Parmigiano Reggiano Night & Giveaway!

7:33 AM 0 Comments

Parmigiano Reggiano display at Eataly, NYC 
Last year I wrote about my visit to a Parmigiano cheese maker and about Parmigiano Reggiano Night. This year, Parmigiano Reggiano Night is happening again. I’ve written something about the king of cheeses (and the pretenders to the crown), over at Culture (the best cheese magazine around). Please take a look! 

As you may recall, the idea of the global dinner party is is to pick some recipes, invite your friends over, cook, eat, and then share photos of your feast if you're so inclined. In the past there have been some very avant garde recipes made available, such as a broth made from the rind of the cheese, and risotto cacao e pepe, but you can make whatever you like as long as it includes Parmigiano Reggiano. There's a video about it from last year when it was celebrated at Eataly in NYC.

Parmigiano Reggiano is a cheese I fear sometimes gets taken for granted. When I was at Eataly in New York last week I saw a great selection of the cheese, including one of my favorites vacche rosse and some aged 30 months. I hope you’ll take this opportunity to celebrate it. Sign up on the Parmesan website and you'll be notified when the free app is ready. 

I’m very excited to be offering a fantastic giveaway basket courtesy of Zingerman's and Parmesan.com 

The gift basket is worth over $250 dollars and includes the following:

• Two wedges of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
• Paesano Bread
• Il Mongetto Diavola Sauce
• Rustichella Spaghetti
• Zingerman's Travel Olive Oil
• Leccino Olives
• Cristal Peppers
• Crespone Salami
• Antonio Mattei Biscotti
• Espresso Blend Coffee
• Zingerman's Wooden Crate


If you would like to win this fabulous gift basket, please leave a comment telling me your favorite way to use Parmigiano Reggiano. A winner will be picked at random. A winner will be chosen on October 7, 2014. You must have a mailing address in the continental US and you must include your email in the proper field to win, it will not be published and no one will see it but me. One comment per person, please. 

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Best sauce for Swedish meatballs

6:40 AM 0 Comments

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Never mind this not-super-pretty-photo. This sauce is perfect. It's just the right thing to accompany a plate of Swedish meatballs, served with boiled potatoes, lingonberries and pickled cucumbers. This is, as it happens, the traditional serving for this meal. In the US, Swedish meatballs often seem to be served with a cream sauce and pasta - that would never happen here. Cream sauce goes on potatoes. Meatballs and pasta, well, then you add ketchup.

So, here we go:

Best sauce for Swedish meatballs

100 ml water
1 tbsp concentrated veal stock
300 ml cream
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lingonberry jam
salt, pepper

Take the pan you fried your meatballs in. (And ideally, you didn't scorch any!) Pour in a good splash of water, perhaps 100 ml, and whisk very well. Cook on medium-high heat. Add the concentrated veal stock and cream. Cook for a few minutes. Add the soy sauce, jam and salt and pepper. Cook for a few more minutes, while whisking.

Serve with meatballs, boiled potatoes, lingonberry jam and quick-pickled cucmbers.

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Apple Cinnamon Muffins

1:02 AM 0 Comments

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Sweden is having very summery weather, still, despite the calendar showing a fall month. Mornings are misty, but afternoons are almost always sunny and warm. Quite lovely!

I made these apple cinnamon muffins the other day, to cheer myself up after a few weeks of very hard work. I found a recipe at Add a Pinch and adapted it to fit my needs. I baked mine in cups rather than in a lined muffin tin, and only dipped the very top of the muffin in the lovely topping - they turned out very delicious and I'm happy that I stashed a few in the freezer for another day.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins
makes 18

110 g butter, softened
200 g sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
120 ml milk
300 g all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 large apples, peeled and diced
1 tbsp flour

topping:
50 g butter, melted
100 g sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs carefully, one at a time. Add vanilla. Mix together the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt, and add this to the batter alternating with the milk. Finally toss together the apples with a tablespoon of flour, and add to the batter.

Fill muffin cups, fairly full - you want them to rise above the top of the cup as they bake.

Bake at 175° C for about 15 minutes - check with a toothpick to make sure they're not sticky inside.

Meanwhile, melt the butter for the topping and let it brown a little. Mix together sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Dip the warm muffins in the butter and then into the cinnamon sugar, and place on a rack to cool down.

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Chewy Rhubarb Cardamom Cake

9:58 AM 0 Comments

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I still have some rhubarb in my garden - a few straggly stalks. I don't want to let them go to waste, so I use them in a delicious, chewy cake. Perfect for afternoon fika sessions. You can also freeze this cake, pre-sliced, and just re-heat for a few seconds in the microwave. Surely that will liven up the gloomiest of fall days to come, don't you think?

