food

Some lovely pancakes K. made me recently, served with a dollop of homemade redcurrant jelly . Well, apparently the spring officially began last week. However, it's been snowing in Estonia for two days now, and everything is covered with a thick, white carpet. As K. and I are desperate for some sun, we're heading off to Spain to visit the very lovely Ximena in Madrid, do some sightseeing and have lunch at a very special restaurant about two hours north of Barcelona. Back in early April!

We had some friends over for dinner on Thursday night, watching a video and slide show of the photos taken during our Austrian skiing trip last month. The buffet table contained some dishes that were Austrian ( Wiener Schnitzel a la Johanna ), some that were appropriate for Easter table (my Pashka , for example; as well as Marbled Beetroot Eggs ), as well as some random favourites ( Alanna's Spicy Carrots ). But I also wanted to try something new and savoury, and these smoked salmon and wasabi rolls from the Swedish Arla site ( Laxrullar med wasabiröra ) hit the spot perfectly. Try them, they're lovely. The Arla-people describe these as Swedish sushi :) Smoked Salmon and Wasabi Rolls ( Suitsulõhe-wasabirullid ) Serves 10 as a nibble 200 g thinly sliced cold-smoked salmon 50 g dill, finely chopped 150 g cream cheese (Philadelphia) 0.5 to 1 tsp wasabi paste a pinch of salt 2 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds Combine dill and cream cheese in a bowl, season with wasabi paste and salt, if...

Sherbet-coloured eggs dyed with hibiscus/karkade flowers, Tandoori curry powder, matcha tea and mate tea. For last year's eggs see this post .

When I say "Soda Bread", will you think of Ireland? Wikipedia seems to do so, and there are plenty of Irish Soda Bread recipes out there in the foodblogosphere ( Elise , BakingSheet , Kalyn , Andrea , SmittenKitchen , Tea ). There's even a Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread !! However, soda bread is a traditional bread here in Estonia as well . Although nowadays most Estonians think of rye bread when they think of bread at all ('bread' in Estonian - 'leib' - actually only means rye bread; when you use wheat flour, you'll get 'sai' and not 'leib'), traditionally barley played a more important part in the staple diet of Estonians. I recently discovered this rather coarsely ground organic Estonian barley flour (Eesti Mahe), which is excellent - with a lovely nutty taste and even lovelier texture. Soda bread is of course best eaten warm, with butter and drizzle of runny honey, for example. But as this soda bread contains cur...

Last Sunday we spent an enjoyable afternoon watching the Bocuse d'Or , Europe 2008 Selection Estonia . The event took place in recently opened Swissôtel Tallinn. It was the first time Estonia is competing for a place at this prestigeous culinary contest, and there were four chefs competing: my favourite candidate Tõnis Siigur (Restaurant Stenhus, Tallinn), Peter Pihel (most recently at Restaurant Bloom, Stockholm), Vladislav Djatshuk (Restaurant Egoist, Tallinn) and Dmitri Rooz (Restaurant BeerHouse, Tallinn). The contestants had 5,5 hours to prepare two dishes - one using salmon, and the other using lamb (incl. rack of lamb, lamb kidneys and lamb sweetbreads). Sadly, our camera battery failed us in the middle of the event, so we haven't got photos of all the finished dishes. However, here are some snapshots of the hard-working judges: And here's one of Tõnis Siigur's salmon creation, Norwegian Salmon and Potato 'Ravioli' , consisting of potato 'raviol...

Our Easter chick and a beautiful marbled beetroot egg. Remember these gorgeous pickled red beet eggs from last year? Yes, that lovely photo that won the award for originality in April 2007's DMBLGIT contest . Well, I was thinking about making them again this year. But then few months ago I saw an article about the Chinese marbled tea eggs and then it suddenly dawned upon me that I could use that Chinese tea egg marbling technique to dye my beetroot eggs. And so I did. And boy, it worked! As the eggs are 'soaked' in beetroot juice for an hour only, the eggs (unfortunately) don't really pick up much of the beet flavour. Remember to make these just a few hours before you want to serve them - once you take them out of the beet juice and peel them, the colour will fade after a few hours. Leave them for too long in the beet juice, and they'll be just purple (nothing wrong with that, of course, but they're not marbled beetroot eggs then). Marbled Beetroot Eggs eggs bee...

