Meringue dessert

Meringue nests before baking

Last week I baked some macarons. I hadn't done them for a long time and got the idea from my sister who was asking for some advice for making them. I will post about them later, I promise. Well, this all leads me to the meringue. I filled my macarons with lemon curd and thus I had some eggwhite left over and I wanted to use it for something. My Hubby really likes meringues and I hadn't done them for ages so that's what I decided to go for. My meringue nests turned out pretty nice and yesterday we had a dessert with meringue, lemon curd, fruits and  whipped cream. Here comes the recipe, which I took from the book "Baking and Pastry - mastering the art and craft" of the Culinary Institute of America.

Swiss meringue

makes 595 g

227 g Egg whites

5 ml Vanilla extract (I used 1/2 tsp vanilla seeds)

pinch of salt

454 g Sugar

1. Place the egg whites, vanilla, salt and sugar in the mixer bowl and stir until throughly combined.

2. Place the bowl over barely simmering water and slowly stir the mixture until it reaches 74 degrees celsius.

3. Transfer the mixture to the mixer and whip on high speed with the whip attachment until the meringue is the desired consistency.

Small meringues

I piped the meringues in different forms and let them dry over night in the oven. I set the the oven into 90 degrees celsius and let the door slightly ajar. By the way, if you didn't know, there are three different types of meringues: Common/French meringue, Swiss meringue and Italian meringue. The French meringue is the easiest to do. For that one you just whip all the ingredients together. For the Swiss meringue you heat up the ingredients up to 74 degrees celsius and whip them afterwards into a desired consistency. Italian meringue is prepared with a hot sugar sirup. One will start whipping the egg whites and gradually add the hot sugar sirup. I find that for the meringue bases/nests the Swiss meringue is the best one. For the mousse cakes I like to use the Italian meringue instead.

For the dessert I also needed  butter curd. I had some left over from the macarons so I used that one. The recipe is also from the American Culinary Academy book.

Lemon curd

makes 482 g

300 g Butter, cubed

255 g Sugar

270 ml lemon juice (I used only 200 ml)

18 g Lemon zest, grated (I used zest of one lemon)

225 g Egg yolks

1. Combine 150 g of the butter, 128 g of the sugar and the lemon juice and zest and bring to boil over medium heat, stirring gently to dissolve the sugar.

2. Meanwhile, blend the egg yolks with the remaining sugar. Temper by gradually adding about one-third of the lemon juice mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Return the tempered egg mixture to the saucepan. Continue cooking, stirring constantly with the whisk, until the mixture comes to boil.

3. Stir in the remaining butter. (I used hand mixer and added the cubes one after other.)

4. Strain the curd into a large shallow container or bowl. Cover with plastic wrap placed directly on the  surface of the curd. Cool over an ice water bart. (I didn't strain the curd and it worked out just fine. I cooled it down in the fridge.)

5. Store the curd, covered, under refrigeration.

To prepare the dessert you will need some of your favourite fruits or berries and some whipped cream. Take the meringue nest (you can often buy these in a normal food store, if you don't want to make them yourself) and fill it with lemon curd. Place the fruits or berries on the curd and pipe some whipped cream on the top. Enjoy!

A super dessert

Olive oil in Koita, Greece

Landscape in Koita

I'm gonna make a quick jump back to our holiday in Greece in November. I know, I already wrote a great deal about it but I never told about our visit to the olive tree fields and to the olive oil press. Of course, I have some pictures too.

Our hotel Citta dei Nicliani mentioned already on their webpage that they can organise olive oil visits. So, I wrote them beforehand that we would be interested. It's all very small scale but worth a visit. The visits are organised only during olive season and that is more or less from October to December.

