Lovely fennel soup with scallops

This is one of my favourite soups. I am a big fan of fennel and together with the scallops this is the hammer.  You must try this!

Fennel soup

• 750 g fresh Fennel
• 1 Shallot, finely chopped
• 2 dl white Wine
• 1 l veal- or chicken Broth
• 1 dl Cream
• 1/2-1 tbsp Pernod
• Butter

Halve the fennel and cut out the stem in the middle, rinse it and cut off the sprigs. If the fennel dill is fresh, save it until later. Shred the fennel and fry it together with the shallot in butter until they are soft. Add the wine and the broth, let simmer for 30 minutes.

Use an electric mixer and blend the soup. If you don’t have one, use a strainer.

Let the soup come to a boil together with the cream, taste it with salt, pepper and the pernod. The soup shall have a thin consistency.

Fennel salad

• 250 g fresh Fennel
• 2 teaspoons of your best Olive oil, grassy taste
• 1-2 teaspoons fresh Lemon juice
• Salt and white pepper

Shred the fennel wafer-thin. Marinate in olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Add pepper just before serving together with fennel dill.

Scallops

• 8 Scallops
• Olive oil
• Salt and Pepper

Directly before serving season the scallops with salt and pepper. Heat up a frying pan, add olive oil and let the scallops just touch the pan. Let them get a litlle colour but that’s it!

Music: Listening to The Honey Brothers

The beauty and the beast a.k.a scallops and monkfish

This dish contains a lot of different ingredients but you can prepare most of the things in advance which makes it fairly easy to cook. You can also serve the pea-puree and the scallops as a starter.

Scallops, monkfish, artichoke, pea-puree and noilly prat sauce

Ingredients

• 500 g monkfish, fillets
• 4 scallops
• 250 g small green peas
• 4 small artichokes (cooked) or canned artichoke
• 1 dl noilly prat (dry vermouth)
• 3 shalots, finely chopped
• 50 g mushrooms, finely chopped
• 1 dl cream
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• parsley
• chicken stock
• a pinch coriander seeds
• grape seed oil
• chives finely chopped

Start with the sauce: heat the oil and add mushrooms, coriander, garlic, parsley stems, and 2/3 of shalots and sweat for 4 min.  Pour the Noilly Prat into the pan and reduce it till half remains. Add 1 dl chicken stock and the cream and boil it for 3 min. Set a side for 10 min and then strain through a fine sieve. Before serving heat the sauce.

Heat 5 dl chicken stock with the rest of the shalots. When it boils, add the peas. Let it cook for 2 min, then remove the liquid and mix the peas with the cooked shalots, some butter, salt and pepper. Keep warm

Cut the monkfish into 4 pieces. Bake in the oven of 100 degrees until the inside temp is 50 degrees (takes about 20 min). Flavor with salt and pepper and garnish with chives.

Fry the artichoke in a pan with olive oil and a garlic clove. Takes 5 min.

Fry the scallops 1 min on each side.

We served the dish with a dill-parsley oil (2 dl olive oil mixed with a lot of dill and parsley).

Music: Listening to Säkert! Facit

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.