week we get a new bag of coffee delivered by mail. We get a new kind of coffee every time, and so far, we have liked them all. 

Ingredients:

• 150 g (1½ cup) medium roasted coffee beans (I like fresh roasted beans)
• 1000 ml  (1 liter or about 4 cups)

Directions:

Grind the coffee, and pour it in a suitable container, I use my 12 cups French press. Pour the cold water over the coffee, and stir to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and let it steep for 12-14 hours on the kitchen table. I stir the mixture a couple of times if steeping during daytime, but it's not mandatory.

When Steeping is done, you need to filter the coffee. Using my French press, I just put the press-part in the pitcher, and press down slowly. I decant the coffee into a new pitcher or bottle, to keep in my refrigerator.

When serving, dilute the coffee with cream, milk, water or syrup to your taste and top with ice. Or try my Ultimate Iced Coffee.

Enjoy!

The Danish Version:

Koldbrygget Kaffe

Ingredienser:

• 150 g medium-ristede kaffe bønner
• 1 liter kold vand

Fremgangsmåde:

Der er intet svært her. Kværn kaffebønnerne og kom dem i en passende beholder. Hæld vandet over, og lad kaffen trække tildækket i 12-14 timer på køkkenbordet. 

Si kaffen igennem et almindeligt kaffefilter. Jeg bruger en stor Bodum stempelkande, og trykker bare stemplet langsomt ned. Hæld kaffen på en kande og afkøl den helt i køleskabet. Kaffen kan holde sig i køleskabet i 3-4 dage.

Ved serveringen, fortyndes kaffen med fløde, mælk eller vand efter smag. Sød kaffen med en sirup.

Velbekomme!

The Quest for the Danish Morning Rolls

Morning Rolls

I love the Danish morning rolls, aka rundstykker. But event though it's a really simple roll, it's very hard to get just right. They need to have a thin hard crust with a really light crumb, with no chewiness. Apparently this s very hard to obtain for normal people in a normal oven, without steam. 

There are many ways to try to get steam in your oven. Here is a few methods.

• Put a baking pan on the bottom rack and fill it with pebbles or a large stainless steel chain, and preheat the oven with this in the oven. When you put your bread or rolls into the oven, splash ½ cup hot water on the rocks/chain and close the door quickly. This will build up enough steam to help with the oven-spring/the rise of the dough, before the crust hardens in the heat. 
• Place 2-3 soaking wet kitchen towels on a baking pan on the bottom rack, while preheating the oven, and for the first 5-8 minutes of the baking time, and then remove the pan with the towels. Be careful opening the oven the steam will burn you, so stay clear of the oven-opening.
• The simplest way is to spray some hot water into the oven, but this might not be enough to  give a perfect oven-spring.

This is my first version of Danish Morning Rolls. I did get the crumb, that I wanted, but I would still like it to be lighter. The crust was almost right, but it needs to stay crisp and be a bit thicker.

Even though these rolls didn't hit the mark as real Danish morning rolls, they are actually very good.

Makes 10-12 rolls

Ingredients:

• 4 g dry yeast
• 250 ml water, finger warm
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• 100 ml  plain yoghurt 
• 300 g bread flour
• 225 g all-purpose flour

Egg wash:

• 1 egg white
• *½ cup cold water

Directions:

Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the sugar, and let the yeast wake up, and start to foam, takes about 5 minutes. Mix in the yoghurt and both flours. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes in a stand mixer. You want a strong gluten structure. Cover the bowl, and let the dough rise in the refrigerator overnight. 

Pour the dough out on a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough in 10-12 and roll them into balls. Place 6 dough-balls on each parchment paper lined baking sheet. Let the rolls rise for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 450℉ (250℃).

Whisk the egg white with the cold water to make a foam. Use the foam to brush onto the rolls. If you like sprinkles on your rolls, do that now. Cut a fairly deep slit in the roll. (I forgot that, but it will give the roll room for the oven spring.)

Place 2-3 soaking clean wet kitchen towels on a baking pan on the bottom rack, while preheating the oven, this will make the steam. Bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes until deep golden brown. Remove the baking pan with the towels after the first 5-8 minutes.

Let the rolls cool completely.

Serve the rolls with butter, cheese or jam.

Enjoy!

Avocado Almond Butter Toast

Avocado Almond butter Toast

This is the breakfast of Champions.

My husband told me about this avocado and almond butter toast, you could get at his work. My husband just learned to eat avocado, so it was really huge that he was eating avocado for breakfast, especially with the selection in the cafeteria. After tasting it, I had to share it here on the blog. You get all you crave in a good breakfast. The crispy toast, the nutty earthy almond butter, the sweet creaminess from the avocado and a nice kick from the red pepper flakes.

An avocado almond butter toast is tasty, filling and best of all really easy to make. 

I use the fresh grinded almond butter from Whole Foods, but you can use the kind you like best. 

Serves 2.

Ingredients:

• 2 slice good whole grain bread

• 1 avocado

• almond butter

• salt to taste

• red pepper flakes to taste

Directions:

Toast the bread, I like mine crisp but not to dark. While toasting, slice the skinned avocado thinly. Spread some almond butter on the still warm bread, so the butter melt somewhat. Place the sliced avocado on top, and sprinkle with some salt and red pepper flakes to taste. It's that easy.

Enjoy!