A great starter recipe: Shrimp and cucumber salad with mint vinaigrette

Photo by Juta Kübarsepp for the May 2013 issue of Kodu ja Aed ("Home and Garden", an Estonian monthly)

Back in early April, when I was trying to decide what starter would suit my Mother's Day menu spread in the next magazine, a FB-friend mentioned Jamie Oliver's shrimp and cucumber salad in a totally different context. I'm not a huge fan of shrimps - although I'm getting there, slowly - and I never figured out which Jamie's recipe my FB-friend was talking about. However, I came across this shrimp and cucumber salad recipe by Ellie Krieger, which sounded pretty good. After some minor tweaking I settled for this extremely light and healthy - and beautifully elegant, don't you think? - salad that works brilliantly as a starter.

Highly recommended. And let me warn you - I've witnessed people with impecable table manners drinking the minty-cucumber-shrimp "juice"from the bottom of the glass - it's so good :)

Shrimp salad with cucumber and mint
(Kurgi-krevetisalat mündiga)
Serves 4 to 6 as a starter
Adapted from Ellie Krieger

   Photo by Juta Kübarsepp for the May 2013 issue of Kodu ja Aed ("Home and Garden", an Estonian monthly)

400 g cooked shrimps (peeled weight)
1 long cucumber
a large handful of fresh mint
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 Tbsp finely grated lemon zest
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Drain the shrimps thoroughly. (If using frozen shrimps/prawns, then defrost them slowly overnight in the fridge).
Rinse the cucumber, then peel and cut into small cubes. If the seeds are rather large, then scoop the soft seeded part out first.
Chop the fresh mint leaves finely.
In a bowl, mix the shrimps, cucumber and mint. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice, sprinkle with lemon zest and season with salt and pepper. Toss everything gently together.
Serve at once or macerate in the fridge for a few hours.

Similar recipes:
Kalyn added Sriracha sauce to Ellie's version and got Spicy shrimp and cucumber salad with lemon, mint and cumin
Burmese shrimp and cucumber salad @ Girl Cooks World
Shrimp salad on cucumber slices @ Gina's Skinny Recipes
Shrimp and cucumber salad with dill vinaigrette @ Epicurious
Shrimp and cucumber salad with horseradish mayonnaise @ Bon Appetit
Seared shrimp with cucumber salad @ Martha Stewart

Cinnamon coffee cake recipe

A coffee cake, defined:

Are you in camp No 1 or No 2? I tend to go with number two - I think that's also how coffee cake is usually defined in the UK (evidence: Mary Berry's coffee cake in The Telegraph has coffee in the batter and in the icing/frosting). However, about half of my readers hail from across the pond, and there definition No 1 seems to be more common (evidence: The Pioneer Woman's "the best coffee cake ever" has no coffee in it; you won't find any coffee in Martha Stewart's 12 favourite coffee cakes either). I'm not sure how coffee cake is defined in down under. Anyone?

In any case, here's a cake I've baked no less than four times during the last week - twice for my family and friends, and two cakes for the pop-up café on Saturday. Although modest in appearance, I love the strong cinnamon flavour and the moist crumb, and the just ever-so-crisp caramelised sugar topping.

I warn you - it's rather sweet, so my Estonian readers may actually want to reduce the amount of sugar a little. Also, as the cake contains yoghurt AND baking soda, it is important that you have your oven and cake pan ready before mixing the cake batter. If you wait too long with baking, the soda reacts with the yoghurt and you won't get a soft and lovely cake, but a flat dense one.

Cinnamon cake
(Kaneelikook)
Serves 12

150 g unsalted butter, softened
200 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
250 g plain yoghurt (regular, not thick)
270 g all-purpose flour
2 tsp vanilla sugar or extract
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp bicarbonate soda/baking soda
0.5 tsp salt

Cinnamon sugar:
4 Tbsp caster sugar
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 175 C/350 F. Line a 24 cm/10 inch springform tin with a parchment paper.

Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, either using your stand mixer or a regular electric mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition. Fold in the yoghurt.

Measure the dry ingredients into another bowl, stir to combine, then fold gently into the egg and butter mixture.

Spoon half of the cake batter into the prepared cake tin, then sprinkle a generous 2/3 of the cinnamon mixture on top. Top with the rest of the cake batter and sprinkle the rest of the cinnamon sugar on top of the cake.

Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, until the cake is lovely golden brown and pulls slightly away from the sides of the pan. Test for doneness - a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake should come out clean.

Cool in the cake pan, then transfer onto a serving plate and cut into slices.

Pop-up café in Viimsi this Saturday!

Six Estonian foodbloggers - Aire, Britt, Liina, Marju, Silja and yours truly - are setting up a pop-up café at the Viimsi Farmers Market this Saturday. It's not the first time - in September 2011 and September 2012 we opened a pop-up apple cake café (õunakoogikohvik, you can see some photos here) at the same market, and the organisers - Museum of the Coastal Folk - asked us to come and serve our creations at their newest special event, Viimsi Fish Day (Kalapäev).

We were happy to oblige :)

Kalapäev focuses on fish in general, and on the culinary uses of a very invasive species, round goby (ümarmudil) in particular. There are several workshops and events throughout, and our pop-up café (or fish buffet, as we've called it this time) is open between 10-14. The menu is varied and rich - we have various quiches (cottage cheese and smoked sea bass, fresh salmon and broccoli, nettle and smoked fish), tuna-filled profiteroles, salmon muffins, Estonian-style fish and chips, Empanaditas Gallegas, miso-glazed cod, a selection of smörgås aka open sandwiches, jellied pike-perch (zander), smoked mackerel paté toasts, salmon fishcakes with a remoulade, a festive leek pie with cream cheese and smoked salmon topping, sprat pastries - to name just a few. Of course, there will be also some sweet cakes - rhubarb and chocolate and curd cheese and cinnamon and kama will feature in one way or another.

We offer a free cup of espresso to all visitors and homemade cloudy lemonade to the smaller ones!

Do come along and say hello if you are in Tallinn or Viimsi or nearby! Look for the lovely chalkboard poster and you'll find us easily. 

A huge thank you to Pepe Kala OÜ who supplied us with fresh and cured fish, and MEIRA who kindly lend us a Segafredo MyEspresso coffee pod machine for the duration of the event.

Here's the poster for the main event: