3 from 1 – Swedish tapas

These smörrebröd are perfect for lunch or as a starter. These pieces are part of what we serve when celebrating Midsummer or Xmas. The difference is that we at Midsummer and Xmas don’t settle with one snaps.

From left to right: Terrine of salmon with horseradish and apple, creme of smoked herring, Gubbröra

Terrine of salmon

• 100 g smoked salmon
• 1 green apple, chopped into small squares
• 1 dl creme fraiche
• 1 dl creme cheese
• 1 tbsp mustard
• 1/2 grated fresh horseradish
• 1 spring onion chopped into slices
• salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients with a spoon. Spread it on a plastic wrap and roll it to a cylinder. Put in the freezer for half an hour. It is then easier to cut into nice pieces. Serve with cucumber, dill and some lemon.

Creme of smoked herring

• 2 smoked herrings
• 1 pickled gherkin, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 dl creme fraiche
• 2 tbsp chopped dill
• salt, pepper

Mix all ingredients in a blender. Serve with some pumpernickel or  crisp bread.

Gubbröra

• 6 fillets of anchovy (Swedish style)
• 3 boiled egg
• 1 onion
• 1 tbsp Kalles Kaviar (typical Swedish caviar that is not necessary)
• 1 dl creme fraiche
• chives
• dill

Chop everything into fine pieces and mix with a spoon. Serve with pumpernickel or crisp bread.

To the tapas you should drink a cold beer and a nice Aquavit. Don’t forget to sing a snaps song!

We’re making meatballs

Meatballs with mashed potatoes, cream sauce, pressed and pickled cucumber and lingonberry jam was served to us by our grandmothers and mothers. And I guess it will always be a favorite. Forget the ones from IKEA. This is the real thing!

Meatballs

• 500 g minced Beef
• 2 Egg
• 1 tbsp Mustard
• 1 bread Roll, only the content (or other fresh white bread)
• 0,5-1 decilitre Milk or Cream
• 1 Onion, finely chopped
• 5-6 Cloves
• 5-6 Pimentos
• Salt
• Black pepper

Blend everything together, crush the pimento and the clove in a mortar, let the mixture draw for a few minutes. Form the meatballs with wet hands and fry them in a pan with butter.

Mashed potatoes

• 8-10 Potatoes
• 1 decilitre Yoghurt
• 1-2 decilitre Milk
• a knob of Butter
• Nutmeg
• Salt
• Black pepper

Boil the potatoes, when they’re done pull out the water and mash the potatoes. Use an electric mixer, add a knob of butter, nutmeg and yoghurt and mix. Gradually add the milk until you get preferred consistency. Spice it with salt and black pepper.

Pressed and pickled cucumber

• 1 Cucumber
• 1-2 teaspoons Salt
• 1 decilitre Water
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 2 tbsp Vinegar essence
• Parsley

Slice the cucumber thinly, put it in a bowl with the salt. Put a lid (or a plate) on top of the cucumbers and add a weight to press it down. Leave it for 30 minutes. Blend water, sugar and vinegar essence.

Pour out the water from the pressed cucumber and put the cucumber in a glass jar, add chopped parsley and pour the fluid into the jar. Leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours before you eat it.

Brown sauce

• Cream
• Beef broth
• Soy sauce
• Sauce thickener
• Salt
• Black pepper

Make the sauce in the pan where you fried the meatballs without washing it in between. Add the ingredients depending of your own taste, you can of course exchange the cream for milk. Stir everything until you have a nice consistency and a tasty sauce.

The lingonberry jam is bought in Sweden and not homemade.

Music: CEO – the swede Eric Berglund – and his latest record White Magic.

Pickled gherkins

We haven’t been able to find pickled gherkins in Berlin. Salt pickled gherkins that is. What is a hamburger without pickled gherkin or your liver paste sandwich for breakfast for that matter?

We have to make our own and now it is the season for tiny cucumbers that we bought from the Farmers Market on Kollwitz Platz in Prenzlauer Berg.

