food

Photo courtesy of Office of the President of Estonia I'm always curious to know what some high-ranking foreign dignitaries get to eat in Estonia. How does Estonia want to represent itself to visitors through the food? Is it Estonian, international, fusion, simple, rustic, fussy, modern, traditional? The choice is endless. Therefore I've shared with you what President Bush had for lunch back in November, and what Queen Elizabeth II had for dinner in October. The Emperor of Japan, His Imperial Majesty Emperor Akihito, and his wife, Empress Michiko of Japan, visited Tallinn last week, and they had an official lunch at our new art museum, KUMU . According to the PR of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the festive lunch consisted of the following: Starter: Pike-Perch & Snow Crab Tortellini with Pureed Black Salsify and Wood Sorrel Salad Muscadet Sevre et Maine Sur Lie, 2005 (France) Main course: Fillet of Veal with Porcini Sauce, Young Asparagus and Beetroot Irancy, 20...

Last Thursday, my Edinburgh friends Dianne & Peter came for dinner. They're the lovely couple that gave me a roof over my head during the last two weeks in Edinburgh, so when they told me they'd be in Tallinn, I quickly grabbed the chance to reciprocate their kind hospitality. We had a joyous meal together, catching up about the life in Edinburgh - much appreciated, as I'm off to visit my old hometown next week! Foodwise, coconut was the dominant theme. For starters, we had local, Estonian asparagus with coconut milk and lime . For main course, there was salmon with lots of coriander/cilantro* and quinoa (no coconut there, but coriander goes well with coconut milk, so it still counts:), and for the dessert, I served a rhubarb & coconut cake with whipped cream. I used some rosy pink rhubarb bought at the local market (yes, I finally ran out of the farm-sourced rhubarb ), and the cake didn't only taste wonderful, but it also looked lovely pink (see the flecks ...

Paluküla is a small village where my mother was born and raised, and where I spent all my childhood summers . It's about 80 km from Tallinn, and it just happens to be adjacent to the village where K. spent all his childhood summers. Nope - we had never met until we bumped into each other at a reception in Edinburgh, which led to a cup (or two) of mulled wine in Tallinn during Christmas 2005 , a date in Paris , and a reunion in our childhood villages last summer, picking honey-coloured cloudberries , sweeter-than-sweet wild strawberries , cranberries and a range of wild mushrooms that some of you would describe as 'exotic', and finally me taking the plunge and moving back home and in with K. after seven years in Edinburgh (where, incidentially, I'm off again next week, but this time as a tourist). We went back in early May, to celebrate my uncle 's 50th birthday, and while there, we decided to take a walk. The path alongside the small stream was so tranquil and be...

Waiter, there is something in my ... - a wonderful food blogging event organised by Johanna , Jeanne & Andrew - has reached it's fifth instalment: stuffed fruit/vegetables , hosted by Jeanne. My entry for this round is stuffed tomatoes with two kinds of salad fillings. It's not really a recipe, just a tip for serving nice small tomatoes. The first filling is a cod liver salad that I have written about before . The 'recipe' is my mum's, and this is how cod liver has been eaten in our family for decades. I thought that was the only way of serving this particular fishy preserve, until K simply put a canned cod liver on the table. Apparently his family simply spread the liver on a slice of bread, straight out of the can. I prefer my way, and as far as I've understood, have converted him, too :) The other recipe for wild garlic & cucumber salad is from my local bus stop. Yes, you read it correctly - bus stop. I knew that wild garlic ( Allium ursinum ) gr...

On our recent trip to London , K and I stayed with my friend Johanna 's for a weekend. During that time we had the pleasure of feasting - literally - every morning. We had eggs benetine or florendict on Saturday (great poached eggs!) an omelette layer cake with smoked salmon and rocket on Sunday (an impressive-looking layered affair), and a savoury clafoutis with cherry tomatoes and rocket on Monday (a 'requested breakfast' dish - I had the pleasure of eating this on the morning after Jeanne's & Johanna's blog birthday bash in June 2006, and couldn't wait to have it again). Each one of those breakfasts sounded & looked fabulous and tasted een better. But it was the omelette layer cake with smoked salmon & rocket that kept haunting us long after we were back home in Estonia. So it happened that we recreated Johanna's omelette layer cake at home last Sunday, when my friend Liis came for a Sunday brunch with her family. We followed Johanna...

