Basic cooking pot bread

Rowing season has started again, so every Monday eveningg I drive directly from work to the rowing club for for an evening row. So here I need 2-3 sliced of home-made together with cheese between and one of the bread slice with spread of nutella. This means I need to get back in the rhythm of baking bread or buns in thr week-end, so I have the bread for my alfresco Monday evening meal.

For tomorrow I have bread this basic cooking pot bread from the bread book "Det æltefri grydebrød", so now I am ready for tomorrow row :-)

Basic cooking pot bread:

• 5 g yeast
• 50 y sour dough - optional
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 500 ml water
• 650 g wheat flour

1. Stir yeast, sour dough and water together in a big mixing bowl.
2. Afterwards add the flour, salt and sugar and stir very well with a cooking spoon. 
3. Rise the dough to rise at room temperature overnight - minimum 12 hours.
4. Take the dough out off the mixing bowl, move 1/3 of the dough in over the rest of the dough, keep repeating this process until you have a small size of the dough.
5. Clean the mixing bowl for any dough leftovers.
6. Glaze the dough bowl with oil.
7. Place the dough again in a clean dough, let is rise again for 2 hours.
8. Heat up the cast iron cooking pot (2 l) incl. lid on a rack in the lower part of the oven at 250°C (fan oven) for ½ hour.
9. Remove the hot cast iron cooking from the oven, remove the lid. Cover the bottom of the cooking pot with oat flakes, as this will prevent the dough from sticking to firm to the surface.
10. Place the dough in the hot cast iron cooking pot.
11. Put the lid back on. Place the cooking pot in the lower part of the oven, let it bake at 250°C for 30 minutes.
12. Remove the lid from the cast iron cooking pot, and let the bread bake at 225°C for another 15-20 minutes. 
13. Let the bread cool down, before you slice it.

Linseed soup with red curry

Soups is a great way to make home-made food, as you can make a extra portion for later use, when you do not have a lot of time to prepare a home-cook meal on a busy day. The extra portion can either be stored cold for use later on in the week or frozen for much later use.

I have found this recipe in the magazine "Isabellas" (issue 01/2017). I decided to added in some tomatoes as a way of reducing food waste in my kitchen. Other wise I did not make any modifications.

Linseed soup with red curry: - 4 servings

• 2 large onions - chopped into medium pieces
• 2 large carrots or 3 medium size - chopped into medium pieces
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red curry paste
• 9 dl vegetable stock
• 150 g red linseeds
• 4 large tomatoes - chopped into medium pieces
• 165 ml coconut cream
• salt & pepper
• ½-1 lime - juice 
• fish sauce
• pumpkim seeds

1. Heat up the olive oil in a large cooking pot.
2. Add in the onions, carrots and red curry paste, let it fry in the oil for 2 minutes.
3. Add in the linseeds and vegetable stock.
4. Bring the soup to the boil, and let the soup simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Add in the tomatoes, and let the soup simmer for another 5 minutes.
6. Blend the soup together into a homogeneous mass.
7. Pour in the coconut cream.
8. Season the soup with salt & pepper, lime juice and fish sauce.
9. Bring the soup to the boil.
10. Serve the soup hot with a topping of pumpkin seeds and slices of manitoba bread with marple syrup.

Lemon-poppy seed cake

I have located this recipe on lemon-poppy seed cake in the magazine "Isabellas" (issue 01/2017), and I found the use of poppy seeds quiet interesting for a Danish cake recipe ! For me the use of poppy seeds are much more common in German cakes, while we more often use poppy seeds in bread rolls in Denmark.

I have made no modification to the cake recipe. The taste in this cake of lemon is great, so I can only recommend you to try it in your own kitchen.

