A cheesy cauliflower & mince gratin with dill

Yes, the Weekend Herb Blogging that Kalyn started two years ago is celebrating this weekend in style. Kalyn herself is hosting this round, and we're all asked to contribute a recipe using at least one vegetable and at least one herb [click here for the round-up]. Weekend Herb Blogging is a fun foodblogging event, and I've taken part quite frequently (you can see my WHB entries here). It's a great incentive to come up with new healthy vegetable dishes on a regular basis and to experiment with new herbs, providing variety and excitment to our daily diet.

For this special anniversary edition, I'm submitting a very simple dish that I cooked earlier this week. Yes, I could have come up with something hyper-unique and super-special, but then that's not how we eat usually here. A simple, homey dish is something that's much more useful, so that's what I chose. My featured vegetable is cauliflower - horrible, when old & overgrown, but wonderful, when young and fresh; my chosen herb is dill - definitely one of my favourite herbs, and a very common one here in the North-Eastern corner of Europe.

Cauliflower & Mince Gratin with Dill
(Lillkapsa-hakklihavorm)
Slightly adapted from Valio recipe for Kukkakaali-jauhelihapaistos
Serves 4



about 1 kg of cauliflower, cut into florets
300 grams lean mince (I used lean pork, with 5-7% fat*)
1 large onion
2 Tbsp oil
salt & coarsely ground black pepper, to taste
2 Tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped (plus extra to serve)
2 eggs
300 ml single cream
200 grams grated (mozzarella or any other well-melting) cheese

Cut cauliflower into florets, boil for 5 minutes in a slightly salted water. Drain.
Heat the oil on a heavy saucepan, add onion and fry gently for 5 minuted. Add the minced meat, fry for another 5 minutes or so, stirring regularly, until browned all over. Season with salt, pepper and dill.
Spread the meat & onion mixture on a 25 cm pie dish, about 3-4 cm high. Place cauliflower florets on top.
Whisk eggs with cream, pour over the cauliflower florets.
Bake at 200 C oven for 20 minutes.
Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for another 10 minuted, until the cheese has melted and the dish is light golden brown on top.
Serve sprinkled with extra dill, and some green salad leaves or tomatoes.

* Kasutasin Rakvere delikatesshakkliha, rasvasisaldus 5-7%. Müüakse karbis.

Soolaoad, alias salty broad beans, Estonian style

Broad beans, Estonian style. Simple, humble, rustic. All you need is fresh broad beans (Vicia faba L, still in pods) - in season just now, some large dill sprigs, water and salt. A perfect late summer dish again..

Beans and peas have been two of the staple ingredients in Estonian peasant diet, and considered almost as important as our other staple, rye bread. Whereas rye bread was usually accompaning every meal, then pea and bean dishes were served on their own. Beans were considered especially nutritious, and in their fresh form were cooked and eaten in pods. That's my preferred way of eating fresh broad beans, too. Broad beans, by the way, formed an important part of European diet until the 17th century, when they was pushed aside by the more elegant green beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L), newly introduced potatoes and corn. So consider this dish as 'back to your roots' style of eating...

For a much more elegant version for eating broad beans, see Haalo's WHB entry. To see the same dish pictured elsewhere (I'm talking about the rustic Estonian version), see a post over at Clivia's Cuisine in Sweden.

Salty broad beans, Estonian style
(Keedetud põldoakaunad, lihtsal moel)



fresh broad beans (pods)
water
coarse salt
dill sprigs
sour cream, for serving

Wash the pods (topping & tailing them, if you prefer) and place into a large saucepan of water. Add dill sprigs and about 3-4 Tbsp of salt into the water (alias a lot more than you think you need, as the salt needs to permeate the pods).
Bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the beans are tender.
Drain and serve either hot or cooled, sprinkling with extra salt, if you wish. You don't eat the pods (and you can also remove the skins of the beans, if you so wish, though that's not usually done in Estonia). The individual beans can be dipped into sour cream before eating.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Katie of Thyme for Cooking. Click on the logo below for more information about this established foodblogging event, and here to read Katie's round-up (44 entries!!!).

Roasted marrow with garlic and dried herbs, alias What to do with an overgrown squash

Cubed and seasoned squash/marrow, ready for roasting.

My mum doesn't get the concept of zucchini/courgettes. She's convinced that bigger is better, so while I was happily harvesting beautiful slim zucchini from my container garden, she was waiting until her zucchini were 'the right size'. 'Right size' in this case means totally overgrown, about 1,5-2 kilograms a piece. No amount of explanation and talking (Mom, these are supposed to be eaten when they're still young and tender, they're not your usual pumpkin/squash!!!) seems to help.

When my dad popped by last weekend to bring us a large bag of my favourite summer apples - Valge Klaar and Suislepp, and some beautiful yellow flowers (all from my mum's garden), he also brought us a huge and overgrown squash/marrow. Way too large for something as delicate as zucchini carpaccio, so I had to come up with something else. Luckily I bumped into this recipe over at the fun The Great Big Vegetable Challenge blog, which I very slightly adapted. And I liked the result.

I think I won't argue with my mum about the 'right' time & size to harvest zucchini. I'll just continue eating my zucchini as zucchini and her 'zucchini' as squash/marrow. Two for the price of one, you know..

