Spinach Pie Quesadilla

Spinach Pie Quesadilla

I stumbled over Cara Eisenpress and Phoebe Lapine’s recipe for spinach pie quesadillas. I had to try them, becauce they sounded like spanakopita minus the crispy filo pastry. And I love spanakopita, this crispy salty creamy greek spinach pie snack.

I'll think the filling will work great in a pita bread, frying it the same way. Served with a salad It would work great as dinner or lunch. And if you slice it in wedges you could use it as a appetizer.

makes 2 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• ½ small onion, finely diced
• a small bunch scallion, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ¼ tsp salt
• freshly ground pepper
• pinch of thyme
• pinch of oregano
• pinch of cayenne
• 1 bag (170 g) fresh spinach
• 2 whole wheat tortilla, 8-inch in diameter
• 2 large egg 
• 2 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt
• 4 tablespoon crumbled feta cheese

Directions:

In a small nonstick pan, heat the oil. Add the onion and scallions and cook until soft, 3-4 minutes. Add garlic, salt, pepper, and the spices.

Add the spinach a handful at a time and cook until wilted a bit before adding more. When all the spinach is wilted, pour the mixture into a bowl to cool a bit. When cooled, drain the mixture.

In another bowl whisk together the egg white, yogurt, and half the feta. Mix in the cooled spinach.

Clean the pan and brush with a splash olive oil.

Over low heat put the tortilla in the pan. Warm the tortilla on one side and turn it, before sprinkling the rest of the feta over the one side of the tortilla and get it to soften slightly. Turn the heat to medium and pour the egg-spinach mixture over the same half of the tortilla, fold the other half over and cook on one side until the egg begins to firm up about 3-4 minutes. Flip and cook on the other side for 2-3 minutes, then cut into wedges and serve immediately.

Apple Cake with Hazelnuts and Apple Syrup

Apple Cake with Hazelnuts and Apple Syrup

Normally you would make apple pie or apple cake in the autumn, when the apples are in season. But frankly I can eat this cake anytime of the year. The crunch from the hazelnuts with the sweet apples is a perfect match.

Makes a 9" cake feeding 8-10 people.

Ingredients:

• 3-5 apples, I used jonagold, peeled, cored, halved, and sliced
• 1⅓ cup (3 dl) apple juice
• ⅔ cup (1½ dl) apple cider 
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

The dough:

• 375 g sugar
• 225 g (2 sticks) butter, salted and room temperatur
• 375 g hazelnuts
• 3 eggs
• 1 egg white
• 75 g all-purpose flour

Directions:

Mix cider, juice, honey and vanilla, and set aside.

Peel, core and slice the apples. Put the apple slices in the cider mixture to marinate for about 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350℉ (175℃).

In the meantime, make the dough, cream the butter with the sugar and add the eggs (and egg white) one at a time.

Grind the hazelnuts to a flour, mix it with the all-purpose flour and add it to the butter. 

Spray the springform with vegetable oil and spread the dough in it.

Drain the apple slices, save the marinade, and put the slices on top of the dough. Press the apple slices into the dough. 

Bake cake for 60-90 minutes, and let cool completely before removing from the pan. 

Pour the cider mixture into a saucepan, and reduce it, until you have a sirup. Brush the sirup on the cake.

Serve the cake room temperature with some light whipped cream, creme fraiche or a good vanilla ice cream.

The cake will be very soft in the middle, the day you bake it, but the pectin in the apples will make the cake more firm as it sits. I usual bake it a day in advance.

Enjoy.

Source: Claus Meyer.

Gravad Lax - Gravlax with Mustard Sauce (Rævesauce)

Gravad Lax - Gravlax with Mustard Sauce (Rævesauce)

Gravad lax, gravad laks or gravlax is a dill-cured salmon, normally served with a mustard sauce. Gravad lax means buried salmon, referring to back in  the old days, where the fishermen cured the fish and buried it in the ground for a few days. Now you would never put the fish in the ground when you have the refrigerator. 

Gravad lax is one big favorite in my house, if you ask my husband IT IS the favorite, when it comes to fish cold cuts, way better than smoked salmon. Gravad lax is perfect for appetizer, for small Hors d'oeuvre or on an open-faced sandwich on rye bread. The sweet salty salmon almost melt in your mouth, and with the mustard sauce, it's a little slice of heaven.

Eating Raw Seafood - What You Need To Know:

It's always best to cook seafood thoroughly to minimize the risk of food-borne illness. However, if you choose to eat raw fish anyway, one rule of thumb is to eat fish that has been previously frozen for 24 hours. FDA

Ingredients:

• 750 g (26 oz) fresh salmon filet with skin on

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• 2 tablespoons salt

• 2 teaspoons crushed white pepper

• 2 bunches dill, chopped

Directions:

To minimise the risk connected with eating raw fish, you should freeze the salmon before preparing it. When defrosted, scale the salmon and remove all small bones, but leave the skin on.

