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:

Announcement: Passion, Purpose and Pleasure Wellness Retreat in Estonia in mid-August

MarikaBlossfeldt’s  Passion, Purpose and Pleasure Wellness Retreat takes place August 12 – 18 at Polli Talu Arts Center in Western Estonia – a week of relaxation, awareness and awakening your taste buds – yoga, cooking classes, breath walks, massages, meditations and more … 

Find details here.

PaperChef June 2011: Rye bread toasts with chocolate, strawberries and lime

It's time for a Paper Chef, a food blogging event with pedigree (launched by Owen back in 2004, now co-hosted with Ilva and Mike. I'm embarrassed to admit that I've only participated twice before - #8 (spinach, olives, Cheddar cheese, potatoes/cream) and #15 (limes, beetroots, pears and aphrodisiac of your choice)), but with Ilva asking us all so nicely to participate, I couldn't say no :)

The ingredients this month - bread, berries, chocolate and lime. I won't dwell on the difference between bread ('leib') and white bread ('sai') in Estonian - suffice to say that even after living in an Anglophone country for seven years, I automatically thought of our dark Estonian rye bread when I spotted 'bread' in that list of ingredients. Only later did it occur to me that I could have gone the 'white bread' (aka 'wheat bread') route, perhaps with summer pudding with lime-macerated berries and white chocolate and mascarpone mousse? Mmmm...

The rules of Paper Chef do not say that you must restrict yourself to those four ingredients alone. However, I immediately remembered a little neat idea I had seen on the Finnish Herkut.net site a while ago - warm rye bread toasts with melted chocolate and sliced strawberries. I added some grated lime zest for, well, extra zest - and using just the four ingredients that were required - and loved the result! I can easily see serving this at one of the many patio parties or summer grill events that are about to follow.

A word of warning, however. While it's a dessert sure to please all the young ones, it's no S'Mores that you grab between your hands and eat without staining a thing (well, couple of cookie crumbs on the floor, perhaps). Our daughter Nora approached her warm rye bread with chocolate and strawberries with gusto, but in the process she managed to smear melted chocolate all over her :)



Rye bread toasts with chocolate, strawberries and lime zest
(Röstitud koorikleib šokolaadi ja maasikatega)

You can use any type of rye bread here - those flat rye breads, halved horizontally ('koorikleib') are ideal, or then thickly sliced naturally leavened rye bread. I used a recently introduced new product at the Estonian market - saib (sai+leib, get it?!) - tastes and looks like white bread, but it's made with 100% rye flour.



sliced rye bread
dark chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Callebaut bittersweet chocolate couverture chips)
strawberries,
lime zest, thinly grated

Toast the bread until slightly golden and aromatic. Immediately top with chopped chocolate and strawberries, leave for a few minutes, until the chocolate melts.
Grate some lime zest over the strawberries.
Serve at once.

Juhhei! I'm a 2007 Food Blog Awards finalist!

I've just read over at Wellfed Network that Nami-nami is one of the five finalists in the RURAL category of the 2007 Food Blog Awards. How exciting and what an honour!



I must admit that I was a wee bit baffled at first, as I consider myself a 100% city girl. But then I guess my frequent mushroom forageing trips (for saffron milkcaps, yellow morels and others), my proud and fruitful forest berry picking missions (lingonberries, bog bilberries, wild strawberries, cranberries, cloudberries - all regulars in our kitchen in one form or another) and general exploratory-culinary use of wild plants (making meadowsweet cordial, enjoying nettle soup, experimenting with ground elder pie, dressing up dandelion leaves and adding chopped wild garlic leaves to salads, drinking freshly collected maple sap and sweetening my tea with either dandelion 'honey' made of dandelion blossoms or flowering quince extract), not to forget my exciting encounter with these chicks (you can see more chicken photos here) - do give my blog and my cooking a slightly rural slant :)



It's a tough competition - I'm running against very strong (and rural:) Susan (Farmgirl Fare, who won the category last year) and Ilva (Lucullian Delights, also a finalist last year). In any case, I'm thrilled and pleased to have been nominated in the first place! I am very pleased to see many of my favourite foodbloggers as finalists in other categories - there's David Lebovitz running for Best Food Blog (Chef) category, Food Blogga's Susan for Best Food Blog (New) category, Bea, Matt and Meeta (how can one possibly choose between them???) for Best Food Blog (Photography), Susan (again!) and Molly for Best Food Blog (Post), Jeanne in Best Food Blog (Writing), and Heidi, Bea and Ilva in Food Blog of the Year category. I'm sad my blogging buddies Johanna, Melissa, Kalyn, Nicky and Alanna didn't end up in the finals, but then there's always next year :)



In any case, you can go and cast your vote until Friday, December 14th. For rural category, click here, for all other categories, see here.

A recipe for meekook aka Estonian honey cake

Here's my entry for the 10th installment of Waiter, there is something in my ... (WTISIM) foodblogging event, a brainchild of three fabulous British foodbloggers Johanna, Jeanne and Andrew. This month's edition is hosted by Andrew, who has asked us to send in our recipes for LAYERED CAKES.

I decided to try meekook or a layered honey cake that is available in most cake shops and is a popular birthday table option. It consists of six thin cake layers and six simple sweetened sour cream layers. Our layers were slightly thicker than we expected them to be, but the taste was exactly right.

Enjoy!

