Estonian Milk Soup with Pasta Shapes

This week is school holidays in Estonia, and my 10-year-old nephew stayed with us for a few days. We went for walks, swimming at the local swimming pool, did some homework together, he spent hours entertaining our little daughter. Of course, we also cooked and ate food together (nachos, enchiladas, quesadillas and other food with high kid appeal). Our last meal together was lunch on Wednesday and I offered to cook him something special. His request: makaroni-piimasupp or pasta and milk soup. I was baffled - I hadn't had that humble soup for almost two decades and I didn't think today's kids eat it. I was proven wrong :)

Furthermore, I had no intentions to blog about this particular milk soup and didn't focus too much on getting a good picture. But then somebody saw the picture in Flickr and asked for the recipe, so here you go after all...

Although the soup has some sugar in it, it's more of a "savoury" soup, served as a meal on its own, preferably with some ham sandwiches on the side.

Estonian Milk Soup with Pasta Shapes
(Makaroni-piimasupp)
Serves 4

500 ml water (2 cups)
1 tsp salt
100 g short pasta (1 cup)
750 ml full-fat milk (3 cups)
a generous pinch of sugar
1 Tbsp butter

Bring water to the vigorous boil, add salt and pasta shapes. Reduce heat to simmering, then boil for 5-7 minutes, until pasta is al dente.
Pour in the milk, give it all a stir and boil for another few minutes, until pasta is fully cooked.
Season with a pinch of sugar and some more salt, if you wish. Stir in the butter and serve.

Elderflower curd recipe

Elderflower curd on home-made white bread.

Anyone else 'out there' who likes to smear some lemon curd on toast or spoon some of the yellow goodness over their breakfast yogurt?? I've made more batches of lemon curd over the last few months than I care to remember, all because K. LOVES it. He can eat some straight from the jar (his excuse is that he doesn't want to waste any yogurt or bread!). He also loves elderflower cordial, so I thought to combine these two and make elderflower curd for this weekend. I used my regular lemon curd recipe, just substituting lemon juice with undiluted elderflower cordial, and as the latter is sweetened, I reduced the amount of sugar by one third.

We loved the creamy and floral-scented result. So much so that there's not much left for the weekend. I better whip up another batch soon.

If it's lemon curd you're after, check out Meeta's extensive post about making lemon curd or Ilva's rosemary twist on the classic.

Elderflower Curd
Serves 4 to 6

3 large eggs
100 g caster sugar
100 ml elderflower cordial/syrup
100 g unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Put the bowl in a pan of boiling water or a bain-marie and stir until it has thickened.

You need a small saucepan and a medium-sized bowl that fits over the saucepan.
Pour about 2-3 cm / an inch of water into the saucepan and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer.
Whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl until combined, then whisk in the elderflower cordial.
Place the bowl over the pan of boiling waterand cook, stirring regularly with a small whisk, until the mixture thickens. (DO NOT BOIL, or the curd, well curdles :)) This may take about 7-10 minutes (you can test for doneness with a wooden spoon - if the curd coats the back of the spoon, it's ready).
Remove from the heat and let it cool a little (to about 62-63 C). Then add the cubed butter and stir, until the butter has blended with the rest of the ingredients.
Pour into a small jar or a bowl, and cool before serving.

Leedrisiirupit müüakse mahepoodides ja pealinnas ka nt NOP-poes.

Lingonberry cheesecake

If you're stuck for lingonberry recipe ideas, then let me suggest you this creamy lingonberry cheesecake. A friend of mine came over for a coffee about a fortnight ago, bringing me a large tub of lingonberries she had picked herself. Although I've got some good stand-by lingonberry cake recipes (some of them here on the blog: lingonberry and chocolate cake, Swedish lingonberry cake), I wanted to try something new and different. Using my regular cheesecake filling, I came up with this lingonberry cheesecake recipe.

As all cheesecakes, this is best made a day before you want to serve it, so it is completely cool and set.

Lingonberry cheesecake
(Pohla-toorjuustukook)
Serves 6 to 8

Pastry:
100 g butter, softened
85 g caster sugar (100 ml)
1 large egg
175 g plain flour (300 ml)
0.5 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

Filling:
450 g full-fat cream cheese (1 pound)
85 g caster sugar (100 ml)
2 large eggs
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
finely grated zest of half a lime

Topping:
100 g lingonberries (about 1 cup)

First, prepare the pastry. Cream butter and sugar. Mix the dry ingredients, then mix into the butter mixture together with egg. Press the pastry onto the base and sides of a buttered 26 cm springform tin. Put into the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Prepare the filling: Mix all ingredients - if you wish, you can use an electric mixer for that (though stirring thoroughly with a wooden spoon does the job as well, as long as the cream cheese and eggs are at room temperature). Pour into the pastry base.

Scatter the lingonberries on top.

Bake in a pre-heated 180 C /350 F oven for 30-35 minutes, until the filling is almost set and the cake is light golden brown on top.

Let cool completely before trasnferring onto the serving plate.