Mix salt, sugar and pepper and sprinkle it all over the salmon, cut the salmon in half. In the dish you are going to marinate the salmon in, sprinkle a good layer of dill, place the one piece of salmon, skin side down. Sprinkle a thick layer of dill on that, and place the second half on top sin side up. Sprinkle the rest of the dill on top. Put some plastic wrap over the salmon and use a weighted cutting board to press on the salmon. Refrigerate for 24−48 hours, turning the salmon filet a few times. Rinse the salmon in cold water, and pad it dry. 

Use a sharp knife to cut the gravad lax. (Filet knives, boning knives, and Japanese sashimi knives work well for this role.) The gravad lax should be sliced paper-thinly at an angle (15-20 degree angle), making sure not to get any skin on the slices. 

Serve the gravad lax on a slice good bread, with a mustard sauce.

Mustard sauce - Rævesauce

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons brown sugar

• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

• 8 tablespoons oil (use a neutral oil - not olive oil)

• dill, finely chopped

• salt & pepper to taste

Direction:

Whisk sugar, mustard and vinegar together and add the oil in a thin stream to make the emulsion. Stir in the dill and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Kiksekage - Chocolaty Biscuit Cake

Kiksekage - Chocolaty Biscuit Cake

Kiksekage is an old classic non-bake cake very popular in the 70's and 80's in Denmark. But it's not a Danish cake. It's actually a German cake called "Kalte Hund" or cold dog, and the British has a similar cake, the chocolate fridge cake.

My chocolate loving husband, asked if I could try to make a kiksekage, and I was somewhat reluctant, chocolate is not my thing, but I promised to look into kiksekage. My only experience with Kiksekage, was the one my mom made, and to be honest, I didn't care for it. Weird - I loved everything sweet back then.

A traditional kiksekage is made with coconut oil (palmin), eggs and cocoa powder, but why not make the cake with premium ingredients. It's not like good chocolate is hard to find. During my research for the perfect kiksekage, I found Lone Kjærs recipe. This one was made with condensed milk instead of eggs and she used about ⅓ of the butter other recipes called for. So I decided to go with Lone's recipe.

Ingredients:

• 300 g dark chocolate (I used Valrhona 61%)
• 1 can condensed milk. 400 g
• 35 g butter
• 1 orange, the zest of
• about 20 squared vanilla biscuits
• sprinkle: chopped pistachios

Directions:

Line a loaf pan (9x5 inch or 22x12 cm) with parchment paper (Spray the inside of the pan with cooking spray, so the parchment sticks to the pan, don’t spray the inside of the parchment paper). You can also use plastic wrap to line the loaf pan. Chop the chocolate coarsely and put it in a small saucepan with condensed milk and butter. Let the mixture to melt over low heat. Be careful not to burn the mixture, stir occasionally until the mixture is homogeneously, then remove the pan from the heat and mix in orange zest. Pour a thin layer of chocolate in the bottom of the pan. Add then a layer of biscuits. Continue to layer chocolate and biscuits until you have 4 layers in total, ending with a chocolate layer. Sprinkle with the chopped nuts and cover the cake with a piece of parchment paper. Store the cake in refrigerator at least 4 hours before serving.

Serving:

Flip the cake out onto a pretty platter, remove any parchment paper. Do this about 10-15 minutes before serving. Slice the cake with a sharp knife. Tip: heat the knife in hot water, to ease the cutting.

Enjoy.

Chocolate Mousse - just two ingredients!

Chocolate Mousse

Get a perfect creamy chocolate mousse using just water and chocolate. It sounds crazy. I've always been told that you never mix chocolate and water, because the chocolate gets grainy and ruined. But this recipe from the french chemist Hervé This make you rethink your chocolate truths. You can watch Heston Blumenthal explain and prepare the mousse here.

My husband is a chocolateholic, so chocolate mousse is one of his favorite desserts, but I rarely make it. Maybe, maybe I’ll make more often, when it's as easy as this. I definitely have to try making it again, with different chocolates and different flavor profiles. The mousse has a very intense chocolate taste, you might tone it down with some sugar or adding cream with the water.

I didn’t have a 70% chocolate, so I used the 61% Valrhona, I just got, instead, and it worked perfectly.

Serves 2-3

 Ingredients

• 265 g (9⅓ oz) chocolate (70 %)

• 240 g (1 cup) water

Directions:

Place a mixing bowl on top of another slightly larger bowl filled with ice and cold water, (you can add a teaspoon of salt to get a cooler ice water). The bottom of the top bowl should touch the ice water, but the ice water shouldn't be able to get into the top bowl. Set aside.

Chop the chocolate finely, adding it to a small sauce pan with the water. Slowly melt the chocolate while whisking. When melted, pour the chocolate into the bowl sitting in the ice water, begin whisking.  Whisk vigorously until mousse begins to thicken. In the beginning it looks like nothing will ever happen, but after 2-4 minutes it starts to thicken up.  Be careful not to over whisk as the chocolate can become grainy.  I used a hand mixer in the beginning and a hand whisk in the end. If you over whisk the mousse, you just have to remelt the chocolate mousse and start whisking all over again. You don't have to throw it all away. 

When you have the desired texture, pour the mousse in to the serving dishes. You have to do it pretty fast, because the mousse thickens. 

Serve the mousse immediately or let the mousse thicken up some more in the refrigerator. 

The chocolate mousse will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. (But not in my house).