food

Last June, i.e. almost a year ago, I attended a blog birthday bash in London thrown by Johanna and Jeanne . We were treated to a line-up of wonderful fingerfood, and one of these was mini-potatoes topped with caviar & wasabi-cream . Johanna used small new season's potatoes, but as I'm now living much further up North, we cannot buy any new potatoes just yet. So instead I used something sold as 'Parisian potatoes' here - small, perfect potato balls. We had some of our respective families over for a light late brunch on Saturday afternoon, and these were on offer. Went down a treat, may I say. Johanna's wasabi and caviar potatoes (well, almost) ( Kartuliampsud wasabi ja kalamarjaga ) small potatoes thick sour cream wasabi paste caviar or fish roe* frehs chives, chopped Boil the potatoes until almost tender, drain thoroughly and cool. Mix sour cream and wasabi paste (about 0.5 tsp of wasabi to 2 Tbsp sour cream). When potatoes are cooled, cut of a thin slice from...

Kedgeree is an Anglo-Indian dish that was a popular breakfast item during the Victorian era. It's a rice dish with smoked fish and soft boiled eggs, seasoned with curry and herbs. I had seen various kedgeree recipes during my years in Edinburgh , yet I hadn't had a chance to try, yet alone make it myself. The opportunity finally knocked at my door during Easter, as I had all those colourful Easter eggs needing to be used up. I cannot really tell you the origin of this recipe any more. I wasn't sure I will be able to find smoked haddock here, so I decided to go with salmon - the post popular and common smoked fish in Estonia. I searched the web and my bookshelf and printed out several recipes for a smoked salmon kedgeree. Eventually, I did find smoked haddock after all, and after some further inspiration from Jamie's Dinners: The Essential Family Cookbook (aitäh, Merilin, mulluse sünnipäevakingi eest!) I came up with a following recipe. Whereas kedgeree is usually mad...

It's customary in Estonia to treat your colleagues for something special on your birthday. In return you get lots of beautiful flowers, so it's actually a pretty fair deal :-) My birthday is on the same day as the birthday of one of my dear senior colleagues, who's well known at the Institute for her excellent culinary skills. I remember having met her about a decade ago, fresh out of university (me, that is), and falling in love with her eggplant-filled spicy pastries that were served at one of the informal meetings at the Institute (I was only loosely attached to the Institute back then). In any case, Klara and I share birthdays, our love for cooking, and even our specific research focus (national identities and multiculturalism). It made only sense to combine our skills and efforts for the small lunch-time gathering at the Institute then on Wednesday. When negotianting the details, Klara told me that she'd be bringing her traditional onion pie (which was mouthwater...

Pretty, isn't it? It's the traditional Greek Easter bread tsoureki , using the little known spices mastic and mechlebe/mahlepi (you can see them both here ) and usually garnished with red eggs*. I've made tsoureki before (twice, actually), to a great acclaim from a number of Greeks, and it has become a regular feature at my Easter table . The recipe I've used on the previous occasions was an adapted from Paul Hollywood's book 100 Great Breads , and it (the adapted version, that is) worked just well. But as a kind friend had sent me a copy of Theodore Kyriakou's widely acclaimed book, The Real Greek at Home: Dishes from the Heart of the Greek Kitchen , then I decided to test another recipe for tsoureki instead this year. After all, Kyriakou is the Chef of the The Real Greek restaurant in London and hailed as the Greek chef and expert on the Hellenic cuisine in the UK. So his recipe should definitely please, no? Well, it failed to do that. I should have got ...

Andrew of SpittoonExtra is hosting this month's edition of Waiter there is something in my ... , and the theme is bread . In ideal circumstances, I would have wanted to make a proper Estonian leavened rye bread. However, as I only just returned from London on the wee hours of Monday morning, and was busy celebrating my birthday yesterday , I didn't have time to start the rye bread. Yet as I was still keen to make something local, I decided to adapt an old recipe for a simple local loaf bread, karask . Karask is a type of bread in Estonia and Finland that doesn't use yeast nor require leavening; instead, baking powder or baking soda is used to raise the bread (so it is a bit like the Irish soda bread then). Usually karask is made with barley flour (mine uses plain wheat flour), and a popular local version uses curd cheese to flavour and moisten the bread (I've also got recipes using leftover potato mash to give bulk to the bread). I made mine with mushrooms - one of my...