MEEKOOK aka Estonian Honey Cake*
(Meetort)
Serves 12-16



Honey cake layers:
3 Tbsp honey

200 g (250 ml/1 cup) caster sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
360 g plain flour (600 ml)

Between layers:
1 kg sour cream
85 g (100 ml) caster sugar

Whisk eggs until pale and thick.
Heat honey and sugar in a large saucepan. When it's about to boil, remove from the heat and add the whisked eggs, stirring until combined. Add baking soda and stir again.
Add flour gradually, mixing until combined. Put aside to cool completely!
Divide the dough into six equal parts (it's easiest to do it by rolling it into a cylinder and then cutting into six pieces).
Take six sheets of baking/parchment paper, dust very slightly with flour.
On a slightly floured parchment paper, form each piece of dough into a ball and then roll out into a 24 cm circles.
Bake one dough circle at the time for 5 minutes in the middle of a 225 C oven until dark golden. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking paper.

Layer five baked circles with the sour cream on a cake stand, covering also the top cake circle.
Crush the sixth cake circle in a food processor and sprinkle on the top layer of sour cream.
Place into the fridge for 6 hours or overnight.

Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:
September 2007 (SAVOURY PRESERVE): Gooseberry Chutney
August 2007 (MEATLESS BBQ): Roasted onions with blue cheese.
July 2007 (SAUCES): Munakaste alias my grandma Senta's egg & smoked ham sauce.
June 2007 (DUMPLINGS): Vareniki dumplings with curd cheese filling, served with home-made apricot jam & pistachios.
May 2007 (STUFFED VEGETABLES): Stuffed tomatoes with two types of salad - cod liver salad & cucumber and wild garlic salad.
April 2007 (BREAD): a traditional Estonian quick mushroom bread, Seenekarask.
March 2007 (EASTER BASKET): a selection of various Easter delights.
February 2007 (PIE): a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka.
January 2007 (STEW): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

Waiter, there is something in my ... roasted onions with blue cheese

Indeed. Who would have thought that the Reigning Queen of Braai, Jeanne of Cook Sister, would choose a meatless barbecue for the 8th round of Waiter, there is something in my ... foodblogging event? But meatless she chose, and I'm happy to oblige. Although we're by no means vegetarian, we don't eat much meat in our house. If faced with a rich meaty stew and a slightly lighter vegetable stew, we'd most likely opt for the later..

I decided to roast some onions. My logic was following: if my vegetable dish was to have any chances against all the roasted, grilled and barbecued meat at the braai or grilliõhtu, then it needed to be strong and bold and flavoursome. A combination of roasted onions and my current favourite blue cheese (yes, I am still raving about the Finnish Valio Aura blue cheese), and some potent herbs - thyme and savoury - would be surely shining. The onions (the white ones are famous local Peipsi sibulad or from the traditional onion-growing areas alongside Lake Peipus, the fifth-largest lake in Europe) sweeten up while roasting, nicely complemented by the potent cheese. I used thyme for red onions and savory for white onions, but I don't think there're hard rules for that..

Enjoy!

Roasted onions with blue cheese
(Röstitud sibulad sinihallitusjuustuga)



Onions, medium-sized
Blue cheese (I used Valio Aura)
Fresh thyme or savory

Peel the onions, cut off a small slice from the top & bottom and then cut in half cross-wise. Place onion halves on a piece of foil, cover with a slice of blue cheese and some herbs.
Fold into parcels, so the steam wouldn't escape, and cook on your BBQ for about 20-25 minutes, until onions are softened and cheese melted.
Alternatively, roast in a very hot oven (say 250 C) instead.



Serve as an accompaniment to grilled meat, or on its own with chunks of good bread.

Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:
July 2008 (SAUCES): Munakaste alias my grandma Senta's egg & smoked ham sauce.
June 2007 (DUMPLINGS): Vareniki dumplings with curd cheese filling, served with home-made apricot jam & pistachios.
May 2007 (STUFFED VEGETABLES): Stuffed tomatoes with two types of salad - cod liver salad & cucumber and wild garlic salad.
April 2007 (BREAD): a traditional Estonian quick mushroom bread, Seenekarask.
March 2007 (EASTER BASKET): a selection of various Easter delights.
February 2007 (PIE): a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka.
January 2007 (STEW): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

Estonian desserts: KAMA, the modern-traditional way

UPDATE 1.9.2007: You can read Johanna's round-up here!

My dear blog friend Johanna is hosting the latest round of Sugar High Friday, and the theme is local specialities. There are plenty of typical Estonian cakes and desserts I could write about, but considering that I have recently posted kama promotion packs* to some lovely bloggers across the world, I thought it would be appropriate to give the recipients some tips for using that funny Estonian roasted meal mixture consisting of boiled, roasted and ground peas, rye, barley and wheat. I've written thoroughly about kama here, and shared recipes for kama mousse with season's berries, and boozy kama & mascarpone truffles before. I think it's time to move on and give you the recipe for the authentic way of eating kama.

Well, semi-authentic. Adding sugar to kama is a 20th century thing. The really 'authentic' way of eating kama would be without sugar and accompanied with bread and salted sprats, or perhaps humble sandwiches. That's not how most Estonians think of kama nowadays, however, to whom kama drink as described below is more familiar and rather popular summer fare..

I understand it's tricky to replicate, as you need both a kama mixture and a fermented milk product (kefir or buttermilk or sour milk) for making this, both of which aren't so easily available. I guess thin plain drinking yogurt would work, too.