An olive tree

It was all very easily organised by the son of the hotels owner family.. We aren't exactly experts at Greek so he made all the plans, drove us around and was also our interpreter. It's all very "everybody-know-everybody" down there in Koita. So we actually visited family friends of the hotel owners. First we went to the fields where a family was picking olives. We could watch what they were doing and we could also participated in the picking. We had loads of questions and they all got answered with the help of our interpreter. In Koita they get very less rain so the olives aren't that big but apparently well suited for making oil.

Picking olives

The olives are collected on to a big tarpaulin

Afterwards the olives are bagged

The olive oil press we visited the next day because it's not open everyday. The owner of the press was some sort of a relative (uncle, cousin or something...) of the family we had visited the day before. The press was really small. All the action happened in one room. The olives were brought in big bags and after that they were washed to get rid of the leaves etc. Then the actual pressing started. After various steps we were able to taste the freshly pressed olive oil. We did take some pictures of the different steps but unfortunately they weren't very successful due to the not so good lighting. 

The olive oil we tasted was non-filtered and we got told that many of the locals actually prefer it that way. It did taste good. They don't do small bottles so we couldn't buy any to take with us home. Both of the visits didn't cost us anything. The hotel did it for free and they also told us that we shouldn't give the press any money for the trouble because otherwise they will start charging the visitors and that the press already has a good deal because the hotel is buying their oil. All in all very interesting visits and we also got a small glimpse of the local's way of thinking.

The olive oil press

Olives coming in in big bags

The dirt, leaves etc., after washing

The leftover of the olives after pressing

Machinery

Machinery

There were many of people around

Freshly pressed oil being filled into containers

We were allowed to taste.

Lusikkaleipiä

This book has traveled with me since long before I became a chef

I want to introduce one of my cooking books which is quite well used. I got it as a present from my parents when I was a teenager. This book is called Kotiruoka which basically translates Hausmannskost or in English something like the homely/plain fare food. It contains many basic, traditional Finnish recipes. The first book was published back in 1908 so the whole thing is an old affair. My book is the 61st revison and that was back in 2001 so there is bound to be some newer revision. I maninly use this book for some baking stuff. Although many recipes don't work out perfect here in Switzerland I still use them as the basis. The most common thing I usually have to change is to add some more flour as the recipe calls. Something with the flour here is different than in Finland. All in all a pretty useful book but unfortunately it isn't available in English :(

It was first published in 1908

The following recipe is from the book kotiruoka. The other day I wanted to have some Lusikkaleipä (in plural Lusikkaleivät) which directly translated would mean "spoon bread" or "Löffelbrot". The name thanks itself for the form...one uses a spoon to form these cookies. After baking they are traditionally filled with apple or raspberry marmelade. I belong to the school of thought which supports the apple as the right filling. By the way, my granny makes the best Lusikkaleivät in the world :D

Lusikkaleivät

200g butter

140g sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

1 tsp soda (natron)

300g wheat flour

For filling:

Apple or raspberry puree or marmelade

I use Apfelmus/ apple puree

Boil/simmer the butter in a pot until it gets a nutty aroma and slighly brownish colour. Pour it into a bowl, add sugar and let cool down. Add the dry ingredients to the butter sugar mixture. You won't be needing a machine for this. By using a spoon form the dough into pieces. One should use a pretty deep spoon and press the dough flat so that one side of the piece is rounded and the other flat. Place the pieces with the rounded side on top on a baking sheet and bake at 175 Celsius for 12-15 minutes. Let cool down and fill. I like these the best a day after. First they will seem a bit hard but if you wait over night they will get softer and and they will stick together better. In my opinion the best place to store  these is a cookie tin. Before serving, top with icing sugar.

Lusikkaleipiä

Tasty lunch and sun at the Zürichsee

The look of Neue Spinnerei. There were more guests when we arrived, but we were the late eaters and the last to go. At least I had a change to take a couple of photos without bothering the other guests

Had absolutely super lovely and sunny day off today...quality time with Hubby :) We drove to Aathal and had some lunch in Neue Spinnerei.The place is nice but unfortunately their terrace will open only next week and thus we couldn't enjoy the sunny weather while eating. We found the menu a little bit boring but our choice, pork steak and rack of lamb, were tasty...nothing special, but tasty. I don't know about the vegetables of the season though...I guess that somewhere in the world the green beans and Zucchini are in the season ;D Well, they did taste good. The service was really nice and smiley.

