Cauliflower Salad with Apples & Almonds

Cauliflower Salad with Apples & Almonds.

I found this recipe one one of my favorite Danish food blogs, Valdemarso. It’s a great everyday salat with lots of taste and texture. I lowered the amount of garlic in my version, so it won’t be overpowering, masking the other milder flavors. The salad will keep 2 days in the refrigerator.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 cauliflower

• 1 red apple

• ½ handful Italian parsley

Dressing:

• 2 handful Italian parsley,

• ½ -1 garlic clove, chopped

• 15 g pine nuts

• 25 g Parmesan cheese, chopped roughly

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 tablespoons creme fraiche (or sour cream)

• 1 teaspoon honey

• salt & pepper to taste

Salted almonds:

• 30 g raw almonds

• 50 ml water

• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Salted almonds:

In a small skillet dissolve the salt in the water and bring the water to a boil. Stir in the almonds, and cook on medium high until the water is evaporated, shake the pan to get an even salt coating on the almonds. Let the almonds cool completely, before giving them a rough chop.

Dressing:

Combine all the ingredients except the creme fraiche in a food processor or mini chopper and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add creme fraiche and process until fully incorporated and you have smooth paste. Season with salt and pepper.

Salad:

Grate or finely chop the cauliflower and chop the parsley. Wash an and core the apple, and dice it. Mix all the ingredients with the salted almonds and dressing, season with salt and pepper. Now the salad is ready to serve.

Enjoy!

No-Cook Tomato Sauce

Spaghetti with no-cook tomato sauce.

Some of my neighbors gifted me some beautiful tomatoes from their yard. Right away I knew that I had to try making the no-cook tomato sauce, I had found on the Bon Appetite website a while ago. Next to eating a warm tomato straight from the plant, this sauce might be one of the best ways to eat tomatoes. And boy were I right. This sauce is honoring the flavors of the tomato, by complementing them without overpowering therm.

Serves 3-4.

Ingredients:

• 750 g ripe tomatoes

• 1 garlic clove, grated

• 2 tablespoons butter

• 4 teaspoons champagne vinegar

• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

• 60 ml olive oil

• 113 g Parmesan cheese

• salt to taste

• 1 handful basil, chopped

Directions:

Remove the seeds from the tomatoes, this is easily done by cutting the tomatoes in half through the equator, instead of through the core. Then gently squeeze the tomatoes like you would squeeze a lemon to discard the seeds.

Roughly chop the tomatoes and transfer them to a large wide bowl. Mash the tomatoes with a fork or a potato masher, to release the juices. Add half the cheese, butter, vinegar, pepper, garlic, oil, combine and season with salt. Let the sauce sit covered on the kitchen counter for at least 30 minutes (not more than 3 hours) allowing the favors to blend.

Boil pasta according to instructions on packaging. Save some of the pasta water to stretch the sauce.

Add basil to the sauce and season it again. Mix in the hot pasta, and serve immediately with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

Piccalilli - Pickles

Piccalilli.

Pickles, Piccalilli or chow chow, this delicious condiment is called different thing, in different places. Growing up it was a weird sour mustardy thing my dad loved, but as an adult I realized it was a delicious, sweet & sour, curry, mustard sauce with lovely crunchy vegetables. It’s pairs very well with meats, especially with a pariserbøf. But I also like piccalilli as a condiment with grilled sausages.

Previously I’d bought piccalilli, but after trying the homemade version, I won’t go back. The flavors are great, and the part of knowing what’s in it, is really nice.

Makes 8-10 small jars.

Ingredients:

1000 g vegetables, diced small

• 300 g cauliflower

• 100 g summer squash

• 100 g carrots

• 100 g fennel

• 100 g shallots

• 120 g green beans

• 130 g red bell pepper

• 50 g celery

• 50 g salt

Pickling juice:

• 320 ml vinegar

• 200 ml water

• 150 g sugar

• 40 g honey

Spice Paste:

• 50 g corn starch

• 3 teaspoons curry

• 1 teaspoon turmeric

• 4 teaspoons Colman’s mustard powder

• 1 teaspoon ground coriander

• 1 teaspoon cumin

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• 100 ml vinegar

Makes 8-10 small jars.

Directions:

Depending on how coarse you like your piccalilli, you can dice the vegetables in about ⅕-⅖ -inch (½-1 cm) pieces, or blitz them in a food processor. I like to be able to se what kind of vegetables I’m eating, so I do a coarser chop.

Wash and peel the vegetables, before chopping them. Mix the chopped vegetables with salt, and place them covered in refrigerator over night.

Prepare the jars and lids by cleaning them and scolding them in boiling water. Rinse them in a conserving agent, (I used a Danish conserving agent called Atamon, sodium benzoate) or rinse them in a 100 proof vodka.

Rinse the vegetables thoroughly in lots of water, drain them well. You can dry the vegetables on kitchen towels.