Roasted marrow with garlic and dried herbs
(Röstitud kabatšokk küüslauguga)
Serves 4 as a side dish


A fat roasted garlic clove.

1 kg of cubed marrow/squash (weight after de-seeding)
3 Tbsp olive oil
3-4 large garlic cloves
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Maldon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Cut the marrow in half lengthwise, then again in half or into quarters lengthwise, depending on the size of the marrow. Cut into 2-3 cm chunks.
Brush a large oven dish slightly with oil, add squash/marrow cubes, herbs, garlic cloves and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Mix with a wooden spoon or your hands, so everything would be evenly coated.
Roast in a 200C oven for 30-40 minutes, stirring every now and then, until squash/marrow cubes are golden and softened.

Tips for serving: serve as an accompaniment for a grilled meat, or as a vegetarian dish with some good bread. I used the leftover roasted marrow to make a vegetable quiche on the following day, which was delicious, too.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Scott from Real Epicurean (click through to read other WHB entries).

Preserving lingonberries: an apple and lingonberry jam

A fortnight ago, Ximena and I and our respective partners J. and K., went to a bog where we picked various forest berries, including lots of lingonberries. The Latin name of lingonberries is Vaccinium viris-idaea, thus belonging to the same family with blueberries (Vaccinium Cyanococcus), bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus) and bog bilberries (Vaccinium uliginosum). They're a great source of vitamin C, and have been appreciated by Northeners for that reason for a long time.

Lingonberries can be used to make apple pies and cheesecakes, rye bread and cream pudding, and a number of other desserts. Lingonberries are also great for making jam. Lingonberry jam - at least the version here - has many uses. It can be used as a typical jam on pancakes, toast, breakfast porridge. But it's not overly sweet, and lingonberries yield this am a rather tart quality. Therefore it can be also used as a chutney to accompany grilled sausages or black pudding during Christmas.

Apple and lingonberry jam
(Pohla-õunamoos)



1 kg lingonberries*
1 kg apples, peeled**, cored and cut into chunks
200 ml water
600-700 grams sugar

Pick through the berries to make sure they're clean. Bring water to the boil in a large saucepan, add lingonberries and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring, until softened.
Add apple chunks and cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add sugar and simmer for another 10 minutes.
Pour into hot sterilised jars and close immediately.

* If it's a poor lingonberry year, then you can take 2 parts apples and 1 part berries.
** If using apples from your own garden or a reputable organic source, then you don't have to peel them. I used underripe "Valge Klaar" apples from my mum's garden. They're one of the earliest apples available and very soft and juicy, so they're perfect for jam-making.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Zorra from Kochtopf (click through to read her round-up).

Bog bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum), yummy muffins

Bog bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum, sinikas or 'blue' berry in Estonian) is a close relative of bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus L., mustikas or 'black' berry in Estonian) and high-bush blueberry (Vaccinium Cyanococcus or V. corymbosum, kännasmustikas e. kultuurmustikas in Estonian). The first two can be distinguished by looking at their stems (brown for bog bilberries and green for bilberries) or leaves (blue-green for bog bilberries, green for bilberries) and by biting into the fruit (bog bilberries have a pinkish flesh, bilberries are blackish-purple throughout, blueberries are whitish-green inside). Also, the bog bilberry fruit is slightly oblong in shape, whereas bilberries are round, and blueberries round, but much larger than the first two.

Just so you'd know..



I made bog bilberry muffins, and took them along to my sister's and my two nephews' joint birthday party last Sunday. You cannot really see that from the picture, but I baked the muffins in football-print muffin cases. They were quite a hit amongst the 20-something small boys (and few girls) aged between 4 and 8, believe me. I'd like to think it wasn't just the cunningly chosen muffin papers :)

Bog bilberry muffins
(Sinika- või mustikamuffinid)
Makes 12


2 medium eggs
150 ml sugar
250 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp cardamom seeds (from about 20 pods), ground
150 grams sour cream or plain yogurt
50 grams butter, melted & cooled
200-300 ml bog bilberries (or bilberries or blueberries)

Whisk eggs with sugar until pale and frothy.
Mix the dry ingredients. Add to the egg mixture together with sour cream and melted butter. Fold in the forest berries.
Fill 12 hole muffin tray and bake at 225 C for 13-15 minutes, until muffins have risen and turned golden brown.

For more muffin ideas, check out Muffin Monday Round-Up # 5 where Wonder Sophie is gathering recipes for for Les Muffins Régressifs alias Childhood Muffins.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Melissa from Cooking Diva. Click on the logo below for more information about this established foodblogging event!

Meadowsweet Cordial (Filipendula ulmaria)

A fortnight ago, K. and I spent a lovely weekend on Hiiumaa, Estonia's second-largest island, which you can reach in about an hour on a ferry. There were our friends Siobhan and Meelik and their newly restored country house, there was a folk music festival, a wild boar farm, lots of green strawberries (Fragaria viridis, which are close relatives of wild strawberries or Fragaria vesca L.), beautiful sandy beaches. There was also a lively country fair in Kärdla, the main town on the island, where we stocked up on local honey, bought some new lamb wool pillows, and a trio of different carrot marmelades.