• 1 kilo tiny Cucumbers
• 1 liter Water
• 4 tbsp Salt
• 2 teaspoons Sugar
• 2 1/2 tbsp Vinegar essence
• 2-3 heads of Dill
• 4 centimetres of Horseradish
• 2-3 centimetres of fresh Ginger
• 4-5 Black peppercorns

Scrub the cucumbers clean and prick tiny holes in them, so that they better absorb the flavours. Stir water, salt, sugar and vinegar essence together so that the salt and the sugar dissolves. Let it rest for a couple of minutes.

In the meantime slice the horseradish and the ginger in 0,5 centimetre slices.

Use a big jar, preferably a glass jar, or whatever you prefer. Put cucumbers, slices of ginger, slices of horseradish, the dill heads and the black peppercorns in layers. Pour the liquid carefully.

Let your pickled gherkins draw for a few days before you eat them.

Asian Tasting Menu

The menu was seven courses in the following order: (recipes and pictures below)

1. Edame beans with homemade garlic oil and salt (Fleur de Sel)
2. Tuna tartar with  wasabi cream and soy sauce
3. Steamed sugar peas with walnut dressing and scallops fried in walnut butter
4. Dumpling filled with shiitake mushroom, spring onions, garlic and lemon grass on a bed of marinated red onions and shiitake mushrooms
5. Filet of beef tataki style
6. Asian ribs with Kimchi
7. Ginger granite with ginger cream and fruits

Edame beans with homemade garlic oil and salt

• Peal the beans and steam them for about 5-10 minutes
• Pour 0,5 decilitre olive oil together with 2 cloves of garlic in a saucepan – warm up the oil until you feel the garlic scent – let it cool of a bit
• Dish up the beans on a plate, add as much garlic oil as you want and sprinkle salt over the beans

Tuna tartar with wasabi cream and soy sauce

Tuna tartar with wasabi cream

• 200 g Fresh tuna (sashimi quality), chopped fine
• 1 decilitre Crème fraîche
• 1 tablespoon Wasabi
• 1 tablespoon Icing sugar

Whisk crème fraîche together with wasabi and icing sugar. Put the finely minced tuna in four (4 portions) steel cooking rings and flatten the tuna with a spoon. Add the wasabi cream on top. Place the steel cooking rings on plates and carefully remove the cooking rings.

Soy sauce

• 2 decilitre Japanese soy sauce
• 1 piece of Ginger, peeled
• 1 Lemon grass
• 1 Tomato
• 1 Celery stem
• 3 tbsp Lemon juice or Ponzu
• 1 Orange, the juice
• 3 tbsp Mirin (sweet vinegar)
• 1/4 Cucumber, peeled

Mix all ingredients together with a mixer or in a blender. Strain the mix and you have your soy sauce.

Steamed sugar peas with walnut dressing and scallops fried in walnut butter

Walnut dressing

• 50 g Walnuts
• 1 tbsp Sugar
• 1 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Saké
• 2 tbsp Water
• Salt
• Ground black pepper

Steam the sugar peas for a few minutes or boil them for half a minute. Rinse them in cold water so that the cooking process ends.

Mix all the other ingredients to a dressing, use a mixer or a blender.

Use a mortar and a pestle to pulp 3-4 walnuts and add them together with butter in a frying pan. Fry the scallops briefly in the walnut butter. Use frozen or fresh scallops, one for each guest, depending on their size.

Dumpling filled with shiitake mushroom, spring onions, garlic and lemon grass on a bed of marinated red onions and shiitake mushrooms

Dumplings

• 4 Wonton wrappers
• 6 Shiitake mushrooms
• 1 Spring onion
• 1 clove of Garlic
• 1/2 Lemon grass

Chop mushrooms, spring onions, garlic and lemon grass. Put it in a frying pan together with butter and fry shortly. Add approximately 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoon to each wonton wrapper. Use an egg yolk as glue on the wonton wrapper, gather the corners together and make a little swirl.

Put the wontons in a bamboo steamer and steam for 10-12 minutes.

Marinated red onions with shiitake mushrooms

• 1 Red onion, in thin slices
• 1-2 tbsp Water
• 1/2 Lemon, juice
• 1-2 tbsp Hoisin sauce

Put the red onion slices in the marinade for about 30 minutes. Fry the shiitake mushrooms in a pan with butter. Add the fried mushrooms to the red onions and let them soak for a couple of minutes.

