A very happy Easter to all of those who celebrate. In Sweden Easter is mainly celebrated on Saturday, and in Poland today on Sunday. Yesterday we went to church with a small basket of food for the traditional blessing of Easter food that is common for Eastern European catholics. We had lamb racks for dinner and today we’re having an Easter “smörgåsbord” with both Polish and Swedish dishes.
I’m basically in Copenhagen every week lately and one of few days in Stockholm I was invited to a lunch arranged by Landrug & Fødevarer, earlier called Danish Meat Association. They had a PR lunch here in Stockholm and had invited René Redzepi, co-owner and chef of Noma, to cook the food. At Noma they focus on food and local ingredients from the Nordic countries, and as René said during his presentation you would for example never find mango on the menu but instead something local. René and his crew prepared 4 dishes for us. All with Danish pork and all very tasty.
First we had savoury aebleskiver. I guess you can easiest describe aebleskiver as doughnut holes or fluffy round pancakes. They are normally served sweet, like this recipe that I’ve posted earlier. These however were filled with pork rilettes and dusted with some kind of vinegar powder instead of the custom confectioner’s sugar.
The second starter was very danish: flaeskesvaer, crispy pork rinds. They had a “Noma” touch and were powdered with lingonberry powder. To this we got a lovely smoked cheese dip.
Next was pickled vegetables and bone marrow served with a very tasty sauce made of roasted ribs. All vegetables were pickled in different marinades. For example the yellow beets were pickled in elderflower marinade.
The last thing we got was slow roasted ribs glazed with hazelnut and mustard seeds. René encouraged us to let out our inner child and eat it with our hands. However I think I and Anne were the only ones doing so :-) The ribs were absolutely the best dish and I had to text my husband saying that I’m now converted. Yes, because I wasn’t that fond of ribs earlier, but these were amazing!
It was an extremely nice lunch, the food was delicious and René was very friendly and had a very nice presentation on Noma and Nordic food. There was also a short presentation by Landbrug & Fødevarer. I still haven’t been able to book a table for dinner at Noma, but hopefully I’ll be lucky one day and until then this lunch will be remembered as a small teaser and preview.
Screen shot from the online version of SvD Min Helg. copyright SvD
A few weeks ago I was asked together with Lena and Anne to create a menu for International Women’s Day. Our recipes were published yesterday in the national newspaper SvD (Min Helg) and can also be seen online at Tasteline together with photos and a interview. The pdf-version of Min Helg can be downloaded here. Unfortunately it’s only in Swedish.
The dishes we created for the menu are the following:
*Pomegranade martini with hazelnut and olive cantucci.
*Serrano rolls with lemon and pepper filling sprinkled with fried capers (one of the dishes we won with at the Swedish home chef of the year competition).
*Beef marinated in balsamic vinegar served with a blue cheese, apple, aragula, walnut and avocado salad.
*Rasperry Eton Mess (raspberries marinated in rhubarb syrup, whipped cream, vanilla ice cream and meringues).
After creating and discussing recipes with Anne and Lena we were invited to the SvD/Tasteline kitchen to cook the food so they could take photos of us while we were cooking and of course the food. We had a great time together and it was fun to watch the photographer in action. Below you can see some of the photos I took when we were finished with the food. And of course no weird sprays or chemicals were added to make the food look better on the photos. The photos taken by the photographer that were published can be seen at Tasteline and in SvD Min Helg.
Alice at Tasteline is pouring ice cold martini.
Pomegranade martini with hazelbut and olive cantucci.
Photographer Katja is brushing some oil on the serrano rolls as they dried out.
Alice is re-arranging the fried capers.
Katja can finally start taking photos of the serrano rolls.
Alice is putting a final touch on the main course while Linnéa, also from Tasteline, is watching.
Main course, beef and salad. And it’s not red wine in the glass but glögg (sweet mulled wine)!!
Katja is taking photos of the dessert.
Raspberry Eton Mess.
Don’t miss a chance to win a Moomin baking parcel with lots of Moomin cookie cutters, prize code EU08
I hope that you havn’t missed Menu for Hope 5, it´s a great opportunity to donate money at the same time as you have a chance to win fabulous prizes including lovely Moomin baking ware donated by me. If you still have Christmas presents left to buy you should definitly buy a few raffle tickets in your friend´s name. There are gift cards to print out here that you can give to your recipient.
Moomin baking collection, prize code EU08
It’s December and for the fifth year in a row food bloggers from all over the world are raising money to the United Nations World Food Programme by offering wonderful culinary prizes to tempt people to donate money.
For every US$10, the you receive a virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Last year we collected the incredible sum of nearly $100.000!!! This year once again, all money will go to the UN World Food Programme and the money are earmarked to a school’s feeding program in Lesotho. We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but helps them stay in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. Everyone, no matter where you live, can participate. Make sure to check out all available prizes at Chez Pim, just check that the things you want to bid on can be shipped to where you live.
To read more about Menu for Hope 5, who benefits from it, what percentage of the funds actually goes to those we help etc, go to this link on Chez Pim.
So what do I do to contribute to Menu for Hope 5? I’m donating a very special prize to the raffle, quite similiar to last years prize, to tempt my dear readers. My prize for Menu for Hope is a baking collection for all Moomin lovers! It’s Moomin Mania, a special irresistible baking collection for all Moomin lovers (prize code EU08) that consists of:
1 Moomintroll cake mold
1 Moomintroll cookie cutter
1 Moominmamma cookie cutter
1 Moominpappa cookie cutter
1 Lilla My cookie cutter
1 Snork maiden cookie cutter
1 Groke cookie cutter
1 Snufkin cookie cutter
1 Hattifatteners cookie cutter
1 Grooke cookie cutter
1 Stinky cookie cutter
4 dessert spoons from Hackman with Moomin motifs
Moomin paper napkins
1 pot holder with Moomin motifs
1 oven mit with Moomin motifs
Everything is of course brand new in their original packages and I will ship them anywhere in the world. The 9 different cookies come out beautifully with outlines and people just love them. You can make any cut-out cookies with the cutters and decorate them as you wish. The cake mold holds 400 ml and results in a cute Moomin cake.