Kama, the traditional Estonian summer drink/dessert
(Kama, traditsioonilisel moel)
Serves 1



250 ml kefir, sour milk or buttermilk
2 Tbsp kama mixture
2 Tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients, let stand in the fridge for 10 minutes, then garnish with berries (I've used Alpine strawberries from my container garden), bilberry syrup (see photo here) or go all modern with a drizzle of chocolate sauce (top).

Serve. Kama can either be eaten with a small spoon, or drunk straight from the cup. Use more or less kama mixture, depending on your preferences.

* Kama Promotion Packs consist of a 400 g packet of kama flour, a bag of kama breakfast cereal, a bar of kama 'chocolate' and a packet of kama 'Tootsie rolls'. Contact me if you're interested in trying it - I'm happy to send it to you, though I've decided to charge P&P from now on.

Estonian egg & smoked ham sauce (Muna-pekikaste)

UPDATE 10.8.2007 - you can read Andrew's saucy sauce round-up here.

For the seventh (already??) installment of Waiter, there is something in my ... foodblogging event, Andrew has chosen SAUCE as the theme. And there's a catch, you see. Andrew wrote:

"A wide open theme I hope you agree. Plenty of room for experimentation, family favourites and the tried and tested. You can use fruit. You can use meat. You can serve it over meringue or pasta or even splash it over a chunk of juicy steak. They can be tart and fruity or mellow and creamy. It can be ethnically Estonian or lip-smackingly Kiwi; 'Sauces' - versatile and delicious. What can you come up with?"

You see, he has specifically mentioned that the sauce can be ethnically Estonian. How could I be expected to make anything else then? I mean, coming up with a delicious Caribbean rum sauce or a classic French velouté would be bound to disappoint Andrew, don't you think? I therefore present you with a truly 'ethnically Estonian sauce' - munakaste. Munakaste translates egg sauce, it reminds me of very smooth and fluffy scrambled eggs. It is usually served with boiled new potatoes and rye bread. Although I remember eating it a lot as a kid, there has been a certain absence of it from my kitchen for the last few (oh well, maybe even ten?) years. And suddenly, out of the blue, I had started developing cravings for this eggy sauce. In mid-June I had some delicious munakaste at my high-school reunion weekend away (15 years!?), and when I saw Andrew's WTISIM call, I knew this is gonna be my entry.

Easier said than done. I couldn't find a suitable recipe for Estonian egg sauce it in any of my cookbooks - and there's many of them! I guess a sauce consisting off eggs and smoked greasy bacon isn't trendy at the moment, and it clashes with some healthy eating guidelines (one recipe for munakaste stated that 'obviously modern women use oil as a basis of the sauce and not smoked fatty ham', which totally misses the point, as it's the smoked ham that gives a wonderful flavour to the sauce). Eventually I called my maternal grandma Senta, who at the respectable age of 86 is a living proof that a diet consisting of frequent munakaste cannot be too bad for you (at least when combined with hard farm labour). This is her version, and mine from now on.

And I hope it's ethnically Estonian enough for Andrew :-)

My grandma Senta's egg & smoked ham sauce
(Munakaste)
Serves 2



1 heaped Tbsp plain flour
2 large eggs
300 ml milk
a pinch of salt
200 grams smoked & salted ham (see here), cut into small cubes
1 medium onion, finely chopped
chopped scallions/green onions

In a small bowl, whisk eggs and flour into a paste. Then add milk, little by little, whisking all the time. Season with salt.
Heat a frying pan or a small non-stick saucepan on a medium-high heat and add the cubed ham. Fry, stirring regularly, for about 5 minutes, until the ham starts to brown and release plenty of grease. Now reduce the heat to medium, add the onions and saute them with ham cubes for about 5 minutes.
Now pour the egg and milk mixture into the saucepan and start stirring the sauce with a wooden spoon, waiting for the sauce to thicken - this could take up to five minutes. It's important to stir all the time, or you'll end up with scrambled eggs, which isn't the same thing at all!
When ready to serve, sprinkle with chopped green onions.
And serve with boiled new potatoes and rye bread, as I said above.

Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:
June 2007 (DUMPLINGS): Vareniki dumplings with curd cheese filling, served with home-made apricot jam & pistachios.
May 2007 (STUFFED VEGETABLES): Stuffed tomatoes with two types of salad - cod liver salad & cucumber and wild garlic salad.
April 2007 (BREAD): a traditional Estonian quick mushroom bread, Seenekarask.
March 2007 (EASTER BASKET): a selection of various Easter delights.
February 2007 (PIE): a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka.
January 2007 (STEW): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

BLAST FROM THE PAST
Two years ago I wrote about an essential Scottish dessert - Cranachan. Considering that raspberries are in season at the moment in many parts of the world, then this recipe is definitely worth checking out! And who wouldn't like a combination of raspberries, cream and whisky? There's even a delicious porridge version of Cranachan.

SHF # 33: Tropical Paradise and my Caribbean Banana Cake

Mary of Alpineberry is hosting the 33rd round of Sugar High Friday and she has chosen Tropical Paradise as the theme. And voila - I've got a delicious cake recipe I made earlier this year that I've wanted to blog about. I haven't been to the tropics myself (yet), so I don't have a first hand knowledge about the true nature of the tropical paradise, or what would the typical dishes be. But bananas are definitely tropical, and the Finnish recipe I used as a basis for my cake was called Caribbean Banana Cake, so that will have to do.

