Is it me or has it been a little quiet around here recently? I think I've only just gotten back into the swing of cooking again after my little break. Sofie and I finally made the journey up to IKEA in Belfast over the weekend to get all those essential apartment items after nearly a year. We have been threatening to make the trip, since it opened in December, but it just kept getting put off- but we did it in style and spent a whopping eight hours in the store as if to make up for it!
I know that's a bit mad but we did like 4 sweeps of the place and missed out on very little. I love the kitchen stuff in IKEA, and my favourite thing we got on our shopping trip was this cool little kitchen trolley thing which doubles up as both a storage unit and a work top! I particularly like this because now I can perform a mini cookery show when we have guests over! :) (Pictures coming soon!)
On to the food! I cooked this dish over the weekend as a bit of an experiment and thankfully no plates were left empty so I'm taking thath to be a good sign.
Cajun Salmon and Asian Greens (Serves 2) For Salmon: 2 Organic Salmon Fillets 1 tsp. white pepper 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. onion powder 1 tsp. cayenne pepper 1 tsp. paprika 1 tsp. black pepper
For Asian Greens: Selection of veg diced (Broccoli, Carrot, Asparagus, Red Pepper) 2 Tablespoons of Rice Wine Vinegar 1 Tablespoon of Nam Pla (Fish Sauce) 1 Teaspoon of Sesame Oil A pinch of salt
In a large bowl combine the Rice Wine Vinegar, Nam Pla, Sesame Oil and salt, then add the diced veg and mix through. Cover and set aside in the fridge.
Mix the spices for the salmon together. Place the salmon fillets skin side down on a grill plate and sprinkle with the seasoning. Place under a hot grill for approx 7-8 mins.
While the Salmon is under the grill, in a hot frying pan stir fry the diced veg mix until soft.
The Salmon should be cooked by this time, if your worried it isn't cooked through, poke a knife into the centre of the flesh and check if it is still pink- if its is you may want to give it another minute or so under the grill.
When everything is cooked serve on a plate and enjoy!
This is a great recipe for entertaining with an Asian twist. You can make the noodles ahead of time and pop them in the fridge the night before, they should be just as tasty the next day.
Teriyaki Salmon with Noodles Salmon is an extremely healthy ingredient to cook with. It's low in calories, has immune system boosting properties and contains omega-3 essential fatty acids which the body does not naturally produce. If you have any leftovers, this tasty sauce can also be used tossed through a crunchy asian salad.
Makes 2 portions. 2 salmon fillets skinned. 3 tablespoon of teriyaki sauce. 150g of egg noodles. A small handful of sesame seeds.
1 red chilli deseeded and chopped finely. 3 cloves of garlic chopped finely. 5 tablespoons of soya sauce. 1 tablespoon of dark brown sugar. 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. 1 tablespoon of sesame oil. The juice and zest of 1 lime.
Slice the salmon into bitesize chunks and place in a bowl with the teriyaki sauce. Cover and place in the fridge to marinate. While the salmon is marinating prepare the rest of the ingredients. Cook the noodles according to instructions on the packet, drain and toss with a little bit of sesame oil and sesame seeds. In a small sauce pan fry the chilli and garlic in the vegetable oil over a high heat for approximately 2 minutes. Add the brown sugar, soya sauce, lime juice, zest and sesame oil and bring to the boil, reduce the heat and allow the sauce to bubble away gently for about 6-8 minutes. While the sauce is cooking, in a large frying pan fry the salmon pieces in a little vegetable oil over a medium heat until browned on all sides. Serve the salmon pieces on top of the noodles and drizzle over the teriyaki sauce.
Unfortunately I have gotten into a seriously bad habit of taking photo's of the food I cook and then doing nothing with them for a week or two, which means I end up forgetting what I have actually done, very irritating indeed! The good news is I have managed to recover this recipe, from the deep dark depths of my memory bank, and have also made a pact with myself to finally start writing my recipe's down. We'll just have to wait and see how that works out.
I haven't been doing any serious cooking this week as I'm doing a 3 day course in Dublin city for Adobe After Effects. And being in town has meant making my ritual stops at Aya, Cafe Mao, and Wagamama, for lunch time- I'm so glad I don't work in town, because my bank balance would be zero!
Today is my last day in the big smoke, so I'll be soaking up all the culture I can before I head back to the sticks of Ashbourne, Co. Meath to earn my daily bread. Not that I'm complaining though, I once loved the hustle and bustle of the city, but nowadays, I seem to much prefer the calmer side of life. And anyway who really enjoys the scrum with the 5 million Spanish students on Grafton St.?