Several stalls at the fair offered angervaksajook or a meadowsweet cordial, which reminded me of elderflower cordial that was a popular summer drink in Scotland. Neither one of us had ever had - or heard of - meadowsweet cordial before, so we were excited about discovering something new, and inquired one of the sellers about the drink. Meadowsweet, you see, grows wild everywhere on the island*. Or almost everywhere on the island, as after we had received the instructions from one of the drink sellers, we headed back to our guesthouse, keen to make meadowsweet cordial ourselves. The 25 kilometre journey back home went past a field after a field covered with flowering meadowsweets. Yet when we reached the place we were staying, we found ONE lone meadowsweet plant on a huge field behind the house!!! Luckily, we did manage to pick 50 blossoms from that single plant after all..

Meadowsweet**, as Wikipedia helpfully explains us, is a perennial herb that grows on damp meadows in Europe and Western Asia. It's also known as Queen of the Meadow, Pride of the Meadow, Meadow-Wort and Bridewort. Meadowsweet is known as Mädesüß in German, Reine-des-prés or fausse spirée in French, älggräs in Swedish, mesiangervo in Finnish. It's an excellent plant for attracting bees, as it's delicate and creamy-white flowers have a strong, sweet smell.

Meadowsweet has been used in herbal medicine - apparently it relieves headaches and reduces fever and cures acidic stomach. This being a foodblog, however, I should focus on the culinary uses of meadowsweet. My Estonian sources didn't describe any (apart from using it to make healing infusions). But Wikipedia says that meadowsweet can be used to flavour wine, beer and vinegars, the flowers can be added to jams and stewed fruit.

And last, but not least, meadowsweet is considered to be a sacred herb by Celtic Druids, who use meadowsweet to enhance their love spells!

Here's a meadowsweet cordial, prepared according to the recipe of a friendly stall-holder at Kärdla country fair. A lovely, fragrant and summery drink with a difference.

Meadowsweet Cordial
(Angervaksajook)
Makes 2 litres



50 meadowsweet blossoms***
2 l water
250 g sugar
2 lemons

Pour the water into a large saucepan and add meadowsweet flowers. Bring to the boil, then add sugar and stir, until sugar has dissolved. Turn off the heat, add the juice of one lemon and let the flavours infuse.
Drain through a fine sieve, season with more lemon juice (and sugar, if you wish).
Serve diluted by water (1 part cordial and 1-2 parts water, depending on your preference), adding ice cubes and garnishing with a lemon slice.

* And in our back yard, as we realised when we got home again :)
** Note that what is commonly known as meadowsweet/white meadowsweet in the US, broadleaf white spirea or Spiraea Alba, is a somewhat different plant (thought information on the web is somewhat confusing. They're both in Rosaceae family).
*** Make sure to collect your meadowsweet flowers from clean environment, avoiding the ones growing next to busy roads.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Kalyn herself. Click on the logo below for more information about this established foodblogging event! Kalyn's roundup for the 94th round of WHB is available here.

On growing zucchini and eating zucchini blossoms: a zucchini blossom frittata & zucchini blossom fritters

Our little 'garden' (alias numerous terracota pots just outside the back door) is doing well. We've picked our first strawberries, are keeping an eye on the growing tomatoes, and hope to harvest some baby beetroots soon. But most successful has been the zucchini container (or 'courgette container', as it would be known in the UK). I've got three yellow zucchini plants in one large container, and they obviously seem to thrive there. I've already harvested one good-sized zucchini (click here or see the photo on the right), and we've been eating quite a lot of zucchini blossoms. Whereas I've always known that young zucchinis are wonderful, then zucchini blossoms have been a new discovery for me. And what a delightful discovery they've been - they've got a delicate zucchini flavour, beautiful shape and unusual texture. We've only harvested male blossoms, as we want to harvest as many zucchinis as possible from our 'garden'.

Kalyn recently praised zucchini blossoms in her BlogHer post. Here's what I've been doing with them, over and over again.. (And if you've got a favourite way with zucchini blossoms, then please let me know. There are loads and loads of blossoms still to harvest!)

Zucchini Blossom Fritters
(Frititud suvikõrvitsaõied)



I made sure that all my zucchini blossoms were clean and dry, then dipped them into a batter made of approximately 1 part plain flour and 1 part water (aiming for the consistency of not-too-thick sour cream). After dipping them in batter, I deep-fried the zucchini blossoms in olive oil that I had heated in a small sauce-pan (about 1 inch/2-3 cm of oil), turning them once. Once the zucchini blossoms were golden brown, I drained them on kitchen paper, sprinkled with some Maldon sea salt flakes, and enjoyed them straight away.

Zucchini Blossom Frittata



Again, make sure your zucchini blossoms are clean.
Whisk some eggs (say, 2 per person) in a small bowl, add a dash of water, whisk again and season with salt and pepper.
Heat some olive oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat, add zucchini blossoms and fry gently for about 30 seconds. Pour over the egg mixture, reduce heat to low, and let it set for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir couple of times, sprinkle some chopped green onions and spring onions/scallions on top, top with a spoonful or two of grated soft cheese (mozzarella, feta, soft goat cheese or Cheddar - all would work).
Cover the frying pan with a lid and let the frittata set over a low heat. Alternatively, give it a few minutes under a hot grill.
Garnish with fresh herbs and serve with home-made rye bread. Oh, and the frittata gets its gorgeous yellow shade from using eggs from these very happy chicken. But usual free-range supermarket eggs will do as well :)

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Susan of Food Blogga. You can read Susan's roundup here.