We loved it. The mixture is not so different from my moist rhubarb muffins, so I bet this recipe would work well as Caribbean banana & ginger muffins, too :)

Caribbean Banana & Ginger Cake
(Kariibi banaanikook)
Adapted from Pirkka 5/2004
Serves 12



3 over-ripe bananas
2 Tbsp lemon juice
200 grams sour cream or yogurt
300 ml sugar
3 eggs
400 ml plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 Tbsp Buderim candied ginger nibbles (optional)

Peel bananas and mash bananas with a fork, sprinkle with lemon juice and put aside.
Whisk eggs with sugar until pale and frothy.
Stir in sour cream.
Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger) and fold into the egg mixture together with the banana mush. Stir in candied ginger.
Pour the mixture into a prepared 1.8 litre bundt form and bake at 175 C for about an hour. Test for doneness with a toothpick - it should come out clean and dry.
Cake the tin out of the oven, let it cool for 5-10 minutes, then turn out the cake and cool it completely on a metal rack.
To serve, cut into slices.

Here's a close-up of a slice, where you can see tiny fierce candied ginger pieces:



UPDATE 3.8.2007: Click here for Alpineberry's round-up.

My previous SHF contributions:
# 15 Sugar LOW Friday: Parsnip & Ginger Cake (January 2006)
# 19 Ginger: Chocolate & Ginger Tartlets (May 2006)
# 22 Can You Can? Fake Cloudberry Jam (or gooseberry & carrot jam, if you prefer)(August 2006)
# 24 Little bites of delight: Pierre Herme's chocolate dipped mint leaves, candied orange peel dipped in dark chocolate, chocolate disks infused with chilli syrup and covered with candied red chillies, cranberry and almond macarons (October 2006)
# 25 Truffles: Dark Chocolate & Matcha Truffles (November 2006)

BLAST FROM THE PAST
Two years ago I shared a recipe for salmon with a creamy orange and rosemary sauce - a delicious dish, but the post is definitely in need of a new and proper photo!!!

HHDD # 13: Hibiscus & Strawberry Sorbet

In May I made Strawberries in Hibiscus & Vanilla Syrup, following a recipe from Chez Pim. I loved the dessert - just like Pim said, the hibiscus syrup gave a certain depth, an extra flavour dimension, to strawberries without interfering with the neat strawberry flavour. I also wondered back then, if I could use the strawberry & hibiscus pairing in other desserts, like ice creams or sorbet, for example. But, alas, as I didn't have an ice cream machine, I didn't do any further experiments with flowers (that's what hibiscus is) and berries.

I still don't have an ice cream machine, but will - if everything goes as planned - have one in a fortnight. Yet when I saw that Laura had chosen sorbet for the 13th round of Hay Hay Donna Day (as in Donna Hay, the Australian Kitchen Goddess who publishes impossibly beautiful food magazines), I wanted to take part. It would be a good opportunity to 'try' my sorbet version, and maybe - hsss! hope dies last - winning the top-notch prize in the form of The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz - a book that every foodblogger but me seems to have and enjoy*!!

The hibiscus & strawberry sorbet worked well, and it was definitely worthwhile. While my sorbet isn't as smooth-textured as I would have wanted, it tasted very strawberry-ish, looked much deeper red (and strawberry-ish, again) than it would have looked without the addition of hibiscus flowers. So here I am, pleased to present my hibiscus & strawberry sorbet as my first ever contribution to the Hay Hay Donna Day event! Keep your fingers crossed for me then :)

Hibiscus & Strawberry Sorbet
Based on Donna Hay's basic sorbet recipe and Chez Pim's recipe for Strawberries in Hibiscus & Vanilla Syrup



150 grams caster sugar
300 ml water
2 Tbsp of dried hibiscus flowers or 2 hibiscus tea bags
half a vanilla bean, cut open
750 grams fresh strawberries, pureed and strained
mint leaves to garnish

Bring water to the boil in a small saucepan, remove from the heat, add the tea bags or dried hibiscus flowers and let it infuse for about 15 minutes. Remove the tea bags, or strain the liquid and discard the soaked hibiscus flowers.
Add sugar to hibiscus infusion, place the saucepan over a low heat and stir without boiling until sugar is dissolved.
Increase the heat and bring to the boil for one minute. Stick the vanilla bean into the syrup and set aside to cool.
While the syrup is cooling, puree and strain the strawberries.
Combine the fruit puree and hibiscus-infused sugar syrup (removing the vanilla bean first), place in an ice-cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions.
If you don't have an ice-cream maker, place the fruit and syrup mixture in a metal cake tin, cover and freeze for an hour or until just beginning to set at the edge. Mash thoroughly with a large fork, breaking up the forming ice crystals. Return to the freezer. Repeat three times at hourly intervals or until the sorbet is thick and smooth.

* And a book that I so badly need, considering that I'll finally - after lots of trials - will be a proud owner of an ice cream machine in a week or so :)

BLAST FROM THE PAST
One year ago I wrote how I was having a pint in a pub in Edinburgh with the then President of Estonia (as you regularly do, eh:) Here's the story and a photo to prove it.