Those fresh asparagus from Uus-Kongo farm at the Central Market have become popular. For example, there was none left when we made it to the market on Saturday morning. Granted, we got there shortly after noon (well, not exactly a morning, I know), and considering the market opens at 7am, the chances we'd find anything so special and delicious were small anyway. Same with fresh morels and new season's beetroot. None left.. But at least I managed to put an asparagus order in for Tuesday (Monday's crop was already counted for). Yesterday morning I got almost a kilogram of beautiful, fresh asparagus, so last night we had another asparagus meal. The dish is inspired by this Arla recipe , but ended up being something rather different, as I remembered the ingredients and the process wrong (used pinenuts instead of sunflower seeds, and blanched the asparagus instead of frying), which I realised only afterwards. I liked my unintentional creation, however, and would happily make it...

I saw an interesting recipe for a strawberry dessert over at Chez Pim the other day - Strawberries in Hibiscus & Vanilla Syrup . I bookmarked it with a view to try it when Estonian strawberries come in season, which is usually in late June/early July. However, when browsing the Tallinn Central Market on Saturday morning, I saw loads and loads of rather fragrant strawberries imported from Spain. What a heck, I thought, and bought a small box. The recipe was really easy to make, and we enjoyed it with some softly whipped cream, seasoned with vanilla extract. There's really no need to change or improve Pim's recipe, it's brilliant as it is. I'll add the amounts I used below, but feel free to visit Pim's blog for the original recipe and even more, her home video demonstration . But what I'll tell you is that the hibiscus syrup gives the strawberries a most beautiful deep red colour (see above), without ripping them of the strawberry flavour. I'm so going t...

We had another beautiful and sunny Sunday here. As I've told you before, no Sunday morning should start without pancakes. A fortnight ago we had golden saffron pancakes , last Sunday plain 'normal' pancakes (with last of the Moominmamma's rhubarb & ginger jam ). Today we opted for blueberry-studded ones, which were wonderful. Ideally I would use freshly picked wild blueberries , but if these are not available, then frozen ones will do, too. Remember not to add blueberries to the batter, as this will probably colour the whole batter into an unsightly shade of purple (though it wouldn't affect the flavour, obviously). We ate these thick small pancakes with a generous drizzle of Canadian maple syrup , but a runny honey would be just as good. Blueberry Pancakes ( Mustikapannkoogid ) Serves 4 300 ml plain flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 2 Tbsp sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 300 ml milk 1 egg 2 Tbsp melted butter 100 grams blueberries (frozen are fine, as long you d...

Ka selle nädala Eesti Ekspressis (17.5.2007) on minult väike kirjatükk - seekord kirjeldan Londoni suurel Borough turul nähtut-kogetut ning mõtisklen veidi turu- ja söögikultuuri teemal üldisemalt. Huvilised leiavad artikli ja fotod taas tagantpoolt lapates 5. leheküljel. Nii et kohe lähimasse ajalehekioskisse ;-) Somehow my blog posts are lagging behind these days. I've been back from London for almost a month now, and I have only just blogged about the fabulous meal I had with K, Johanna , her husband and the wee boy at the Petersham Nurseries Café . Note that I had a full-page restaurant review published in a major Estonian weekly newspaper _before_ I wrote about it here on my blog. And now - déjà vu! In this week's copy of the same newspaper, Eesti Ekspress , there is an article where I write about the London Borough Market , and about food markets and food culture in general (and yes, that's me buying cheese on the photo you'll see if you click through). It ...

I had the most exiting discovery at the Tallinn Central Market (Keskturg) yesterday morning - fresh, local asparagus . Having got used to eating fresh and seasonal asparagus during late Spring/early Summer in Scotland, I was not inspired - not even a little bit - by the sad-looking Dutch specimens on offer here. As far as I was concerned, asparagus wasn't grown here in Estonian. Or let me refrase it - asparagus is widespread in Estonia, but as in asparagus fern you see in flower arrangements, and not as a vegetable. It was to my great delight then that I read from the May issue of Oma Maitse that one of the farms near Tallinn grows this delicate vegetable. The Uus-Kongo talu - that's how the farm is called - has a stand at the Central Market, so early yesterday morning I decided to pop over to check if the rumours are true. And they were!!! Just before 9am, there were only few 100gram bunches of asparagus left, as one keen asparagus lover had bought 4 kilos of precious spear...