Wild strawberries, 2007

Have you ever had wild strawberries*, also known as woodland strawberries? No? Well, imagine the best-tasting, ripe and just-picked strawberry you've ever had, just in a very concentrated form. That's how wild strawberries taste like - like summer heaven :)

In July 2006, K. and I ate wild strawberries to our heart's content; this year we were determined to do the same and even more. In the few hours before St John's bonfire we made a quick trip to our wild strawberry fields. After just about an hour and a half we had about 1 kilogram of tiny wild strawberries between us - not bad at all, considering that we covered a very small patch of land. There were just so many strawberries around.

And here's a tip to any future wild strawberry foragers: make sure to look inside larger bunches of grass and nettles - we found the 'hidden' strawberries to be considerably larger than the ones growing in sunny open spots (I guess constant sunshine - which we've got plenty during the summer - dries them out a bit).


When you look hard enough, you'll see lots of wild strawberries (click on the photo to enlarge).

* I must admit that I'm a bit confused about the relationship between wild and Alpine strawberries. However, based on this Finnish source, I suspect that Alpine strawberries are a semi-cultivated 'close cousins' of wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca L). They're sweet and tasty, but the flavour is somewhat more diluted; they're slightly bigger and more oblong than your average wild strawberrys (see Clotilde's picture here and compare the oblong berries with this round berry here). In Estonia they're known as kuumaasikad alias 'moon strawberries' (Fragaria vesca var. semperflorens, c.f. kuukausimansikka in Finnish, Monatserdbeere in German). Another difference is that whereas wild strawberries only bear fruit in June-July, then you can harvest Alpine strawberries in your garden until early Autumn (hence the English synonyms 'everbearing strawberry' and 'perpetual fruiting strawberry', Spanish 'fresal de las cuatro estaciones'). But, as I said, there's lots of confusion on this matter, so I still need to do some research into this..

By the way - wild strawberries are high in carbohydrates and contain fibre, minerals (iron, magnesium, calcium, among other things) and vitamins (B, C, E vitamins, pholic acid and carotene). So they're not only tasty, they're also very good for you. I've even read that wild strawberry face masks help to reduce lines, but as I so don't have to worry about that any time soon, I just keep eating them for their taste :)

Wild strawberries are best eaten as they are picked, but they also make a lovely jam. BUT - don't try to make a traditional boiled jam with wild strawberries. The tiny seeds outside the berry may turn any cooked jam bitter, and basically spoil it. Therefore wild strawberries are preserved in uncooked, 'raw' jam.

Wild strawberry jam
(Metsmaasika toormoos)



750 grams freshly picked wild strawberries
750 grams caster sugar

Pick through the strawberries to make sure there are no tiny bugs or ants among them. This is best done by pouring a cupful of strawberries onto a large plate covered with a clean (paper) towel, sorting through and then spooning the strawberries into a large bowl.

Add sugar (take equal quantity - in terms of weight - of sugar to berries) and then stir with a wooden spoon, squashing berries every now and then, for about 20-30 minutes, until sugar has dissolved.
Ladle into small sterilised jam jars and close them immediately.
As this is an uncooked jam, then keep in the fridge or in a very cold larder.

We got exactly 1 litre of wild strawberry jam or metsmaasikamoos - 5 small jars a´ 150 ml and 1 larger jar a´ 250 ml. One of these jars will be waiting for a certain foodblogger who will be visiting in August, the others we'll enjoy with our traditional Sunday pancakes..



WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Kalyn herself.

Estonian soups: nettle soup with eggs & herbs (or more wild food)

My mum has obviously realised that her older daughter (that's me) is 'into such things' - wild food & edible weeds, I mean. So when she saw stinging nettles growing in her vegetable patch, she left them there for me instead of throwing into compost pile like they have done for the previous decades. When popping by for our weekly cup of coffee last Thursday (I was at my high school reunion this weekend, so we went to see her a bit earlier), she gave me a bunch of chives, some beautiful pink peonies, and a large handful of stinging (and very much so!) nettles.

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) is widely available in Estonia - though not in the shops. You'd find it growing in your back garden, on the meadows and fields, and alongside your fence. Contains plenty of vitamin C, carotine, vitamin K, and considerable amounts of E- and B-vitamins. Practicioners of herbal medicine know many uses for stinging nettles, but there's also a culinary aspect to this weed. There are 17 pages of recipes and tips for various culinary uses of stinging nettle in the book of wild weeds (see left). Another cookbook I've got, Soome-ugri kokaraamat alias a cookbook of Finno-Ugric people that includes recipes of Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Livonian, Karelian, Votic, Vepsian, Sami/Lappish, Mansi/Vogul, Udmurt, Komi, Mari/Cheremisic, Ingrian/Izhorian, Mordvinic, and Khanty/Ostyak culinary heritage, also contains a number of recipes using nettles. Nettle leaves can be added into soups, stews, salads, omelettes and meat dishes (add chopped nettle into the meatballs or meatloaf, for example); they can be used as a pie filling (like my ground elder hortapita) or even to make nettle wine. I opted for a simple green soup, which in one form or another appears in quite a few Estonian sources.