Waiter, there is something in my ... dumplings! Curd cheese vareniki with home-made apricot jam

Oh, how time flies. It's already the sixth installment of Waiter, there is something in my ... foodblogging event, this time hosted by Johanna who, very appropriately for an Austrian, has chosen dumplings as a theme. Not any dumplings, but dumplings with filling that have been steamed, boiled or baked (but NOT fried). So dim sum, ravioli and tortellini were ok, but doughnuts, gnocchi or spätzle weren't. My instincts said that my favourite dumplings, pontšikud, wouldn't be ok, as a) they're boiled in oil, which Johanna might interpret as frying, and b) they've got no filling. To be on the safe side, I made a batch of vareniki - a popular boiled dumpling from Ukraine (read more here), stuffed with curd cheese cream and served with home-made apricot jam and pistachios. The name, vareniki, comes from the Russian verb 'to boil', so they're boiled dumplings. To me, they're big Ukrainian cousins of pelmeni, the small meat-filled Russian dumplings that I love. Although vareniki can be savoury, these particular ones are sweet - a lovely combination of vanilla-infused curd cheese filling and just a bit sharp apricot jam and ever-so-slightly crunchy pistachio nuts.

Now, the recipe below will be vague and incomplete - apologies for that. K. made the apricot jam from the Provencal apricots available at the market these days, and he wouldn't share his secret recipe (though I suspect it's something like a scant 250 grams of sugar to 1 kg of pitted apricots, boiled gently for 20 minutes until thickened). I wasn't too happy with the dough recipe, so I'll be working on improving that (it was a bit too tough to my liking, so I'll replace milk with water next time to start with). But you'll get the recipe for the filling, which was great.

Vareniki dumplings with curd cheese filling, served with home-made apricot jam & pistachios
Serves 4



Dough (work in progress):
400 ml plain flour
1 tsp sugar
0.5 tsp salt
1 egg
100 ml milk

Filling:
250 grams quark or curd cheese (press through a sieve, if not smooth)
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg

To serve:
home made apricot jam and pistachio nuts
or
any fruit puree of your choice (strawberry puree would work well)
icing sugar

For the dough, I mixed milk with egg, seasoned with salt & sugar and added the flour, mixing until combined. Then I placed it in the fridge, covered, for about an hour.
For the filling, I simply combined all the ingredients (you could also add raisins or candied ginger or grated lemon zest, if you're so inclined).
To make the vareniki, roll the relaxed dough onto a thin disk (about 3 mm thick), then cut into 8-10 cm circles. Place a tablespoonful of filling into the centre, moisten the edges with water and fold in half, so you'll have half-moon shaped dumplings. Pinch the edge together with a fork.
Place into a freezer for 20-30 minutes (vareniki can be cooked from frozen, so you can leave them in the freezer for longer, if you wish).
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to the boil, add a generous pinch of salt.
Slip the dumplings into the boiling water, 3-5 at the time, depending on the size of your pot.
Boil for about 5 minutes or until the dumplings float (they'll definitely sink in the beginning).
Take out of the water with a slotted spoon, drain on a clean kitchen towel for a moment.
To serve, place on a small plate, spoon the apricot jam on the plate, sprinkle with pistachio nuts and dust with icing sugar.

Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:
May 2007 (STUFFED VEGETABLES): Stuffed tomatoes with two types of salad - cod liver salad & cucumber and wild garlic salad
April 2007 (BREAD): a traditional Estonian quick mushroom bread, Seenekarask
March 2007 (EASTER BASKET): a selection of various Easter delights.
February 2007 (PIE): a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka.
January 2007 (STEW): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

UPDATE 05.07.2007:
you can read Johanna's round-up of all the different takes - sweet & savoury, familiar & exotic - on dumplings here.

BLAST FROM THE PAST:
A year ago I wrote about the English classic, Bakewell Pudding for Andrew's Blog Save Our Tart event.

I'm a Daring Baker

Yep, I've joined the ranks of the Daring Bakers. Couldn't help it. Back in November 2006 they all made pretzels, in December 2006 tried their luck with biscotti. I noticed them in January 2007, when they all made croissants (What a coincidence, I naively thought, all those bloggers suddenly making croissants. I wonder why?) In February 2007 it was Chocolate Intensity, in March 2007 the Red Velvet Cake. That's when I finally understood what's going on. I followed the evergrowing list of daring bakers replicating Martha Stewart's Chocolate Crepe Cake in April 2007, and the challenging Gateau Saint Honore in May 2007. The idea of everybody following exactly the same recipe and then showing off their more or less successful (usually the former) results became irresistible, and I inquired about the 'club' and was graciously admitted.

Here's a logo for the Daring Bakers - done by the ever-talented Ximena, who's also the author of my new fabulous banner.

May 2007 DMBLGIT award for originality!

Hurray! Just to let you know that this photo of beetroot pickled Easter eggs (eggs & styling by me, shooting by K) won an award for Originality at the May 2007 Does My Blog Look Good In This contest. Thank you, Scott, Trig and other judges, for this great category award. It's an honour to be included in the same post with these other foodblogger/photographers! Make sure to go and check out all the other wonderful winners!

And greetings to all of you from bonnie Scotland! After enduring the cold & wet weather in Edinburgh for a few days, we arrived today to a sunny & warm isle of Arran where a friend of mine is getting married tomorrow night. Normal blogging will resume in a few days...

EBBP: A Sweet & Scented Parcel from Meeta

I've taken part of the European Blogging By Post twice before. My first gift parcel in August 2005 was from Johanna of The Passionate Cook, who has since become a very good friend (and her cantucci with almonds & pink peppercorns have become a regular treat). My second parcel came all the way from Athens, from Shalimar of Wanderlust Sha, and contained some of the best ever λουκούμι or 'Turkish Delight' I've ever had a chance to try. Somehow I missed the next three rounds, but considering all the moving and travelling I've done, I'm not too surprised actually.