1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope prize list at Chez Pim.
2. Go to the donation site at First Giving and make a donation.
3. Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. You must specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.
For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02
4. For US donors, if your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
5. Please allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.
6. Bids on prizes will be accepted from December 15-24th. The last day to bid on a prize is December 24th.
7. Check back on Chez Pim on January 12, when Pim will announce the result of the entire raffle.
Wow, I don’t know where to start. First of all thanks for all comments, calls, emails, text and facebook messages that I have received after Anne, Lena and I won the title Home chef of the year / Årets hemmakock! And of course my warmest thanks and hugs to Anne and Lena for being such fantastic team mates. I feel overwhelmed, surprised, honoured, and very very happy!
So let me present the home chefs of the year: Team Sörmland or actually Anne, Lena and myself. Due to a business trip Lena wasn’t able to participate in the finals yesterday. While I and Anne were competing, Lena impatiently sat in an airplane heading to the US. But we had a photo of her at our cooking station, so she was still with us in a way :-)
The days before I was quite stressed and nervous, but all nervousness disappeared as we got up on the stage and started focusing on the cooking. We had 45 minutes to finalize our Stockholm chili that we had already prepared with Lena the evening before. Since the main ingredient for the competition was cut of beef from the front part, being quite tough, all four finalists had to prepare the meat in advance. There was also an improvisation moment during the 45 minutes. Ten minutes before we were allowed to start cooking we received a list of ingredients that were available for an appetizer that we had to cook. The list was a bit disappointing, but we came up with a few ideas. We decided to do a mixture consisting of crème fraîche, marinated bell peppers, lemon zest, garlic and black pepper that we wrapped in Serrano ham and placed on a mixed salad with apple cider vinegar and croutons. On top we sprinkled newly fried capers. The minutes passed by very quickly: we started with rolling out dough for our spelt crackers, sprinkled them with Ancho chili and sea salt. Then we baked them in the oven. We prepared the condiments to the chili: chopped onion, grated cheese, chopped cilantro, oven roasted tomatoes and crème fraîche. The filling to the appetizer was prepared, the Serrano ham was filled and rolled and the capers were fried. And most important: the chili was finalized so it would taste perfect. When we had 10 minutes left I started to fear that we wouldn’t make it in time. But with 40 seconds left, we had plated all food and were ready to present 5 plates with appetizers and 5 plates with Stockholm chili to the jury.
It was a challenge to cook on stage in front of 300 people. We didn’t have any water in our kitchens and it was extremely cramped. But we did our best and we were focused while having fun. But still it was a relief to get off the stage and be able to relax. It was lovely t to sit down, drink some water and speak with our husbands. Both me and Anne were quite sure we wouldn’t win, despite the fact that we were pleased with our effort. The jury, well known in the food and restaurant industry, consisted of Kurt Weid, Markus Aujalay, Ingrid Eriksson, Ella Nilsson and Alice Brax. We had the impression that the jury was a bit traditional and thus wouldn’t pick our chili. When they finally were about the present the winner, they only had one bouquet of flowers with them on stage so I thought that we definitly hadn’t won. Then Kurt Weid started reading the motivation. After the first sentence I got even more convinced that it wasn’t us. But when the second sentence was read I became a little bit confused as it suited our entry the best. But still, I thought that Skåne was the winner and I even said it load when Kurt Weid asked the audience who the winner was. And suddenly Kurt said “Sörmland”, loud music started playing and everyone started applauding.
I was taken aback. Surprised. Shocked. Honoured. OMG we won! I can’t describe how overwhelming and happy that moment was. And still is.
The jury’s motivation:
Here we have just returned to the kitchen after presenting our food to the jury. One of the presenters, Lisa, is asking questions about our food.
Waiting for the results. Here you can see a part of the audience.
Just a few seconds after we were announced as the winners. You can see our surprised looks.
The photos were taken by Fredrik.
I’m shocked: we won! We are this year’s home chef! More info and photos on www.tasteline.com
Stockholm chili, however on the photo the homemade spelt crackers are substituted with nachos and I did the ovenroasted tomatoes with yellow pear shaped cherry tomatoes instead of red plum tomatoes.
I’m very excited to tell you that I’m competing together with my friends (and food bloggers) Anne and Lena in the cooking competition “Home chef of the year” organized by Tasteline. And guess what, we made it to the finals! We’re one of four finalists! Wow!
The competition has the theme “the new Sunday dinner” and the recipe needs to relate to a Swedish landskap (province) in some way and must contain specific parts of beef. I, Anne and Lena are representing Sörmland (the province where Stockholm is situated) ad our recipe is a Stockholm chili with oven roasted tomatoes and spelt crackers. It’s a quite spicy and hearty chili with 3 types of chili and Coca Cola (!), and beside the oven roasted tomatoes and spelt crackers it should be served with grated cheese, sour cream and chopped onions.
Our recipe (in Swedish) can be found here.
An article about us (in Swedish) can be found here.
All finalists can be found here.
The finals are on November 13th, don’t forget to keep your fingers crossed for us! I’m very nervous as we’ll be cooking live in front of the jury and other people… We’re the only women in the finals and the only team, the others are men and they are competing individually.
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