It's been a while from my trip to London and a fantastic lunch at the Petersham Nurseries Café . Last week I wrote about it in a major Estonian newspaper , so it's about time to share some of the photos and thoughts with you, dear readers of my blog. Here we go... Of course I had read about the hottest (or should it be coolest?) new chef in Londontown, Skye Gyngell , in the British media when still living in Edinburgh. But with London being so far away, and me having way too many cookbooks already to read, I didn't really register the information, nor did I order her book, A Year in My Kitchen . But when Keiko blogged about this unusual restaurant in July 2006, I got curious - the place looked so romantic and out-of-this-word. And when Keiko wrote about it again this March, I was sold. K. and I had already bought our tickets to London , and we were trying to decide where to go for a lunch with Johanna . Some other fancy and exciting options had been discussed in the proce...

About a fortnight ago K. and I went to a carrot farm, where I was given about 10 kg of crunchy, flavoursome carrots and where I also picked up a huge bunch or rhubarb . As it happened, a few days later I had to entertain and feed a hungry army of aunts and cousins. When you've got lots of visitors coming, but no time to shop (it was a weekday night, after all), you build a whole menu around things on hand - in this case carrots and rhubarb. One of the dishes I served was based on Alanna 's great recipe for carrots with African spices - a heartwarmingly spicy concoction of carrots and, well, various warm spices - that I blogged about back in January. I treated my excited extended family to a slightly adapted version of Alanna's carrot salad, but this time served it on my newly acquired Chinese spoons (the spoons are from Jamie Oliver 's new Easy Entertaining range, thank you, Jamie!). There were minor changes to the recipe. For example, I didn't have any nice-lookin...

I hope you're not tired of my rhubarb posts just yet? I know you've had juicy rhubarb muffins , rhubarb & ginger jam and a creamy rhubarb pie already, but as there is still quite a lot of rhubarb left - no wonder, if you look at these pictures - then I've got a few more rhubarb recipes up my sleeve. Here's a crumble to you. You can add grated ginger, finely chopped rosemary, any other nuts (hazelnuts, pistachios, maybe even grated coconuts), a dash of orange juice to the crumble - you name it. Sometimes I add some grated nutmeg to the filling. And over the years I've realised that there's no need to crumble the crumble topping either. You just mix the oats, sugar and almonds, sprinkle on rhubarb and top with butter slices. This crumble is especially delicious with softly whipped cream, but melted good vanilla ice cream would be a good substitute, too. If you're feeling really decadent, then you can add some freshly grated nutmeg to the cream. Rhubarb ...

Armsad Nami-nami blogi ja retseptikogu lugejad! Kui keegi soovib lugeda mu mõtisklusi ja muljeid hiljutisest külaskäigust Petersham Nurseries restorani Londonis, siis ostke kindlasti tänane (ehk siis 10. mai 2007) Eesti Ekspress . Artikli leiate tagantpoolt lapates viiendalt leheküljelt.* Sorry, this was in Estonian. I wanted to tell my dear Estonian readers that there's an article about my recent visit to Petersham Nurseries Cafe in London in today's Eesti Ekspress , a popular weekly newspaper. I'm yet to blog about my impressions of this fantastic restaurant, but you can read Johanna 's review of our visit, as we had the pleasure of lunching there together. The article is a full-page spread, with three lovely pictures taken by K (you can see only one photo on the online version). That was the first piece of paid food-writing I've done, so I'm very excited. More to come next week! * Kärsitumad lugejad võivad piiluda ka siit , aga paberlehel on veel paar ime...

Photo updated in May 2009 We are still enjoying the rhubarb bounty . Here's a recipe for really moist rhubarb muffins that I made twice last week. Firstly, they were served at a 'girly' housewarming/ birthday party last Thursday, attended by all my aunties (that's three maternal and one paternal), my parents (my dad was unable to attend the 'real' birthday party on a previous weekend), as well as some of my first cousins (not all 11 though:). Instead of birthday cake , I made lots of these rhubarb muffins that day, served as a pyramid on a cake stand. Very pretty!! But in the midst of all the buzz and excitement, we forgot to take a picture. Not that it mattered much, as it gave me a good excuse to make these very same muffins again on Sunday. These muffins, let me tell you, are the moistest muffins you'll make. They're so moist, that even if you eat them on the following day, they taste like they're freshly baked. Delicious! Rhubarb muffins ( Rab...