 We had:

Pork steak 200g with veggies of the season 32.50 CHF

Rack of lamb with Tagliatelle and veggies of the season 37.50 CHF

Coupe Denmark, small 9.50 CHF

Coupe Surselva, small  9.50 CHF

1/2 litre Sparkling water

1 dl Zürcher Rosé 5.50 CHF

2 espressos

All in all the price was 107 CHF

The look of Neue Spinnerei

Pork with veggies

Lamb with Tagliatelle and veggies

Coupe Surselva

After lunch we drove to the lake Zürich to enjoy the super sunshine. We made a stop at the lake shore. A great deal of the shore is taken over by the private house owners but there are also some spots for everybody to stop and admire the lake. Before Rapperswil we stopped on the top of a small hill to enjoy the view of the montains and the city and castle of Rapperswil.

The view direction Rapperswil

The view of the west "gold" coast of the Lake Zürich

Rapperswil

Rapperswil

Kevät! / Frühling! / Spring!

Our chives is already thriving

Oh yeah! The spring has definitely started. Me like!!! We have had a fabulous sunny weather for this passed week...should make and keep everybody happy and the happiest of them all is Funny :D

Funny and the sun

She is enjoying

So lovely

I planted some basil seeds three days ago and they have started to grow like crazy

This tiny baby plant will hopefully turn into some juicy tomatos

Kalakukko - something from Finland

The main ingredients needed are rye flour, fishfillets and some fatty pork meat

The other day I had an idea that I should prepare something traditional Finnish to share with you. Out of nowhere I thought of Kalakukko. I have only made it once before, in the cooking school. We used the recipe of my teacher's grandma and that recipe I also used this time.

Kalakukko is "bread" with fish and pork filling or even better fish and pork baked in a rye crust. It  originates from the area of Savo in Finland. The crust is made of rye flour, water and salt. Some people also add some wheat flout to make the dough better formable. When it comes to the filling the people are divided. Some state that the fish used for the original kalakukko should be muikku/vendace while the others prefer to use ahven/perch. It's also possible to find kalakukko made of potatos or rutabaga. I wanted to make my kalakukko with vendace but unfortunately I can't buy them here so I ended up with perch.

Basically all you need is rye flour, water, salt, fish fillets, pork (bacon or pork belly) and a tiny bit rice to absorb the liquid. Obviously, if you use bacon, you don't need as much salt. The whole process is very easy as you can see from the following pictures. First you have to mix rye flour and salt with some water so that you get a firm dough which you can roll with a rolling pin without it sticking to the table surface. I had about 500 grams flour and I estimated the amount water. Fish I had bought 500 grams and the amount of pork I needed must have been something close to 400 grams.

Place the fishfilletes on the middle of the rolled dough. Between each layer of fish you should sprinkle some salt and a little rice which will absorb the extra liquid

On top of the fish place the pork slices

Fold the rim of the dough on the top of the fish. Just cut some of the dough away, if you have too much. Use a knife and some water to smoothen the surface. It should look like bread when it's ready

After the kalakukko is formed you have to bake it in 250 C for about half an hour to form a hard crust. Then it will be wrapped into a foil and baked in 120 C for about 3 1/2 hours. So as you can see it's not exactly fast food :D

Bake alltogether 4 hours

Ready to be eaten

My kalakukko turned our very good and tasty. I like it best cutted in slices and with some butter on top. For me it has to be warm enough so that the butter starts to melt but you can also eat it cold. Some people claim that Kalakukko shouldn't be cut in slices but opended up from the top instead but I find that funny.

Yummy!  I like to eat kalakukko warm with some butter.