Sweet • Sour • Savory

Food blog on scandinavian style food done right.

Vegetables

Warm Asian-Style Slaw

Dinner, Salad, Sides, vegan, Vegetarian, VegetablesTove Balle-PedersenComment

I love a crunchy slaw. Normally I use napa cabbage and a spicy asian-style dressing, like I used in the angry tacos. But adding the peanut butter to this warm slaw, gives the slaw a nice creaminess. 

This slaw will be perfect for a weekend BBQ, or served with tacos with an asian twist.

Serves 3-4.

Ingredients:

Dressing:

  • 3 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • sesame oil
  • 2 teaspoons grated ginger
  • 2 teaspoons grated Serrano pepper
  • 4 tablespoons creamy peanutbutter

Slaw:

  • 2 teaspoons olive oil
  • 2 carrots, julienned
  • ½ small red cabbage
  • ¼ green cabbage
  • ½ english cucumber, julienned
  • 4 scallions, thinly sliced
  • some fresh coriander, chopped
  • season with salt

Directions:

Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing, set aside.

Heat the oil in a wok. Sauté carrots while stirring for about a minute,  add the cabbage and keep stirring, while cooking for about 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and add the rest of the ingredients and dressing, tossing well to coat.

Serve immediately. 

Enjoy!

Warm Cabbage Salad

Dinner, Salad, Sides, VegetablesTove Balle-PedersenComment
Warm Cabbage Salad

Warm Cabbage Salad

I love cabbage. It's cheap, healthy and easy to make. You can use it raw or cook it. When you sauté it like in this recipe, you still get the crunchy texture and a mild flavor. You can pull the flavor profile in different directions, by adding chili, curry or keep it mild with lemon and parsley.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium head of green cabbage, thinly sliced
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 lemon, the zest of
  • 1 handful Italian parsley, chopped
  • salt to taste
  • lemon juice or white balsamic vinegar to taste

 

Directions:

Melt the butter in a sauté pan, don't let it brown. Sauté the cabbage until it starts to get tender. You still want it to be crispy, but not raw. Turn off the heat, and mix in parsley and lemon zest. Season the salad with salt and lemon juice or vinegar.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

 

 

Whole Roasted Cauliflower

Dinner, Sides, vegan, Vegetables, VegetarianTove Balle-PedersenComment
Whole Roasted Cauliflower

Whole Roasted Cauliflower

Cauliflower was a weird vegetable for me growing up. My mom boiled the h.. out of it, and like many overcooked vegetables it went on my "I don't like that" list. Please DO NOT overcook and especially over-boil your vegetables. 
You can prepare cauliflower so many ways, or just eat it raw, but by roasting it whole like this you get a great nutty flavor, with a crispy surface with a tender and almost creamy center. It might be time consuming but its well worth the wait. 

Serves 3-4.

Ingredients:

  • 1 large cauliflower, the one I used was yellow to start with

  • olive oil

  • salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven with a cast-iron skillet inside to 375℉ (190℃).

Break off and discard the outer leaves from the cauliflower. Cut off the bottom of the stem, being careful not to cut off any of the florets. Using a small sharp knife to cut out the hard core of the cauliflower.  

Rinse the cauliflower, not drying it again. Place the cauliflower core-side up on the cutting board, and drizzle it with olive oil. Rub the oil all over the surface, and sprinkle with sea salt.

Place the cauliflower core-side down in the hot cast-iron skillet. Place an ovenproof pan filled with hot water, to create steam in the oven. Roast the cauliflower for 1½-2 hours, basting it 2-3 times with more olive oil. You want to end up with a nice brown color on the surface and a nice tender inside. You can roast the cauliflower under the boiler for a brief moment in the end to add some more color.

Serve the cauliflower to your favorite protein.

Enjoy!

Mortens And - Roasted Duck

Christmas, Dinner, Holiday, Meats, Sides, Vegetables, PoultryTove Balle-Pedersen2 Comments
Duck roasting - from the oven cam.

Duck roasting - from the oven cam.

Mortensaften - is celebrated on November 10th. 

The tradition that Danes and some parts of Germans eat duck on this night, dates back to before 1616. 

The story tells us that a monk called Martin or Morten in Denmark was forced to become a bishop, but he didn't want the job, so he hid in a pasture filled with geese. Not the smartest place, cause the geese honked and  Morten was revealed. As the tail goes Morten Bisp, now bishop ordered everyone to eat geese on November 10th as a punishment for the geese for ratting him out. 

Over time people switched to eating ducks, maybe because of the smaller size. 

The traditional way is to serve the duck with caramelized potatoes, pickled red cabbage and gravy, kinda the same way as the traditional christmas dinner/pork roast. To change things up, I caramelized an assortment of root vegetables and kept the red cabbage.

Ingredients:

Duck:

  • 1 duck (7-8 pounds)
  • 2 oranges
  • 2 apples
  • 2 handful of pitted prunes
  • a handful salt and some pepper
  • 1 star anise
  • 3 whole allspice
  • 5 whole cloves

Pickled Red Cabbage:

  • 1 medium red cabbage
  • 25 g butter, salted
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • ¼ cup balsamic vinegar (I mixed half balsamic and half blackberry-ginger balsamic for a sweeter taste)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Caramelized Root vegetables:

  • 3 large carrots
  • 2 parsnips
  • 3 sun chokes (Israeli artichokes)
  • 1 small root celery
  • 3 small beets
  • salt
  • a splash of oil for the baking
  • sugar and butter for the caramelizing

Directions:

Duck:

Preheat the oven to 265℉ (130℃).