Filet of beef tataki style

Rub

• 1 tbsp Lemon grass, dried
• 1 teaspoon Chili, dried
• 3 Kaffir lime leaves, dried
• 1 teaspoon Coriander seeds
• 2 teaspoons Coconut flakes
• 1 teaspoon Brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon Rose hip powder
• 1 tbsp Fruit tea

Mix all the ingredients to a powder.

Sesame sauce

• 2 tbsp Soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 2 tbsp Red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Mustard powder
• 1 teaspoon Sesame oil
• 1 clove of Garlic
• 2 tbsp roasted Cashews or peanuts
• 1/2 teaspoon minced Ginger
• Tabasco
• 1 teaspoon Sesame seeds

Mix everything together except the sesame seeds to a smooth sauce. Stir the sesame seeds in to the sauce.

Soy sauce

• 1 decilitre Soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Ponzu or lime juice

Stir together.

Rub the filet of beef ( 200 gram) with the rub and fry it quickly in oil in a frying pan. Put the fried beef int the freezer for 30 minutes, then cut thin slices of the beef.

Add sesame sauce and soy sauce to the beef and decorate with Galia melon and spring onions.

Asian ribs with Kimchi

• 300 g Pork belly
• 2 Cinnamon sticks
• 5 Star anise
• 2 tbsp Sichuan pepper
• 3-4 Chili fruits, dried
• 30 g minced Ginger
• 1/2 decilitre light Soy sauce
• 1/2 decilitre Hoisin sauce
• 1/2 decilitre Soy sauce
• 1/2 decilitre dry Sherry
• 1-2 decilitre Water
• 1 decilitre brown Sugar
• 2 tbsp Red wine vinegar

Cut the pork belly into 3 centimeter dices, put everything in a pot and boil for 30 minutes under a lid, remove the lid and let it simmer for another 30 minutes. The meat shall be beautifully glaced from the sauce.

Serve together with Kimchi.

Ginger granite with ginger cream and autumn fruits

Fruit

1. 6 Plums
2. 2 Pears
3. 2 Blood oranges
4. 2 Nectarines

Cut the fruit in nice looking variable sizes.

Granite

• 2 cans of Root beer
• 1 Lime fruit, juice
• 1 decilitre Syrup (50/50 sugar – water)
• Fruit pulp, (“left overs” from the fruit cutting)

Mix the lime, the syrup and the fruit pulp in a blender, strain it and add the root beer. Freeze it, in a baking tin or a dish.

Ginger cream

• 5 Egg yolks
• 20 g Maizena flour
• 2 1/2 decilitre Milk
• 50 g Sugar
• 15 g Butter
• 1 centilitre juice from fresh Ginger
• 2 decilitre Whipped cream

Whisk the egg yolks, the sugar and the maizena flour until it’s white. Boil the milk and the butter and add it to the egg-mixture while stirring. Pour the mixture into a new casserole and boil it until it thickens (approximately 5 minutes), it’s very important to whisk the entire time so that the mixture don’t burn. Strain it and let it cool down.

Add the ginger juice and whip the egg cream together with the whipped cream so that it has a light, fluffy consistency.

When serving add a little fresh ground black pepper on top.

Vietnamese spring rolls

How to roll the spring rolls nicely, instruction video.

Unfortunately we failed a bit with ours, we have to give it another go now when we know how to do it. Note that we buy all our Asian ingredients in a local Asian store here in Berlin.

Anyhow we filled ours with;

• sliced cucumber
• sliced carrots
• sliced spring onions
• rice nudles
• shrimps
• sliced radish

I really recommend this dip sauce, it is very taste and you can decide for yourself how strong you prefer it.

• 1-3 tbs water
• juice from one lime
• 2-3 tbs fisch sauce
• 1-2 teaspons of sugar (honey works fine as well)
• 2 cloves of garlic (we prefer grated instead of squeezed)
• fresh chopped red chilifruit or Sambal Olek

Stir everything together or use a shaker. Done!

That was our dinner yesterday.