Personal soul searching aside it's time for a recipe, when I made this a few weeks ago I wasn't so sure that it was going to come out the way I wanted and had set myself up for disappointment as soon as the over door was closed. But I was pleasantly surprised with the results- the baking of the salmon with the mix creates a really interesting texture to the bite, but doesn't loose any of the peppery spice from the chopped garlic.
Baked Dill and Garlic Salmon
2 large Organic Salmon Fillets.
A large handful of Dill.
A small handful of Basil
2 Cloves of Garlic crushed.
3 Tbsp of Olive Oil.
Sea Salt
Preheat the oven to 200o C. Place the salmon fillets in a large roasting tin. I used my handheld food processor to blend the crushed garlic, dill, basil and olive oil together. Season it with Sea Salt to taste. You can adapt this mix further with the addition of parsley, or coriander for an even more herby version. Spread the mix on the salmon fillets and pop in the oven for about 12 minutes or until cooked through. I served this with some steamed asparagus and thinly sliced roast potato's.
Gizzi Erskine may be a new name to you, she was for me, but her book, "Gizzi's Kitchen Magic" cover totally caught my eye while I was browsing through the amazon cookery section the other day. This is possibly one the coolest cookbook covers I have seen for a while and it's even cooler when you get your hands on it as it's embossed in gold! Now not being one to judge a book by it's cover I took my copy with me on my travels to have a good nose through it and get a good feel for Gizzi's writing. To give you a brief bit of back ground Gizzi is one of the "Cook Yourself Thin" girls and was orignally a food stylist before she got into the tv side of things, so has a huge knowledge of food! The one thing I do have to point out is that the book is quite girly, and I know quite a few potential domestic goddesses who could definitely be encouraged into the kitchen with a present of "Gizzi's Kitchen Magic" wrapped up in a bow! The book is absolutely jam packed with really fantastic tips on everything from what meat cuts to buy to choosing the best pastry to make. The lovely folks at Virgin books have provided me with a few recipes from the book to share with you this week and on Friday there will be 3 copies up for grabs, so stick around for that. Gizzi will also be stopping in for a quick interview aswell so if there are any questions you want answered, leave a comment below.
Gizzi Erskine's Creamy Smoked Salmon & Pea Spaghetti Spaghetti carbonara is a classic for a reason, but it is laden with cream and, therefore, also very guilt-inducing. So I decided to halve the cream content and replace the rest with Greek yoghurt. Having done this, it seemed natural to replace the smokiness of the bacon with smoked salmon. I then decided to add some green colour with the summery addition of broad beans and green peas, my favourite veggies, and fi nished with a hint of lemon to lift the dish.
Serves 4 Preparation time 15 minutes Cooking time 10 minutes 350g dried spaghetti 150g podded and shelled broad beans 150g fresh or frozen garden peas 200ml double cream 200ml Greek yoghurt 2 large free-range egg yolks 35g Parmesan cheese zest of 1 unwaxed lemon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 180g smoked salmon (about 8 slices), sliced into short ribbons A small bunch of fresh chives, snipped
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packet. For the last 3 minutes of the cooking time add the broad beans and peas. Meanwhile mix together the cream, yoghurt, egg yolks, Parmesan, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Drain the cooked pasta, beans and peas, leaving a few tablespoons of water in the bottom of the pan. Return the pan to a low heat and pour in the sauce. Toss the pasta in the sauce, then add the smoked salmon and chives, giving it all a good mix round until it’s evenly incorporated and the salmon has cooked through. Serve piping hot.
(Taken from Gizzi’s Kitchen Magic by Gizzi Erskine published by Virgin Books, price £20)
Now earlier in the week I did come down a bit heavy on Sweden and their food culture, but I do have a big fondness for many parts of Swedish culture and cuisine. Whenever you talk to a Swede about the best time to visit Sweden, I could nearly almost guarantee they would say the summer. After a long cold winter the Swedes go all out for the summer with the highlight being the midsummer celebrations which take place on the 25th of June every year. With fields full of wild strawberries and crayfish pots heaving with luminous red critters, the Swedes certainly make the most of it. I have spent quite a lot of time in Sweden over the last few years and have got the opportunity to experience the country through all the different seasons, but despite the excitement of 5 feet of snow at Christmas, which let me add wears very thin when all you have on your cold Irish feet is a flimsy pair of Converse runners, the summer is always the season I look forward to the most.
I have a secret love affair with the fantastic warm lakes, complete with picture postcard jetties, the beautiful forests which are teaming with wild blueberries and big juicy yellow chanterelle mushrooms all ripe and ready for the picking. This week I was over to finish writing the recipes for my next book, and pick up a little Swedish food inspiration along the way. A few years ago I worked in a restaurant on an island just off Gothenberg and one of the things we regularly served up was big hearty slices of sweet and salty Gravadlax.