Chop the oranges and apples in the size of the prunes. Mix star anise, allspice, cloves and the broken cinnamon stick with apples, oranges and prunes. Have the salt in a clean cup.

Take neck and giblets out of the duck. Make sure that all feather sacks are out of the duck, you don't want a hard part of the feather in the crispy skin.

Pad the duck dry with some kitchen towel. Salt the duck inside, and fill it with the fruit mixture. Close the opening with a  trussing needle. 

Truss the duck by placing the duck on a tray with the legs towards you. Tuck the wing tips under the duck. Cut a piece of cooking twine about 3 feet (1 meter), and center it on top of the neck end of the breast. Lift the neck end of the duck and pull the twine down around the wings and under the duck, then bring the ends up over the breast, towards you, and knot the twine, pulling it tight to plump the breast. Bring the ends of the twine around the ends of the drumsticks and straight up. Tie as before to pull the drumsticks together and form a compact bird; tie again to secure knot."

Well, I did it my way, and tried my best to get the compact duck. Sometimes I just pull the wing onto the back of the duck, and use a cooking rubber band to tie the legs together.

Salt the duck with a lot of salt. 

Put the duck in the oven, breast side down, and cook it like this for 3-3½ hours. Have a pan under the duck, and put the giblets, neck and water in it. This water/drippings will be the base for the sauce. 

After 3½ hours turn the duck breast side up, and roast it for another 1½-2 hours until the temperature in the duck reaches 158℉ (70℃). If the skin isn't crispy, give the bird a few minutes under the boiler, be careful not to burn the duck.

Take the duck out and let it rest. Pour the drippings from the pan through a strainer into a saucepan. Skim the fat from the surface. I use a fat separator, which makes this process a breeze. Save the fat in the refrigerator or the freezer. Duck fat is a flavorful fat, and is perfect to roast potatoes in.

Add some cream, blue cheese and red currant jelly to the drippings and thicken the sauce.

Remove the twine and carve the duck. 

Red Cabbage:

Remove outher leaves of cabbage, and cut cabbage into quarters and remove the white core. Thinly slice the cabbage across the quarters width-wise. To get uniform slices I use a mandolin.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the cabbage and sear it for a couple minutes. Add vinegar and sugar.  Simmer the cabbage for 10-15 minutes until cabbage is tender.

Season with salt, pepper, vinegar and sugar. Serve heated to pork roasts or roasted duck. 

Caramelized Root vegetables:

Preheat the oven for 400℉ (200℃).

Peel the root vegetables and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Keep the beets separate even during baking, to prevent all the vegetables from turning red. Dress the vegetables in oil and season with salt. Bake the vegetables in ovenproof dishes for about 30 minutes until tender, but not soft. Cool the vegetables. Just before you are ready to serve, heat a large skillet over high heat, pour in the sugar and melt it. When the sugar has turned the color of light amber, add the butter and stir with a wooden spoon. Carefully pour the vegetables into the hot caramel. Lower the heat and make sure the vegetables get covered in the caramel and get heated through. Serve immediately, otherwise the vegetables looses the shine.

Enjoy!

Pickled Chilies

condiments, Preserve, VegetablesTove Balle-PedersenComment

Last Sunday I went to my local Farmer's Market looking for chili peppers. I have been wanting to pickle chilies for so long. Last year I grew my own, but I used them all in my cooking, leaving no leftovers to pickle. I returned home with a bag filled with habanero, jalapeño, serrano, thai and a no-name red chili pepper. I made a new batch of hot hot sauce and then it was time to pickle the rest.

I like my pickled chilies to be slightly salty and not overly sweet. The sweeter ones are more difficult to pair with dinner. I think I got the right mix of sweet, salty and tanginess to my take in this batch.  

Makes 2 medium jars.

Ingredients:

  • 300 g mixed chili peppers (jalapeño, serrano, thai, habanero), sliced
  • 500 ml vinegar
  • 85 g sugar
  • 2 tablespoons salt
  • 2 bay leaves 
  • 1 teaspoon coriander seeds

Directions:

Bring the vinegar to a boil, add all the sliced chili peppers, and bring it all to a boil. Remove the chilies using a slotted spoon. Place the chilies in 2 cleaned and sterilized* glass jars. 

Add sugar, salt, bay leaves and coriander seeds to the vinegar, and bring it to a boil again. Make sure that sugar and salt is dissolved before pouring the hot vinegar over the chilies. Put the lids on the jars, and wipe the jars clean. Let the pickled chilies cool.

The chilies will keep for at least a month. I only make small batches and keep them in the refrigerator. 

Serve the chilies on sandwiches, as hot snacks or where ever you need a kick to your food. 

Enjoy!

*You need to clean the jars and sterilize them by soaking them in boiling water. It goes the same with the lids. Submerge the lid for a few minutes in a bowl of boiling water.