Make the paste in a bowl or a mini food chopper, making sure to get a homogeneous mixture. Set aside.

Heat the vinegar, water, and sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Mix in some tablespoons of the warm vinegar in the spice paste, two times, before adding all of the paste to the warm vinegar. Bring the vinegar to a boil while whisking. The vinegar will now thicken to a sauce, and let it boil for about 5 minutes. Add the vegetables to the sauce and let them get about 1-2 minutes of heat, before jarring.

Keep the piccalilli in the refrigerator for about 6 weeks before serving, giving the flavors time to mellow out and blend.

The Piccalilli will keep 6 months in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Green Pepper Sauce

Green Pepper Sauce

This green pepper sauce is a tasty but spicy sauce that pairs well with beef. You often get this type of sauce at steakhouses, and this is one of my favorites. In Denmark I’d never made it from scratch, I would just buy the Knorr powder version. But of course the real deal is so much better, so much worth the time and effort. I like that you can make the sauce-base well in advance, you can even freeze it.

This year we had green pepper sauce for our New Year’s dinner, and as a sauce loving creature it was front and center on my plate.😂

Serves 6-10.

Ingredients:

• 1 shallot, chopped

• ⅛ root celery, diced

• 1 garlic clove

• 2 teaspoons green peppercorn in brine (Madagaskar peppercorns), chopped

• 1 teaspoon butter

• 1 teaspoon grape seed oil (or another flavorless oil)

• 50 ml Cognac

• 250 ml beef stock

• 200 ml red wine

• 1 sprig rosemary (leaves only)

• 3 sprigs of fresh thyme

• 1 splash of Gastrique ( you can replace this with some sugar and a splash of vinegar)

• 100 ml heavy whipping cream

•  salt to taste

• 2 teaspoons green peppercorn in brine (Madagaskar peppercorns)

• Cornstarch - optional, mixed in cold for thickening

Gastrique (Adapted from Bobby Flay)

• 1/4 cup (80g) honey

• 1/2 cup (125ml) apple cider vinegar

Directions:

Gastrique (Adapted from Bobby Flay)

Heat the honey in a small saucepan over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, until it becomes deep golden brown. Add the vinegar and continue to cook, swirling the pan a few times - do not use a spoon. Cook it for about 15 minutes, until the honey/caramel is incorporated in the vinegar, and the gastrique has thickened to the consistency of thin maple syrup. Remove from heat. Keep the gastrique in a sealed sterilized bottle in the refrigerator, it will keep for months.

Sauce:

Sauté onions, celery root, garlic and the chopped peppercorns until the onions are translucent. Remove saucepan from the heat, move the pan away from fan, actually do not have lamps or any other things above it. Pour in the cognac into the pan swirl it round, and standing at a safe distance from the pan, ignite it with a long match or lighter. Gently swirl/stir your now-flaming pan to evenly distribute the alcohol. Let cook until the flames disappear, and the alcohol vapor burns off by itself in a few seconds. Add the beef stock, red wine, rosemary, and thyme. Let the sauce simmer for at least 30 minutes. Strain the now sauce-base through a sieve set over saucepan, pressing firmly on solids, getting all the good flavors out. Reduce the sauce-base to about half, you are aiming for a concentrated base. (All this can be made in advance).

Add cream, whole peppercorns and season the sauce with salt and gastrique. If you like a slightly thicker sauce, you can thicken it with some cornstarch dispensed in cold water. Serve the sauce with a nice steak or roast.

Enjoy!

Teriyaki Glazed Lamb Sirloin with Green 'Couscous'

We really enjoy eating lamb. But this cut was new to us. Not sure if it would be a tough piece of meat or what. I decided to try to cook it medium, hoping for the best. And it turned out perfect. Clearly not the last time I’m serving lamb sirloin.
I was looking for a non-starchy side, because I want to cut a little back on starchy carbs. This cauliflower couscous was a good replacement for regular couscous. Easy to make, no cooking needed. Next time I will add some kind of fruit, to give it some sweetness.

Recipe inspired by Årstiderne.

Serves 3-4.

Ingredients:

• ¾ - 1 pound lamb sirloin ‘steaks’

• 100 ml teriyaki-sauce

• olive oil for frying

Green 'Couscous':

• 1 bunch kale

• 1 medium cauliflower

• 1 preserved lemon , finely diced

• 1 small handfull almond, dry roasted on a skillet

• 1 shallots, thinly sliced.

Directions:

Sear the sirloins on both sides in olive oil. Turn the heat down, and keep cooking to the desired doneness. I cooked it for about 5-8 minted and ended up with medium steaks. Add the teriyaki sauce, and turn the steaks så they are glazed all over. Slice before serving.

While cooking the steaks, wash and trim the kale of the stems, and chop finerly. Wash and grate the cauliflower. Peel and thinly slice the shallots. Mix all the ingredients for the ‘couscous’ putting the almonds on top - set aside.

Plate ‘couscous’ and sliced steaks.

Enjoy!