We've already reached the seventh round of EBBP. Johanna is hosting this time, and we were asked to include something related to our childhood sweets in the parcel. Just days after I had sent off my parcel to a foodblogger somewhere in Europe, I got a notice from the post office to pick up a parcel from ---- Germany!



This time I got a very sweet and very scented parcel from Meeta of What's For Lunch, Honey?, which I've been thoroughly enjoying and consuming over the last few days. I must apologise in advance, that some of the chocolates didn't make it to the photo, as some naughty sociologist ate them all in her office. In one go - how dare she!?!?

Anyway - the parcel contained some lovely food-scented candles - two red strawberry ones and two purple blackberry ones. Then there were some of Meeta's favourite chocolates reminiscent of her childhood - Mars, Bounty, Twix, Snickers and Milky Way, as well as a bar of Toblerone (which, as I've mentioned before, makes a lovely chocolate sauce together with cream and butter). The latter is also Meeta's real favourite from the lot. Additionally there was a packet of Original Halloren Kugeln with Waldfrucht-Joghurt in Vollmilch-Schokolade (alias chocolates with forrest berry & yogurt filling). There's a reason why I've taken a picture of the box rather than chocolates :)

Thank you, Meeta, for sharing your childhood sweets with me!

PS I'm posting this from Edinburgh, where I've got very erradic access to email & internet. I apologise for not responding to any of your comments until next week.

UPDATE: 08.06.2007: My EBBP parcel went to Dagmar in Stockholm, Sweden - you can read what she thought of it here (as well as see some really cute photos).

Waiter, there's something (stuffed) in my ... tomatoes with two types of filling

Waiter, there is something in my ... - a wonderful food blogging event organised by Johanna, Jeanne & Andrew - has reached it's fifth instalment: stuffed fruit/vegetables, hosted by Jeanne.

My entry for this round is stuffed tomatoes with two kinds of salad fillings. It's not really a recipe, just a tip for serving nice small tomatoes. The first filling is a cod liver salad that I have written about before. The 'recipe' is my mum's, and this is how cod liver has been eaten in our family for decades. I thought that was the only way of serving this particular fishy preserve, until K simply put a canned cod liver on the table. Apparently his family simply spread the liver on a slice of bread, straight out of the can. I prefer my way, and as far as I've understood, have converted him, too :)

The other recipe for wild garlic & cucumber salad is from my local bus stop. Yes, you read it correctly - bus stop. I knew that wild garlic (Allium ursinum) grows somewhere in our neighbourhood, but I had never seen it wild, nor had I ever picked it. One late morning in early April I was standing in a bus stop, waiting for the bus to take me to town, and next to me were two elderly Russian-speaking women, or babushkas:) My Russian is very rusty, so I didn't understand much of what was said, but my sense of smell seems to work just fine, as I suddenly realised that something was smelling very fragrantly and faintly garlicky. I turned to the women and asked them about the smell, and they kindly showed me their bounty. Eventhough I had never seen 'uncooked' Allium ursinum in my life, I recognised the green leaves immediately from photos - it was wild garlic! I was given a large bunch to go with, and two recipes to boot. One of the women claimed that the best way to eat it is with some cucumber, sour cream, and salt & pepper. The other swore by wild garlic, boiled egg, sunflower oil, salt & pepper. As they both seemed to be very knowledgeable about wild garlic, I took their advice seriously and have been religiously following it. I can tell you that after I found the secret hidaway near my house, I've been eating a lot of the first salad since. I'm yet to try the other..

Stuffed tomatoes with two types of salad



about 20 small ripe, but firm tomatoes

Cod liver salad
(Tursamaksasalat)

1 can of cod liver chunks, drained (reserve the oil)
1 small shallot, chopped
1 pickled cucumber, finely chopped
1 boiled egg, chopped
salt
black pepper

Mix all the ingredients, add some of the reserved oil to make it moister, if you want.

Wild garlic & cucumber salad
(Karulaugu-kurgisalat)

a bunch of wild garlic, washed and roughly chopped
a small cucumber, washed, quartered or halved lenghtwise, and sliced
sour cream

Mix the cucumber, wild garlic and enough sour cream to bind everything together. Season with salt, if necessary (I haven't done it, as the salad has plenty of freshness and taste without any).

Now comes the tricky part. Halve the small tomatoes, scoop out the flesh and drain the juices. Stuff tomato halves with above-mentioned salads. Voila!

Other stuffed fruit & vegetables @ Nami-nami:
Baked red onions stuffed with mushrooms, feta cheese & pine nuts (March 2006)
Oven roasted pears with caramelised oats filling (November 2005)
Red peppers stuffed with spinach & mushrooms (April 2006)
Red peppers with cumin-scented halloumi cubes (November 2006)

Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:
April 2007 (BREAD): a traditional Estonian quick mushroom bread, Seenekarask
March 2007 (EASTER BASKET): a selection of various Easter delights.
February 2007 (PIE): a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka.
January 2007 (STEW): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

UPDATE 1. June 2007: Read Jeanne's roundup here

Waiter, there's something in my ... bread: seenekarask or a mushroom loaf

Andrew of SpittoonExtra is hosting this month's edition of Waiter there is something in my ..., and the theme is bread. In ideal circumstances, I would have wanted to make a proper Estonian leavened rye bread. However, as I only just returned from London on the wee hours of Monday morning, and was busy celebrating my birthday yesterday, I didn't have time to start the rye bread. Yet as I was still keen to make something local, I decided to adapt an old recipe for a simple local loaf bread, karask.

