Shakshoukah

 This is an old picture of Shakshouka, the way I used to make it before.
Below are pictures of today's Shakshouka, that I looked up for my current "Tunisian inspired cooking" week. It tastes the same as the above Shakshouka.

Shakshouka is a kind of vegetarian ragout, similar to ratatouille. A tomato stew with poached eggs on top. There are variants of it in many countries (have a look in Wikipedia)

 It's still cooking here :)

Recipe:

Ingredients:
Olive oil
1 large onion
2-3 sweet peppers
8 cloves garlic
2 tbs tomato paste
3 cups water
2 tomatoes
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tbs paprika
Salt to taste
1 egg per person (as we have some with egg allergy in the family, I just took some of the sauce and put aside before adding the eggs, the taste is a bit strong without them but okey)
Parsley

Instructions:
1. Cut onion and press garlic cloves and saute them in a deep frying pan or pot until golden.
2. Add thinly cut peppers.
3. Add the spices and mix.
4. Chop the tomatoes (I like to peel them as well) and add to the pan.
5. Add tomato paste and water, then bring to a simmer.
6. Add salt to taste.
7. Crack eggs directly into the hot tomato sauce, without breaking the yolks. Put the eggs in evenly spaced. After the eggs have been added, there shouldn't be any more stirring or mixing.
8. Leave it to cook on low heat for about 2-5 minutes more, until the egg whites have cooked through.
9. Sprinkle fresh parsley over the Shakshouka and serve with bread.

Five minute chocolate cake

 

• 4 tablespoons flour
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
• 2 tablespoons whisked egg - can be omitted, but line the mug/bowl with fat or else it'll stick!
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 3 tablespoons oil
• some kind of flavouring - vanilla or cinnamon for example

"Bake" for five minutes in the microwave and top with whipped cream and fruit.

Egg-free Treacle Cake or Sweet Brown Bread

• 450 ml milk
• 100 g sugar
• 165 g treacle
• 170 g wholemeal flour
• 200 g plain/bread flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Butter a big bread tin and line with breadcrumbs. preheat oven to 180C, gas mark 4.
   
2. Combine dry ingredients and wet together with sugar separately. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well.
3. Pour mixture into the pans and bake for 45 minutes.

I converted the measurements like this:

• 4 1/2 dl milk
• 1 dl sugar (could do with some more)
• 4 tbs treacle
• 3 dl wholemeal flour
• 4 dl plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
  

Taken from Allrecipes.co.uk

Jeffels - baked beans with tomato sauce in toast

Two buttered slices with a spoonful of baked beans in tomato sauce in-between, grilled in a panini iron or special Jeffels-iron. Yum!

And to benefit extra from the iron in the beans, serve with some salad cress and fresh orange juice for vitamin C.

Ängasoppa

Ängasoppa is a spring and summer soup, preferably made with the first, tender vegetables of spring.

4 portions

1 small cauliflower head
2-3 carrots
1 small leek
a handful of spinach or mangold
2 dl peas
5 dl water
1 vegetable stock cube
2 1/2 tbs flour
4 dl milk
1 dl parsley
salt & pepper to taste

Try to find as fresh vegetables as possible, the above mentioned are just a suggestion. I substitute leek with an onion, if I don't have any leeks and I don't recall using parsley...

Clean and prepare the vegetables. Cut or dice everything into the same size. Starting with the carrots and cabbage, cover with water and bring to the boil, adding the rest of the vegetables after a few minutes. Cook them until the vegetables have become "al dente" (done, but with some bite, like good spaghetti).

Mix the flour with some of the milk and add to the soup. Keep on low heat for about five more minutes.

You can also add yolk from an egg and half a decilitre of cream, mixed with a decilitre of the soup, but make sure the soup has only been simmering, not boiling or else the yolk will make it all grainy.

Burek

Bureks are spring rolls, also called samosa/sambosa/sambusek. Thin pastry sheets filled with a tasty filling, most commonly minced meat (when filled with cheese they're called fatayer - it's pretty much the same, though). You can make the paper thin sheets yourself (Tammy of Tammy's Somali Home shows how on her blog) or buy them at any supermarket (spring roll pastry suits perfectly).
Different variants of burek/samosa are eaten all over the world. They seem to have merged somewhat over the years with the spring rolls, summer rolls, egg rolls, börek, et al.

The most used filling in our house is;

Minced meat filling

2 tsp olive oil
1 onion
500 g mince meat
olives cut in rings
salt, pepper and harissa to taste
eggs and chopped parsley
soft cheese

Fry the onions soft in the oil, add the mince and fry until all the redness is gone. Add olives and seasoning and let it cook for awhile. In the end add eggs and parsley, but don't let it cook dry!

Take a spring roll sheet, put about a spoonful of the filling in one corner together with some soft cheese and roll it, tucking in the sides as you go.

Deep fry or cook under the grill with some oil brushed over them. If you put the opening down first, you don't need anything to stick the ends to the rolls with.


According to Wikipedia: Swedes eat 1,2 spring rolls per person per year, the Danish 7 spring rolls per year, and Norway 1,4. lol

Swedish toffee

Knäck is a traditional Swedish toffee. The name translates into "break" and refers to its hard consistency (reminding of Daim or Skor bars). Some prefer their knäck to be soft and chewy, which is easily attainable by simmering the mix for a shorter time.

~Recipe~

Heavy cream (any kind of cream that can be cooked will work just fine - such as double or whipping cream)
Golden syrup
Sugar

Measure up equal parts (e.g. 150 ml) of the cream, syrup and sugar in a heavy based saucepan or pot (preferably a large pan for quicker results).
Melt it while stirring and bring to the boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, the heat should be high enough to keep the mix boiling without burning to the bottom of the pan.
Keep boiling, while stirring, until the mix becomes a bit gluey. Pour a drop of the mix into a glass of cold water. If you can roll it to a hard or chewy ball, it’s done.
(You can add chopped almonds to the mix at this stage)

Pour into mini paper cups and leave to cool. Delicious!