Eesti keeles võite nõgestest lugeda veel Thredahlia blogist.

Nettle soup with eggs & herbs
(Nõgesesupp)
Serves 2-3 as a starter



100 grams of stinging nettle leaves*
500 ml water
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
1 finely chopped onion
1 Tbsp plain flour
500 ml vegetable, chicken or beef stock, hot
salt & black pepper

To serve:
2 boiled eggs
finely chopped fresh dill & chives

Bring the water to the boil, add the nettle leaves and blanch for 2 minutes (THIS ELIMINATES THE STINGING PROPERTIES OF THE NETTLES, SO YOU CAN FREELY TOUCH THEM). Rinse quickly under cold water and drain lightly. Puree in a blender and put aside.
Heat olive oil in a saucepan, add onions and saute on a medium heat for 7-8 minutes to soften slightly. Add the flour, mix thoroughly and fry for 1 minute (do not brown!). Add hot stock, a little at a time and mixing thoroughly to incorporate the flour & onion mixture. Boil for about 3 minutes, then add the pureed nettle and heat through. Season with salt & pepper.
Ladle into small soup bowls, add a halved or chopped boiled egg and garnish with chopped herbs.

* Use a pair of rubber gloves to tear off the leaves from the stalks, as stinging nettles do really live up to their name at this stage.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Rachel of Rachel's Bite.

It's a wild thing: hortapita or a Greek pie with wild greens

On a gorgeous Sunday in early May K. and I walked along the paths of my - sorry, our - childhood summers. Literally. And during that walk, we packed a small linen bag with young ground elder leaves. You see, ever since buying the book on the culinary use of wild herbs & weeds few months ago, I've been discovering new edible wild plants galore. Eating dandelion greens is almost conservative now. I've turned dandelion blossoms into dark and sticky syrup, thrown milk thistle leaves into my salads, and yes, eaten enough wild garlic leaves to provide me with vitamins for months, and yes, even made a pie out of ground-elder. I can see that not everybody gets excited about stuff like that - even my 87-year old grandmother was a bit suspicious of me collecting these weeds for human consumption. But luckily K. is very supportive, and doesn't mind being fed one 'interesting' dish after another.

Ground-elder (Aegopodium podagraria, also known as bishop's weed and goutweed in English, naat in Estonian) has a long history of being used for medicinal purposes, but it was also cultivated as a food crop in the Middle Ages, especially in Russia (and in Siberia in particular - the Russian Saint Seraphim of Sarov is said to have survived three years on eating mainly ground-elder while on self-exposed exile in a deep forest), Scandinavia, in Central Europe. Old Finno-Ugric peoples were keen consumers of ground elder, too. According to some sources, old traders wrapped their vegetables into ground elder leaves to keep them fresh looking and smelling - the leaves are high in essential oils and helped to keep the other produce fresh and aromatic, too. Young and tender ground-elder leaves can be added to soups, omelettes and stews. Blanched leaves can be mixed with cottage cheese and curd cheese. The leaves are high on Vitamin E, as well as vitamin C, they're rich in antioxidants, minerals, flavonoids and fibre. Dishes containing ground elder are easily digestible, and have cleansing properties - so they're good for that spring-time detoxing :)


A hortapita in Portaria, June 2006

I decided to make hortapita with my ground elder leaves. The wise Greek village women, you see, have been using wild greens - horta - for culinary purposes forever. I enjoyed hortapita in a shady cafe in Portaria (see the photo above) during my 2006 trip to Greece. Its slightly more elegant and modern version - spanakopita - is one of my favourite pies. Using my ground elder bounty for a Greek hortapita seemed like the most logical thing to do. The Greek villagers would use lots of other wild and bitter leaves for making hortopita (and other dishes too, obviously, like salads etc). Amaranth (vlita in Greek, one of the most popular horta's - rebashein), sow thistle (tsochos / piimaohakas), stinging nettles (tsouknithes / kõrvenõges), mallow (molocha / kassinaeris), dandelion, purslane ( glistrida or andrakles / portulak), wild carrots, as well as more familiar chicory, sorrel, mustard greens, rocket, endives and others. Ground elder makes as good a pie filling as any of the others mentioned - just a little bit bitter, gutsy and earthy.

The pastry recipe is from my friend Virve, who uses it to make a fabulously easy apple pie. It's the easiest pastry to work with and it tastes wonderful - it's easy, soft and pliable dough that procudes a flaky and wonderful pastry. The filling is inspired by my spanakopita recipe.