I've always called savoury filled pancakes just 'filled pancakes' (well, or the Estonian equivalent, which is 'täidetud pannkoogid' ). Very unimaginative, I know. When I once browsed a bilingual " Eesti Kokaraamat/Estonian Cookbook ", published by the American Estonians in 1976, and came across a recipe for filled pancakes called 'Tule homme jälle', or 'Come again tomorrow', I was utterly amused. I was convinced that it was some kind of Americanism and nobody in real life would call pancakes like that. Imagine my surprise then when K. said that 'Come again tomorrow' is how these have always been known in his home, too. I guess the idea is that these pancakes - although incredibly easy to make - are so satisfying and tasty, that you'd want to return for more on the following day. The recipe is adapted from the above cookbook - I've added some cheese and fresh herbs, and given them a quick moment in the oven. There's not m...

Tove Jannson's Moominmamma (that's Moomin 's mother, of course) apparently made a delicious rhubarb jam with ginger. So when I found myself with lots of rhubarb the other day, I decided to make rhubarb & ginger jam, just like Moominmamma. I've made it few times before, and really like it. It's a slightly tart rhubarb jam, where ginger leads exactly as much zing as you choose, and it's not overly sweet (we've reduced the amount of sugar a bit). We enjoyed it with golden saffron pancakes yesterday morning, and have a jar in the fridge for the coming weeks... Moominmamma's rhubarb and ginger jam ( Muumimamma rabarbrimoos ) Adapted from Sami Malila "Muumimamman keittokirja" WSOY 1993 Makes one 500 g jar, plus a bit more 1 kg rhubarb 400 grams sugar 100 ml water a thumb-sized piece of ginger (or a bit more, or less, depending on how much ginger zing you want) Wash the rhubarb, and peel if you feel like (I never peel young or early rhubarb, as...

We always have pancakes for breakfast on Sunday mornings. I don't know if we can call it a tradition yet, as we've only lived together for just over six months (I moved in with K. upon my return from Scotland in mid-October), but we've surely had loads of pancakes during that time. If we're not having pancakes at home, we enjoy them at either my parents' place or at K's mum's place. Not having pancakes for Sunday breakfasts seems almost wrong.. I wonder if "Sunday pancakes" might be an Estonian thing, as I know many-many other families who start their Sundays with pancakes and some jam. Any thoughts? But there's a pancake confession I need to make: I'm not very good in making pancakes. Althought I can make small, fat pancakes (dropcakes), I'm utterly useless in making thin crepe-style pancakes. K., on the other hand, enjoys making pancakes in all shape and form. Thin ones. Thick ones. Small dropcakes. Large crepes. Pancake batter made ...

May 1st is a day off here, and as the situation in Tallinn had been a bit tense for a few days, we decided to head out of town. It was a beautifully sunny, but really windy and chilly day, so a long hike in nearby forests wasn't in the cards. We wanted something warmer and more convenient :) K. had promised to visit his friend Endel for ages, so we finally paid a visit to his farm about 40 km from the capital. The farm grows carrots (a lot of them, and really tasty ones as well), but they also had a greenhouse full of rhubarb on the farm. I have never seen so much rhubarb in my life, so naturally I went a bit grazy and left the greenhouse with a huge bunch or fat rosy stalks. I've already made some delicious cinnamon rhubarb muffins, and a gutsy rhubarb crumble with almonds. Last night K. poached some rhubarb in verjuice and spices and served it with a syllabub. Tomorrow I'll be making some rhubarb & ginger jam. I leave you with a few pictures of me misbehaving in the...

May I present you with a smoked salmon and cucumber tart , also on the table last Saturday (alongside the cute mini potatoes with wasabi cream and fake 'caviar' and the mocca cake with toasted almonds ): It's a bit like a sandwich cake , only that it contains no bread :) The dish is lined with thinly sliced cucumbers - pretty and spring-like. The recipe is still being developed - hence the WIP (work in progress) in the title of this post. It was tasty, but a bit too salty for my liking; the filling contains sour cream, cottage cheese, mayonnaise, cold smoked salmon, dill and is set with the addition of gelatine (thus not too dissimilar to the festive smoked salmon sandwich cake ). I'm also not happy how the filling has leaked through the cucumber slices, so next time I'll double-line the dish with cucumber slices to make sure the upside down tart is perfectly green when I turn it around. Otherwise not bad, not bad at all..

Same recipe - mocca cake with toasted almonds - just this time down-sized to feed 7 hungry adults and 2 ravenous kids. Oh, I did mix some milk curd cream into the filling, so it'd be healthier, sorry, tastier..