Karask is a type of bread in Estonia and Finland that doesn't use yeast nor require leavening; instead, baking powder or baking soda is used to raise the bread (so it is a bit like the Irish soda bread then). Usually karask is made with barley flour (mine uses plain wheat flour), and a popular local version uses curd cheese to flavour and moisten the bread (I've also got recipes using leftover potato mash to give bulk to the bread). I made mine with mushrooms - one of my favourite ingredients, as most of my loyal readers would know by now (just see here), and added a generous handful of fresh herbs..

The texture of the bread is quite heavy, so if you're into light and fluffy breads, then this karask is not for you. However, it will be perfect for those of you who like mushrooms (and there are many fungiphiles or mushroom lovers out there, believe me!) It's at its best when served warm, straight out of the oven, sliced thickly and buttered with a slightly salted butter. Yet it is also delicious cold on the following day, and would make a lovely picnic dish, as it cuts into neat cubes or slices when cold.

Enjoy!

Seenekarask or Estonian quick mushroom bread
Serves 6



250 fresh mushrooms (I used a mixture of brown and white champignon mushrooms), quartered
1 large onion (ca 100 grams), finely chopped
1 Tbsp oil

150 grams plain flour
60 grams porridge oats
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
200 ml milk
100 grams butter, melted
5 grams flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

30 grams cheese, grated

Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan, add mushrooms and onions and fry on a moderate heat for about 5 minutes, until mushrooms have browned a little and onions have began to soften. Remove from the heat and cool.
In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, oats, baking powder, salt and herbs. Stir in the milk and melted butter.
Pour into a buttered (and/or lined) loat tin and sprinkle grated cheese on top.
Bake at 200 C for 35-40 minutes, until the loaf is cooked (due to high mushroom content, the loaf remains moist).
Slice and serve.
As I said, the loaf is at its best when still warm, but remains delicious and flavoursome until the next day.

Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:
March 2007 (EASTER BASKET, hosted by Johanna): a selection of various Easter delights.
February 2007 (PIE, hosted by Jeanne): a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka.
January 2007 (STEW, hosted by Andrew): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

UPDATE 26.4.2007: Read Andrew's round-up of sweet and savoury bread recipes

Waiter, there's something in my ... Easter basket!

The third round of Waiter, there is something in my... is hosted by my dear friend Johanna, and the theme is Easter basket. Johanna wants us to share

"with us and the wider food blogging community anything that yells "Easter!" at you, be it that honey-glazed ham or herb-crusted spring lamb that is traditionally made in your neck of the woods, a gorgeous chocolate torte that you've tucked into every year since you can remember, your granny's famous hot cross buns or a brioche loaf sprinkled with rock sugar..."

So, what will be in our Easter basket here in Tallinn, Estonia? Of course there will be the Estonian Easter pudding pashka, a pressed milk curd dessert with raisins, which I prefer to make with dried cranberries (or 'craisins') instead, as these make the pashka look like it's studded with red jewels:) Here's what I made a year ago in Edinburgh:



As I wrote last year, then Easter indeed means eggs in Estonia, but not necessarily of the chocolate kind. Indeed, it's barely over a week until Easter, and I haven't seen any prominently placed over-sized chocolate eggs in the supermarkets at all!! Still, there will definitely be lots of eggs on the table - mostly dyed lovely brown with the help of onion skins (see the photo above) - I much prefer those to the bright artificially coloured eggs. If you've got visitors during Easter, then you exchange coloured eggs with them - the prettier, the better, of course.

There's also a special game we play with those eggs - munakoksimine. First you make a wish - and keep it to yourself, of course. Then you hold an egg in your palm and tap the top of the egg against the top of the other person's eggs, trying to crack the opponent's egg. If you succeed, then you win the game and your secret wish comes true. It's essential, however, that your own egg stays intact and uncracked!!! There are lots of tricks how to enhance the changes of your egg not cracking (I've learned them from my dear dad), but I'm not sharing them here, as I've got plenty of secret wishes to make in the upcoming weeks :)

[PS Just read from Johanna's entry that this activity is called "egg dumping" or "egg jarping" in England (see Wikipedia). My Estonian-English dictionary was obviously outdated. Oh well... (30.3.2007)]

I may also have some soft-boiled quails' eggs, seated on a carpet of chopped dill and dopped with some lightly salted whitefish/bleak roe (on the left). The combination of runny egg yolk and popping fish roe in your mouth is quite outstanding, as we realised again when snacking on these on Monday night..


In addition to having eggs in every size and colour in my Easter basket, there are quite a few baked Easter goodies I can see myself making this year.

For the last two years, I've baked a Greek Easter bread, tsoureki, which is a heavenly scented plaited bread with the unusual gum mastic and crushed mechlebe. As I've still got some of those spices left, I'll be making it again:


I'm also hoping to make the high Russian Easter bread kulitch this year. My Nordic neighbour Antti made a tempting kulitch last year, and I need to catch up with him. (Antti, maybe we should have a kulitsa cook-off?? :)

I think that's all I'll be arranging into my Easter basket this year..

UPDATE 3.4.2007: Check out Johanna's round-up post.

----------------
Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:

February 2007 (PIE, hosted by Jeanne) : a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka - which would also look great on the Easter table.

January 2007 (STEW, hosted by Andrew): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French lassic Boeuf Bourguignon - which is probably too hearty now that Spring is in the air, but I'll be definitely making it again, and again, when the days will start getting shorter and darker.