Hortapita or a Greek-style pie with wild greens
(Naadipirukas)
Serves 8




Pastry:
200 grams butter
200 grams sour cream
350 grams plain flour
a pinch of salt

Filling:
3 Tbsp oil
200 grams young ground-elder leaves
100 grams onion, finely chopped
200 grams cottage cheese or feta cheese
1 egg
1 Tbsp dried oregano
salt and coarsely ground black pepper

First, prepare the pastry. Melt the butter on a medium heat, take off the heat and cool a little. Mix in sour cream, flour and salt. Knead until the pastry comes together - it'll be very soft and pliable, like plastiline. Wrap into cling film and put into the fridge for up to 30 minutes (leave it for much longer, and you'll have hard time rolling it!)
Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Wash the wild greens, dry thoroughly. Heat a non-stick frying pan and 'cook' the leaves until they 'wilt'. Then quickly rinse them under cold running water to stop them from cooking further. Press until dry, and chop the cooked leaves coarsely.
Heat the non-stick frying pan again, this time with oil on it. Add the onion and cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes, until onion starts to soften. Take off the heat.
Now add the other ingredients, mix thoroughly.
Roll the relaxed dough to a large rectangle about 4-5 mm thick, cut into 2 more or less equally sized rectangles. Place the smaller one on a medium-sized oven tray, spread the filling on top, and cover with the larger dough sheet. Pinch the edges firmly together, pierce with a fork couple of times and brush with whisked egg.
Bake at 200C for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown. Cool a little and cut into squares.

Dandelion Leaves, All Dressed Up (võilillelehesalat)

Remember my New Year's Resolutions? Well, one of the resolutions was to make rullepølse or the Danish cooked rolled pork belly. And I'm happy to tell you that as of Easter Sunday this can be ticked off, too. You can see a glimpse of the rullepølse below, and I'll blog about it soon. Meanwhile, let me tell you a little about what I served it with. As I used a rather fatty piece of pork to make my first ever rullepølse, I needed something sharp to cut through the grease :-)

My solution? A sharp salad of dandelion leaves.

On Saturday we did the annual egg-swapping/seeing-the-relatives trip. We paid a visit to K's mum, my Granny No 1 and my Granny No 2, followed by a joyous lunch at my parents' house together with my sister, nephews and my favourite auntie. At each place, we 1) ate eggs; 2) exchanged eggs; and 3) jarped some eggs. For example, Granny No 1 got one of my eggs, whereas I got one in return (egg number 6 on this post). It was also at the said grandmother's place that I picked up a small bunch of young dandelion leaves. Definitely worth trying - their taste is not so dissimilar to wild rocket leaves, and cost nothing at all..

Dandelion leaves (Taraxacum), as my newly acquired Estonian book on the use of wild garden plants in the kitchen said, are 3-4 times more nutritious than salad leaves. The ancient Greeks believed that dandelion aided digestion, stimulated appetite and increased sexual potency, and worked as a diuretic and as a tonic, among many other properties. The leaves are high on protein (2.4%), carbohydrates (7-8%) and vitamins C (30-70mg%) and E (7-8mg%) and betacarotene (7-8mg%). The fat content is insignificant (0.5-0.6%). Dandelion is cultivated in many countries, notably in France (Chez Pim wrote about pissenlit only recently), Spain and Portugal, but here in Estonia it is definitely considered a weed. A beautiful one, both when in bloom and after it (as on the above photo taken by K. last summer), but definitely a bothersome weed that usually ends up in the compost pile rather than on a plate.

The salad below was called 'dandelion salad, Italian style' in the book.

Dandelion Leaves, all dressed up
(Võilillelehesalat)
Serves 4
Adapted from Umbrohud tüliks ja tuluks, by Toivo Niiberg & Enn Lauringson (Maalehe Raamat, 2007)



young dandelion leaves*, washed and roughly chopped
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
a generous squeeze of lemon juice
some fresh tarragon leaves
Maldon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Mix everything and serve. Goes well with something greasy.

* Soaking dandelion leaves in cold water for 30 minutes will get rid off the harshness of the leaves.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Haalo from Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once.

A heartfriendly warm buckwheat and mushroom salad

You're all familiar with rice, and many of you have used pearl barley, cous cous, bulghur wheat and quinoa in your kitchen. But what about buckwheat? Buckwheat flour makes an appearance in Japanese soba noodles, in French galettes de sarrasin, and in Russian blini pancakes. Yet I suspect that buckwheat groats are less common even amongst well-informed food bloggers. Yes, there is Clotilde with her recipe for Buckwheat Salad with Honey Spice Cake, and Gerda with a recipe for exotic Buckwheat Curry. But other than that, Elise's fabulous recipe search across foodblogs only yields recipes using buckwheat flour.

Yet buckwheat groats definitely deserve a place at your kitchen table, at least occasionally. They're unusual and different, hence interesting. Buckwheat is naturally gluten-free, the groats have a lovely nutty flavour and tender texture - and they're good to your vascular system. What's not to like!? Buckwheat porridge is widely known here in Estonia - either as a dish on its own, or as a side dish instead of potatoes or rice. To make things easier, you can even buy pre-cooked buckwheat flakes these days, which make a lovely breakfast porridge.

Here, however, is a main dish I came up with last week. I wasn't sure what to call it in the beginning. It's not a stew, as although it's moist, there's no liquid to hold the components together and warrant the name. It's not a buckwheat 'risotto', as there's no element of creaminess. So I decided to go with a 'warm salad'. I served it with thin, long slices of crunchy carrot, but some spicy salad leaves would make a good accompaniment, too.

A warm buckwheat and mushroom salad
(Soe tatra-seenesalat)
Serves 4



1 Tbsp canola oil
200 ml buckwheat groats
2 carrots, coarsely grated
1 onion, finely chopped
0.5 tsp salt
0.5 tsp black pepper
500 ml water
a generous handful of fresh parsley, chopped
1 Tbsp canola oil
300 grams of mushrooms (a mixture of champignons, oyster mushrooms, chantarelles etc), coarsely chopped

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and add the buckwheat. Stir for a minute, until the groats are glistening with oil. Add the onion and carrots, reduce heat and fry gently for a few minutes, until onion has softened a little. Do not burn!
Season with salt and pepper, add the boiling water. Cover and let simmer for about 15 minutes, until the groats are al dente or tender, if you prefer.
Meanwhile, fry the chopped mushrooms in oil, until they're wilted and slightly browned.
Add the fried mushrooms to the buckwheat porridge, stir gently to combine. Sprinkle generously with parsley and serve.

Earlier @ Nami-nami:
Buckwheat and mushroom oven pie (September 2005)

WHB:
This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Anh from Food Lover's Journey.

Wild thing or aspirational asparagus for Weekend Herb Blogging

Aah, the markets in Paris! Last Sunday morning we wandered at the noisy and buzzing Richard Lenoir Market near Bastille and were admiring the endless long rows of stalls selling skinned rabbits, huge fish and various cuts of meat, neatly piled luscious fruit and veg, and more fresh herbs you'd be able to learn the names of. This being early May, the market had also plenty of asparagus in all shape and form - white (some very fat white ones at that!), green and wild. Whereas I've been roasting green asparagus in my kitchen just recently, and have eaten white asparagus on several occasions, the wild - asperge sauvage in French - was new to me. So in addition to a large bunch of fresh bay leaves, I also got two bunches of wild asparagus to take back to Edinburgh.

Apparently wild asparagus is endemic to coastal areas of Western Europe, especially Belgium, Britain (found mainly in Dorset, Cornwall, Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire), the Channel Islands, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands. Although it has been previously thought of as a sub-species (Asparagus officinalis ssp. prostratus) to garden asparagus (Asparagus officinalis ssp. officinalis), then recent research seems to suggest that it's a separate species altogether and has been granted a Latin name of its own - Asparagus prostratus. The 'prostratus' in the name implies that wild asparagus stems grow prostrately - the Dutch call the plant 'liggende asperge', for instance. The taste is definitely like a delicate version of green asparagus - very pleasant and light. Here are my two dishes using this new-found gem of a vegetable.

Wild Asparagus at its simplest
(Metsik spargel, lihtsalt või ja meresoolaga)



This 'dish' is inspired by David Lebovitz's post about Paris Organics. The vendor told me (well, my date K. actually, as sadly I speak no French) to boil the asparagus for 5 minutes. David steams his, but I followed his instructions about serving the asparagus - simply dotted with butter and seasoned with Maldon sea salt flakes. Delicious!!! (Very good, if somewhat messy, fingerfood:)

Wild Asparagus with pasta and garlic
(Makaronid metsiku spargli ja kreemja küüslaugukastmega)



Take enough pasta of your choice (I used boccoletti, but might use spaghetti next time) - boil in a generous amount of salted water until al dente.

Meanwhile, blanch wild asparagus in salted boiling water for one minute, then drain thoroughly and cut into shorter pieces (or leave whole if using spaghetti).
Heat a generous splash of olive oil in a frying pan and add some finely sliced garlic. Fry gently for a minute, without letting the garlic to brown.
Add the wild asparagus and sauté for a couple of minutes.
Add some cream (single/whipping/double - whatever you prefer) and heat through. Remember you're aiming for just a light coating of creamy sauce for your pasta, so use less cream than you think you need!
Season with black pepper.

When your pasta is cooked, drain it and throw into your sauce. Stir to combine and serve with some parmesan cheese.

Tagged with Asparagus Aspirations (hosted by Kevin of Seriously Good - read his round-up here) and Weekend Herb Blogging (this time hosted by Ilva of Lucullian Delights - read her round-up here)

UPDATE 6.2.2007: just spotted this post on wild asparagus over at Hungry in Hogtown.

Santorini fava or dreaming about summer, sun and sand

After 2 days in burningly hot Athens back in July 2002, I finally caught an overnight ferry from Piraeus to Santorini to spend almost a week on the island. Having been born and bred up in the North, I found the scorching 'n' bright Greek sun very difficult to deal with. But what can you do, life as an academic can be tough, and conferences need to be attended, papers need to be given :-)

To compensate, I relaxed on the beach in the evenings and familiarised myself with various delicacies on offer. And Santorini has many. The fertile volcanic soil grows wonderful aromatic tomatina or tiny cherry tomatoes which are renown for their distinct flavour. They often find their way into tomatokeftedes or meatless ‘meat balls’, made with tomatoes, herbs and butter and no meat. One can also find small white eggplants on the island, known as the apple of love. Santorini has also got some distinct desserts, among them koufeto – a spoonsweet prepared with honey-soaked almonds and is served at weddings, and melitinia cheese pies popular during Easter.