I am so cheating here. There's no recipe as such, and it's not even a proper bruschetta ( or is it, Susan? ). But I didn't know what else to call it - a grilled cheese and garlic and beetroot bread is a bit clumsy. But the 'recipe' is from our friend Kristel, who claims not to be a great cook. I don't know about that - I've had some pretty brilliant salmon at her place, and now this grilled sandwich. She's on a mission to fight winter fatigue with plenty of beetroot and garlic, and this is her favourite snack at the moment. She shared the recipe on the discussion board of my Estonian site last week, and three other readers immediately made this and praised it. So although I said recently that I won't bother you with my latest beetroot recipes just now, I thought it'd be unfair to keep this from you. Thank you, Kristel! A Cheesy-Garlicky Beetroot Bruschetta ( Grillitud peedi-küüslauguleib ) sliced white or dark bread cream cheese garlic, peeled...

This is my entry to the latest round of Waiter, there is something in my ... , this time hosted by lovely Jeanne of Cook Sister! , who has chosen pulses as the theme. Although I've got plenty of Estonian recipes (as well as beetroot recipes:) in store for you, I decided to post something altogether spicier today - a red lentil soup. It's based on a recipe for Spicy Egyptian Lentil Soup in lovely Claudia Roden 's " Tamarind and Saffron ", but I tinkered with the recipe and the serving suggestions a bit, and really loved the result. It was on our table last Saturday, when couple of friends came over for a Scrabble night, and all four of us went for second helpings. Spicy, exotic (well, for us:), heart-warming, delicious, comforting. Spicy Red Lentil Soup ( Vürtsikas läätsesupp ) Serves 4-6 3 Tbsp olive oil 1 large onion, finely chopped 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 tsp cumin seeds, slightly crushed 1.5-2 tsp coriander seeds, slighly crushed 1 tsp red chilli f...

I'm cooking more and more traditional Estonian fare these days, and really enjoy (re)discovering our humble but delicious cuisine. Here's another pretty unusual recipe for you - a bread soup. And before you start thinking something along the lines of bread-thickened gazpacho and garlic and olive oil, note that this is a SWEET bread soup . It contains rye bread, sugar, cinnamon, raisins and fruit juice. Although it may sound weird to you, it's actually very delicious :) It's an excellent idea for using leftover dark rye bread that's so popular here in Estonia and other Nordic countries, and more easily available across various ponds and oceans as well. We eat it as a dessert after a meal, although it would also make a lovely dessert or mid-afternoon pick-me-up. The bread should be naturally leavened sour dough rye, and may contain caraway seeds, but not various other seeds (so the German style square rye bread slices with lots of seeds are no good). Estonian Sweet Ry...

Following from yesterday's buckwheat theme , here's another recent buckwheat dish we recently enjoyed. We do love buckwheat kasha or porridge as it is, and eat it occasionally as a side dish to some grilled pork. But sometimes it's nice to spice it up with a little extra. Adding pork or beef mince to the kasha is one way of making a humble side dish into a delicious main course. Note that buckwheat is naturally gluten-free, so it's a suitable and tasty grain alternative to all those who need to avoid gluten. Buckwheat Kasha with Mince ( Tatrapuder hakklihaga ) Serves 6 250 g mince (I used a mixture of pork and beef) 1 small onion, peeled and chopped 2 carrots, peeled and coarsely grated 400 g buckwheat groats oil for frying 1 litre of water, boiling salt freshly ground black pepper Heat the oil on a frying pan over high heat, add the mince and brown, stirring every now and then. Reduce the heat to moderate, add the carrot and onions, season with salt and pepper and coo...

Our dinner last night - Chicken Teriyaki with Soba Noodles . K. took this very lovely photo of the buckwheat noodles before I cooked them, so I though I'd share the photo with you..