Chewy Rhubarb Cardamom Cake

2 eggs
240 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar (or extract)
1 tsp cardamom seeds, bashed in a pestle and mortar
1 tsp baking powder
150 g all-purpose flour
75 g butter, melted

Topping:
rhubarb - about 8 small stalks, probably about 2-300 ml (no need to be exact)
1/2 tsp cardamom seeds, bashed in a pestle and mortar
1 tbsp pearl sugar

Beat the eggs and sugar until very white and fluffy. Stir in vanilla sugar, cardamom, baking powder, flour and the melted butter. Fold carefully until there are no streaks.

Pour into a buttered and floured springform pan. Top with the rhubarb, cardamom and sugar. Bake at 200°C for about 25 minutes.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce. 

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Zucchini Noodles Recipe

11:20 AM , , 0 Comments

My love of pasta is no secret, but I’m cutting back. An article in the New York Times covering the latest research about the benefit of low carbohydrate diets has me rethinking my noodle consumption. I won’t give them up completely but now and again I can see trying something different. Something like zucchini noodles. 

For a long time I’ve wanted one of those spiralizer type tools. But they are rather expensive and I just wasn’t sure how much use I’d get out of them. There is actually an easy way to make “noodles” out of zucchini or other vegetables using a box grater. You just lay the grater on its side like a mandoline! But I’ve just recently tried out the Microplane spiral cutter and it’s an even better option. At $14.95 it’s a lot less expensive than some of the other tools and takes up very little space. It also has two sizes so you can shred larger or smaller vegetables. 

The downside to using this gadget is that it takes some time to get used to it, and to figure out how much pressure to exert to get the thickness of noodles you like. It also leaves a little stubby core of the vegetable. But it’s relatively easy to use and clean once you get the hang of it. 

I don’t like raw zucchini, but by cooking the zucchini noodles in a pan sauce, you get a lovely texture and the zucchini does seem to absorb a bit of the sauce. You can also blanch the "noodles" quickly in boiling water to take off the raw edge and then toss them with a cool sauce like pesto. I’ve only begun experimenting with zucchini noodles but I’m enjoying them so far. While not chewy, they do have a lovely slippery feel. 

Zucchini Noodles with Fresh Tomato Sauce 

Makes 2 servings 

2 Tablespoons olive oil 
1 cup cherry tomatoes


2 medium zucchini 
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced 
1/3 cup peeled small to medium raw shrimp, optional 

Trim then shred the zucchini using the large holes on a box grater or using a “spiralizer” tool. Heat a skillet and add the olive oil. Add the tomatoes and cook gently until they begin to break down and become saucy.

Add the zucchini and garlic and cook until the sauce reduces by about half. Add the shrimp, if desired, and cook just until the shrimp are pink and cooked through, the time will vary depending upon the size of the shrimp but probably no more than a minute or so. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Enjoy! 

Disclaimer: My thanks to Microplane for providing me with the spiral cutter to test. 

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Peameal Bacon of Toronto

1:38 PM 0 Comments

On my first trip to a city I always try to experience the things that the place is famous for, especially the food. Recently I was in Toronto which is a very diverse city with all kinds of food, but the peameal bacon sandwich is one of its most iconic specialties. 

Toronto was once known as Hogtown, thanks in part to the vast stockyards where in the mid to late 1800’s cured pork products like bacon were sent to the United Kingdom, where there was a shortage at the time. In 1900 over half a million pigs were processed for export in Toronto. 

So what is peameal bacon exactly? It’s what we call “Canadian bacon” in the US. It’s made from pork loin, rather than belly, so it’s much leaner than typical bacon. It’s brined and cured, not smoked. It was originally rolled in ground dried yellow peas to help preserve it, but cornmeal became much more widely available in the 1900’s and also preserved the meat better. 

Peameal bacon, also sometimes called back bacon, is juicy and salty but not nearly as salty as streaky bacon. It’s served sliced and makes a very fine sandwich. 

One place to try the famous peameal bacon sandwich is at the St. Lawrence Market. You can see peameal bacon in the cases of butcher shops and there are at least two places that serve the sandwich, Paddington’s Pump, a full service sit down restaurant and Carousel Bakery, a market stall. The Paddington’s Pump sandwich features thinly sliced peameal bacon and comes on a crusty roll with tomato and lettuce and some slaw and pickle on the side. At Carousel Bakery the sandwich is served on a hamburger bun with thick cut peameal bacon. You can also get the “breakfast on a bun” with peameal bacon, a fried egg and cheese. 


After you try the peameal bacon sandwich, I recommend trying the eggs benedict at the classic diner, The Senator which is Toronto’s oldest restaurant. It’s two poached eggs on peameal bacon with hollandaise sauce on a homemade biscuit. Both are so good that I'm not sure which I prefer!

Disclaimer: My thanks to Tourism Toronto for hosting me on this trip. 

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