I must admit though, that I found it very difficult to eat anything in the scorching 40˚Celsius, and survived mainly on water and frappes during the day, and modest amounts of food in the evenings. Luckily, I will have another chance this summer to enjoy these culinary gems, as some Edinburgh friends are getting married on the island at the end of June. I will make an effort to chase down some Chloro fresh cheese and to sample some Santorinian wines. Meanwhile, I satisfy my craving for sun and sea with some fava spread. Fava is a puree made with special fava lentils native to the island. If you cannot get hold of them, then dried yellow split peas come closest, and I’ve used them for the recipe below. Note that Greek fava is distinct from a Turkish dish with a similar name. Whereas the Greek fava is often served lukewarm as a main dish or light meal, then the Turks prefer it cold as part of a meze table, and it is made of fava broad beans - and not lentils - there (I owe it to Tülin of the Domestic Cat for pointing this important difference out to me, she also provides recipe for the Turkish fava).

Santorini fava puré
(Santorini hernepüree)
Makes two bowlfuls



500 grams dried Santorini fava lentils or small yellow split peas
water
2 medium onions -quarter one, chop the other finely
125 ml extra virgin olive oil, preferably Greek
salt
crushed black pepper
a generous handful of finely chopped flat leaf parsley
one lemon

Rinse the split peas under running cold water, put into a large saucepan and cover with double the amount of fresh cold water. Bring slowly to the boil, removing any impurities and foam that occur.
Add the onion quarters, a pinch of salt and half of the olive oil. Simmer on a low heat for 40-60 minutes, until the peas have softened and become mushy.
Push the peas through a fine sieve or purée with a blender.
Add the rest of the olive oil, lemon juice, minced onion, chopped parsley and season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir and serve.
Fava is great as a small meal with some crusty bread, or as a dip for vegetables.

Chakhohbili alias Georgian chicken with herbs and wine

I started this foodblog back in June and if I remember correctly, then one of the first comments I left on another blog was avidly defending Georgian cuisine. It's not that I'm an expert on that particular cuisine, but I happily visit the few Georgian (and other Caucasian) restaurants in Tallinn when I have a chance. During my teenage years I lived in a block of flats where our next door neighbours were a stern Russian physics professor (he) and an extremely lively and charming Georgian journalist and theatre critic (she). She was a good cook. I can almost say that I grew up smelling the delicious aromas of Georgian cuisine on a daily basis...

Not sure why, but the recent avian flu scares - which in theory should make me not to want to eat poultry - have had exactly the opposite effect on me. I've been craving chicken for weeks, and last weekend had a go. I did make sure my chicken came from a reputable local organic source and I cooked chicken two days in a row - a Georgian chicken stew on Saturday (to precede the yummy fig tarts) and a somewhat disappointing Caribbean coconut chicken on Sunday (I'm still trying to figure out whether it was me or the recipe).

The following recipe for a Georgian chicken stew is based on quite a few sources, including Clarissa Hyman's The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from Around the World, as well as various Estonian sources. Clarissa Hyman's recipe was probably most useful in terms of which seasonings to use, although the way she included potatoes in her stew was ubiquous, to say the least. I compared, combined and tweaked the various recipes to what I had on hand. Traditionally a whole cut-up chicken is first dry fried in the saucepan before other ingredients are added. I used chicken breasts. To boost the chicken flavour that would have otherwise come from the bones and skin, I added some fresh chicken gravy. The resulting stew was really flavoursome and tasty, and seemed pretty authentic - though adapted - to all eaters. And I think Eteria, my neighbour, would have approved.

Georgian chicken with herbs and wine - Chakhokhbili
(Kanatšahhohbili)



500 grams chicken breast fillets, cut into large chunks
2 Tbsp sunflower oil
2 chopped large onions
1 chopped garlic clove
400 grams chopped tomatoes (or couple of peeled fresh tomatoes)
100 ml fresh chicken stock
100 ml medium-bodied red wine
2 bay leaves
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp crushed coriander seeds
1 tsp crushed fenugreek seeds (optional)
salt and black pepper
a very generous cupful of fresh herbs (CORIANDER/CILANTRO, TARRAGON, mint, basil, dill, parsley - it MUST include the herbs in capital letters, otherwise it's not even remotely authentic. I used the whole lot apart from mint.)

Heat the oil in a thick saucepan. Add chicken and fry on a medium heat until slightly browned all over.
Add onions, stir for a few minutes. Add garlic and saute, until onion has softened a little.
Add the chilli flakes, coriander and fenugreek*, stir for a few seconds to release aromas. Add tomatoes, fresh chicken stock and wine together with bay leaves. Season. Bring to a simmer, cover the saucepan with a lid and cook for 30-45 minutes (or more, if you wish), stirring every now and then, until the sauce is reduced to a thick glossy sauce.
Remove the bay leaves and add the fresh herbs. Stir and cover for 10 minutes, so the flavours can infuse. Season again, if necessary.
Serve with boiled rice or potatoes, garnish with lemon slices.

* If you can get hold of the Georgian spicy relish, adjika, then use this one instead of the spices (a tablespoon or two, depending on your taste).