MEME: Five things you didn't know about me

Ximena of the picturesque Lobstersquad blog has tagged me for the Five Things You Didn't Know About Me meme*. Sometimes I think I've revealed too much information about me on this blog, so I've been known to sneakily remove some personal information every now and then. On the other hand, some of my friends complain that this is 'all just about food and not enough about you'. Go figure..

In any case, here are five things I don't think you knew about me.

#1 I worked as a child model for two years from the age of 4-5 (pre-school age). There are no magazine pictures of the little model, as I did stage modelling for the Tallinn Fashion House (the only one in town during the Soviet era), as well as clothes fitting. I loved the clothes fittings, as I could sit on the turn-table and swirl myself around and around. My mum still has a pay sheet for me from 1979!! That was long before I turned into a spotty teenager with thick glasses obviously..

#2 I've got a very selective memory for phone numbers. I can tell you the number of my Danish host family in sleep (I was an exchange student there in 1992/1993). Yet I cannot tell you my boyfriend K.'s or my mum's phone number (they're safely stored in my mobile as well as diary). I know my dad's and sister's by heart, however. Cannot explain it myself..

#3 I'm what you call 'upwardly mobile'. Both my parents went to a vocational school - my dad trained as a merchant sailor and my mum as a seamstress (nowadays, my dad works as a pilot in Tallinn harbour and my mum works at the City Registry). I've got a BA in Sociology, MSc in Nationalism Studies and PhD in Sociology. My parents are very proud of me. One of my grandmothers, however, was worried that I'd stay a spinster as nobody would want such an over-educated wife. Luckily, K. doesn't seem to mind:)

#4 I've lived abroad for a long time - one year in Svendborg, Denmark from the age of 18, and seven years in Edinburgh, Scotland (ages 24-25 and again 26-32). That's one quarter of my life!! I'm very happy to be back at home in Estonia now, however..

#5 I don't drive, as I'm a wee bit afraid of it. My dad is a former rally driver (and a very good one at that) as well as a driving instructor (that was after quitting the seas after my sister was born); my sister happily goes go-karting and racing (despite surviving a very bad car accident at the age of 18). I reluctantly got my driving licence at the age of 26, and since then have only sat behind the wheel twice - on suburban roads. We're currently in the process of buying a new car for me. That means I find a car I like, K. test-drives it and asks all the necessary questions, while I sit next to him on the passenger seat. I guess I need to talk to my dad about taking some driving lessons before I actually hit the roads in a few months..

That's enough, I think - there are some details I better keep to myself:)

I'd love to read what my georgaphically close bloggers have to share, so I'm tagging Anne (done!), Dagmar, Clivia (done!), Antti, Zarah Maria and Deinin (done!) (participation is strictly optional, obviously).

* UPDATE 7.3.2007 - I rather embarrassingly only realised, that Michelle had tagged me for this meme already on New Year's Eve, but I must have overlooked this back then. Sorry, Michelle!

Waiter, there is something in my ... salmon kulebyaka

For the first round of Waiter, there is something in my ... ! I made Anthony Bourdain's boeuf bourgoingnon. For the second round of this new foodblogging event - in February focusing on pies and hosted by CookSister's Jeanne - I made something from the Russian cuisine: kulebyaka. Kulebyaka should have been on my 2007 list of foodie resolutions, as I had been thinking about making it for months, but somehow it slipped my mind when I wrote the post. But better late than never, and now was my chance to make that festive Russian pie. Kulebyaka is a high and oblong closed pie with different types of fillings. When looking for the perfect recipe, I came across kulebyakas stuffed with fish, mushrooms, meat, cabbage, even apples. Some recipes used puff pastry, some yeast pastry. I realised that it is the shape of the pie (enclosed, high, long) that distinguishes kulebyaka from a pirog (that's simply a 'pie' in Russian). However, to me kulebyaka has always meant - first and foremost - a fancy puff pastry pie filled with salmon and rice. At the end, puff pastry, sliced fresh salmon, rice, dill and dainty quail's eggs were my chosen ingredients. For those of you from the British Isles - think of Beef Wellington, just with salmon and rice instead of beef and mushrooms.

Salmon kulebyaka
(Lõhekulebjaaka)
Serves 6-8



500 grams puff pastry
500 grams salmon or trout fillet, thinly sliced
150 ml rice
12 quail's eggs
fresh dill, chopped
salt
freshly ground black pepper
lemon juice

(egg for brushing, black peppercorns for decorating)

Season the salmon slices with salt, pepper and lemon juice.
Cook the rice in salted water until al dente. Drain and cool.
Boil the quail's eggs in simmering water for 2-3 minutes, then cool quickly under cold running water. Peel and put aside.
Roll out the puff pastry.
Place the smaller pastry sheet on a baking tray. Cover with 1/2 of the rice, then dill and 1/2 of the salmon slices. Place the quail's eggs over the salmon.
Sprinkle with dill, then cover with the rest of the rice, top with salmon slices (see right) and sprinkle any leftover dill on top. Season with salt and pepper and a squeeze or two of lemon juice.
Cover with the larger pastry sheet. Decorate with small cut-out fish figures (optional - I used black peppercorns for eyes:). Make a couple of insertions into the pastry with a sharp knife, so the steam can evaporate during cooking.
Brush with egg.
Bake at 200C for 20-30 minutes, until kulebyaka is golden brown.
Serve hot, either with a good bouillon (traditional way) or a dollop of mayonnaise.

Here's a cross-section of the finished pie - I really liked the way those quail's eggs looked: