Finally, the asparagus is in season in Estonia

... few weeks later for me than for many foodbloggers in the UK, Germany, US and elsewhere. But it's been worth the wait.

My first batch of green asparagus spears - bought from the Uus-Kongo stall at the Tallinn Central Market - were turned into two excellent dishes tonight, both savoured with gusto.

First, roasted asparagus with parmesan cheese (or local Valio Forte cheese this time):


(Röstitud sparglid parmesaniga)

Secondly, Sam's excellent Asparagus on Asparagus:


('Spargel sparglis' ehk aurutatud sparglivarred sparglidipiga)

I'm ashamed I threw away all those snapped-off asparagus spears last year, and wish I had known about this excellent asparagus dip last year. Thank you, Sam!!

The Story of a Fermented Oat Flummery

Yesterday was the 100th birth anniversary of my maternal grandfather Ernst Johannes, known to his family and friends as Orika Ärni. A proud father of five, grandfather of 11. He died in 1981, when I was still just 6 years old, so I don't have many memories of him. I remember he was a big, quiet and stoic man, and know that he had worked hard in his farm all his life, mainly breeding pigs and milk cattle, as well as growing various grain crops (he had been lucky and wasn't deported to Siberia by the Soviets, but he did lose his large farm to the collectivisation, of course, leaving our family with just a fraction of the original farm). Although we spent at least a month every summer at our grandparents farm, and visited frequently, I cannot remember much of him. I have this image of him, sitting silently on the steps to one of the side-buildings of the house, just observing quietly what we, the kids, were doing. He wasn't the type of grandfather who'd play and chat with his grandchildren - I had my 'urban' grandfather for that :D - but I do remember forageing for wild mushrooms with him, even encountering a big brown bear on one occasion that we watched silently.

But there is one vivid food memory related to my grandfather that I wanted to share. During our annual month at the farm, my grandmother would regularly take a big saucepan, fill it with oatmeal and warm water, and leave it to ferment in a warm spot for a day or two. She'd then cook it on the huge stove in the corner of the old farm kitchen, stirring with a large wooden spoon, until it turned into a grey, gluey flummery ('kaerakile' or 'kaerakiisla' in Estonian). It was my grandfather's favourite dish, and there were always several bowls of cold flummery on the shelves in the large walk-in larder. It didn't look appetising - being a bland grey colour - and we avoided it at all cost, volunteering to pick berries from the orchard and eating these instead. But my granddad liked it, so my grandmother cooked it.

I spoke to my grandmother Senta (who celebrated her 88th birthday last week) yesterday, and she told me that she didn't like flummery to start with - actually found it pretty discusting, but gradually she grew fond of it:

Eks ta alguses oli üsna vastiku maitsega, aga pärast hakkas istuma :D

Well, I made the flummery yesterday to honour my grandfather Ärni. It definitely wasn't the most delicious dessert I've had, so I need to persist and learn to like this, just like my grandmother did. But it felt really good to eat my granddad's favourite dish on the day he would have turned 100.

Fermented Oat Flummery
(Kaerakile)

250 g old-fashioned oats or oatmeal
1 l lukewarm water
salt
sugar
butter

Mix oats and water in a large bowl, cover with cling film or a kitchen towel and leave to ferment in a warm spot for 24-30 hours. It needs to smell slightly sour, but pleasant at the end.
Pour the mixture through a fine sieve. Cook the resulting whitish liquid on a moderate heat, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon to avoid sticking, until it's thickened considerably and become gluey.
Season with salt and sugar.
Serve warm with a dollop of butter or cold with a spoonful of jam. Drink cold fresh milk alongside.

The 2008 wild mushroom season has officially begun...

... with this beautiful yellow morel (Morchella esculenta) we managed to pick last Saturday.

Isn't she pretty?

Ground-Elder and Vanilla Muffins

Ground-elder, you may wonder? Well, I wrote more about that healthy wild green about a year ago (check out my It's a Wild Thing: Hortapita or Greek Pie with Wild Greens post). Last weekend I managed to pick some new season's young ground-elder leaves, and tried a recipe for ground elder and vanilla muffins that was published in a local food magazine. I must admit I first thought 'ground elder muffins' are savoury ones, so seeing sugar and vanilla in the list of ingredients suprised me a little. However, I did follow the list of ingredients, changing the proportions and instructions a little, and was extremely pleased with the end result. The muffins were sweet, very slightly green-tasting, and very pleasant indeed.

Should you come across young and bright green ground-elder leaves in your garden, you should really try this recipe.

Ground-Elder and Vanilla Muffins
(Kevadised naadimuffinid vaniljega)
Recipe is based on Angelica Udeküll's muffin recipe in Estonian food magazine KÖÖK (April 2008)
Ready in 30 minutes
Makes 8

2 large eggs
100 ml caster sugar
100 g butter, melted
200 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
30 g young ground-elder leaves (just over a cup when lightly pressed)

Pour some boiling water over ground elder leaves and leave to stand for a few minutes.
Whisk eggs with sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the cooled melted butter, vanilla. Mix flour, baking powder and salt, then fold into the batter.
Drain the ground-elder and squeeze dry. Chop finely, then stir into the batter.
Divide into 8 muffin cups and bake in the middle of 220 C oven for 12-15 minutes, until muffins are lovely light golden brown.

The first of many rhubarb desserts: Coconut Creams with Poached Rhubarb Recipe

Since spotting the first crisp and sour local rhubarb spears at the market last about a week ago, I've made no less than three different rhubarb desserts already. All of them - let me tell you - worth sharing with you. So if you don't mind, I start with the first one.

The recipe is from BBC Good Food website, and the only change I've done is reducing the amount of sugar. Most British - and pretty much all American recipes - use more sugar than I'm accustomed to, so by reducing the sugar I've 'Estonified' the recipe :)

Coconut Creams with Poached Rhubarb
Serves 4

For the coconut creams:
2 gelatine leaves
400 ml creamy coconut milk
2 Tbsp sugar

For poached rhubarb:
300 g young rhubarb stalks, cut into 3 cm chunks*
1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise
2 Tbsp sugar

To make coconut creams, first soak gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes, until softened.
Heat the coconut milk and sugar in a small saucepan until simmering, then remove from the heat. Squeeze softened gelatine leaves slightly, then stir into the coconut milk, until dissolved.
Let cool a little, then pour into four small 200 ml dessert ramekins or glasses.
When cool, cover with clingfilm and transfer to the fridge for about 4 hours or overnight to set.

To poach rhubarb, place rhubarb, sugar and split vanilla pod into a small saucepan. Spring slowly to a boil (you may want to add a tablespoonful or two of water, but young rhubarb should yield plenty of juice itself, so it's not absolutely necessary) and then simmer, covered, for 7-10 minutes, until rhubarb is softened, but not too mushy.

Leave to cool, then spoon over the coconut creams and serve.

* There's no need to 'peel' young rosy rhubarb stalks, and unpeeling means much 'rosier' desserts.

Delicious Red Onion and Orange Salad Recipe

Here's an unusual salad I served on my birthday party just over a week ago. I had got some really beautiful and juicy, easy-peel Sicilian blood oranges from the grocery store, and I wanted to include them as part of the savoury buffet table. Having bookmarked this savoury orange salad recipe a while ago, it seemed like an obvious recipe to try. With just the tiniest of changes (improvements, obviously:), I made this salad. Alongside Ximena's wonderful balsamic-glazed sausages, this salad was another dish I had to make more of in the middle of the party, as it disappeared from the table in no time.

The sweet oranges, fruity olive oil, sharp red onions, acidic red wine vinegar, fiercy pink peppercorns - it's definitely a combination to try. Lovely. I used sweet blood oranges, as these look much more dramatic, but ordinary yellow ones would be just fine obviously.

Red Onion and Blood Orange Salad
(Apelsinisalat punase sibulaga)
Adapted from Piltti
Serves 4 to 6

2 to 3 large and juicy blood oranges
1 small red onion, diced
1 tsp caster sugar
a dash of red wine vinegar
a dash of extra virgin olive oil (I used Borges Organic)
whole pink peppercorns (dry ones, not in brine!)

Peel the oranges and slice thinly. Place on a serving tray, overlapping each other slightly.
Sprinkle with finely chopped red onion, then drizzle with wine vinegar and olive oil.
Season with sugar and scatter some pink peppercorns on top.