Lemon-poppy seed cake: - 1 cake

• 175 butter - soft
• 200 g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 50 g almond flour or 50 g almond churned into flour size
• 50 g poppy seeds
• pinch of salt
• 1½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 1 organic lemon - zest and 2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 100 g icing sugar

1. Heat up the oven to 190'C.
2. Whip the butter and sugar into a white foam structure using a stand alone mixer.
3. Add 1 egg by the time into the butter-sugar mass, while the whipping is on-going.
4. Add in the remaining dry ingredients incl the lemon zest.
5. Whip until the cake mass is homogeneous.
6. Cover a bread form (12x22 cm) with baking paper or drizzle the form with butter.
7. Fill the cake dough into the form.
8. Bake the cake in the middle of the oven at 190'C for 45-60 minutes.
9. Check that the cake is baked using a cake tester.
10. Cool down the cake.
11. Stir the lemon juice and icing sugar into a glazing layer.
12. Cover the surface of the cake with this sugar glaze.
13. Let the glazing dry before the cake is sliced.
14. Enjoy with a cup of tea/coffee :-)

March shopping in Lübeck

This weekend my mother and I went on a prolonged weekend to Ahrensburg in Holstein, quiet close to Lübeck, so we spend some time Saturday in Lübeck looking at the old houses, visiting Niederegger marzipan house etc. I also found a tea shop, where I brought three new teas for my tea pot

• Wildkirsche: black tea with flavour and cherry fruit pieces
• Lübecker Marzipan: black tea, rose tea, almond pieces and flavour
• Venezianische Rose: black from Ceylon, China and India tea with peach and rose flavour, rose petals and flavour

Besides from tea I brought various small kitchen items with 30% discount in form of:

• container of lemon leftovers
• apple divider
• melon baller
• grapefruit spoons with sharp knife pattern at the end

I am looking forward to see, if the grapefruit spoons will make it more easy to eat grapefruit without getting messy fingers and grapefruit juice everywhere next time, when I am enjoying honey glazed baked grapefruit.

March shopping in Oslo

During a recent business trip to Oslo I had the option of a small walk during the city center of Oslo, where I went to have look at the tea shop Black Cat. This time I brought a tea called China Rose, which is black Chinese tea from Congue with addition of rose petals. As usual a tea with flowers inside is a must-have tea.

In the airport I also had a look at the their gin selection. I must admit, that I am not impressed by the gin selection, which you can buy in Oslo Airport. Anyway I found a small batch Norwegian gin by the name "Harahorn", where Norwegian spices, berries and herbs are used such juniper, blueberries, rhubarb, bladderwrack, angelica root and wild marjoram. I am looking forward to taste this gin, perhaps together with my good friends from Horsens.

Tarte flambée forestière

Tarte flambée forestière or Flammkuchen in German is one of the regional dishes from Alsace, which I really love.

I have found a recipe in a Danish newspaper, which I hereby share with you. I decided to combine yeast with some sour dough in order to keep my sour dough volume under control, as it otherwise will outgrow it´s container in the refrigerator.

The tern "forestère" refers to the use of mushroom as part of the topping. The classic variation is sour cream as bottom layer with bacon and onions. Another option is to added Munster cheese or goat cheese.

Tarte flambée forestière: - 2-3 servings

• 10 g yeast
• 20 g sour dough - optional
• 275 g water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 500 g pizza flour
• 1-1½ dl full-fat sour cream, 35-40% fat
• 170 g bacon
• 1-2 red onions

1. Dissolve the yeast in the sour dough and water. Knead in the salt and olive oil. 
2. Add into the flour, knead the dough on speed 2 for 5 minxer using a stand-alone mixer.
3. Let the dough raise for min. 1½ hour or cold night over.
4. Heat up the oven to 250'C (fan oven).
5. Slice the bacon, red onion and mushrooms into smaller pieces
6. Divide the dough into 2-3 smaller portion. Roll each portion thinly out on baking parchment.
7. Spread sour cream as bottom layer on top of the dough.
8. Spread bacon, red onion and mushrooms pieces on top of the sour cream.
9. Bake the tarte flambée at 250'C for 6-10 minutes, until the sour cream is golden-light brown.