Swedish Gravadlax Gravadlax is truly a thing of beauty, and although quite different in taste, is what I like to think of as Sweden‘s answer to our delicious smoked salmon! It sounds quite complicated but I’m here to tell you that isn’t the case and you can produce this seriously impressive dish with a minimal amount of hassle! The man I bought the fish from actually suggested using honey instead of sugar as he said it produces a slightly different taste, but it's up to you!
Serves about 12 portions 2 halves of salmon fillets 2 good handfuls of fresh dill, roughly chopped 6 tablespoons of sea salt 10 tablespoons of caster sugar 2 tablespoons of freshly ground black pepper
In a bowl combine the dill, sea salt, caster sugar and ground black pepper corns. Roll out a large piece of cling film and sprinkle the base with 1/3 of the dill mixture. Place one side of the salmon skin side down on the dill mixture and top half the remaining mixture. Place the last fillet on top flesh side down and sprinkle with the remaining dill mixture. Wrap the salmon tightly with the cling film and give it an extra layer if you need to. Place the wrapped parcel in a high sided dish and weight it down with a plate and some full cans or whatever heavy item you have to hand. Leave the salmon to cure in the fridge for up to 5 days turning half way through. The dish will fill with juices but don’t be too concerned about draining them until you are ready to serve. When you are ready to serve, remove the package from the dishes and wipe clean of the juices. Separate the sides and slice thinly with a large knife. Serve with freshly boiled potatoes and a side salad.
Of all the dishes we prepared for Foodstock, I am pretty certain that the Irish Seafood Chowder was the biggest success. I am told that the French absolutely love their seafood which is probably why! The chowder we made had a great selection of fish, haddock, cod, smoked fish, and prawns which the amazing chefs at the Chalet meticulously prepared for us. I have to admit that cooking on such a large scale can be quite daunting in terms of producing a similar end product to that of a smaller quantity, but that said between the whole team we served up some damn tasty chowder!
For about an hour on the Wednesday night I did feel like I was in a soup kitchen and there was a high chance of some sort of repetitive strain injury after ladling the chowder 350 times! Luckily we had the lovely ladies from Bord Bia to help us out, one of whom was out on her first assignment with them, though I’m pretty sure she is well inducted after Foodstock.
Irish Seafood Chowder This is the kind of soup that if you put a lot of love and time in you will get the best results. The key is to add the fish at the very end leaving just enough time to let them cook. Cook the fish pieces too long and you will be left with an Irish seafood mush rather than a chunky creamy chowder! Serves 8 (Makes 3.15 litres) 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 medium onions, finely chopped 100g salt pork diced (or pancetta/bacon bits)
2 dried bay leaves 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, finely chopped 1 kg of peeled and diced potatoes 1.125 litre of fish stock salt and freshly ground black pepper 1.25kg of cod (or similar white fish) 750g of fresh salmon 500g of mussels 500g of smoked haddock 330ml of heavy cream 1 tablespoon of fresh parsley, chopped finely 100g of smoked salmon, cut into fine strips for garnish
In a large pot, heat the butter and sauté the onions for 3-4 minutes. Add the salt pork and continue to fry until it colours. Add in the fresh thyme, bay leaves and potatoes and cook gently for 2-3 minutes before adding the fish stock. Season well with salt and pepper. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are tender yet firm. (Some of the potato will break down and help thicken the chowder). Add the haddock, salmon, cod and mussels and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and allow to sit before finally and gently stirring in the parsley and cream. Serve with the strips of smoked salmon as a garnish on top.
Way back in October I got a tweet from the lovely Trish Deseine, who many of you might know from her hugely successful series on RTÉ, where she guides viewers through just some of the vast range of delicious French dishes. Trish was born in Belfast and later moved to Paris, where she mastered her French cooking skills. She asked me if I would be interested in coming to Paris to cater an event and put me in touchwith Raphael, from Le Fooding®, a Parisien magazine which seeks out the coolest eateries in the city. After lots and lots and lots and lots of emails back and forth we finally organised everything for the event which is going to be taking place in Paris at Le Chalet Des Iles on the 24th of March. From what I can gather, the event will have live music and is like a mini woodstock with food! It sounds really exciting and with only 2 weeks to go I cannot wait! The event is sponsored by Jameson whiskey and Bord Bia are sponsoring some of the ingredients from my recipes. These are the dishes I will be serving up on the night:
- Irish Seafood Chowder served with Chilled Smoked Salmon
- Kelly's Of Newport Black Pudding and Cashel Blue Cheese Salad
- Mocha Meringues with Jameson Whiskey Cream, Chocolate Sauce and toasted Hazelnuts
- Jameson Ginger and Mint Iced Fire Cocktails
If you just so happen to be in Paris that night, please do come along, I am not so sure how it works with the tickets but I have been told there is quite a demand, and people queue outside the venue to get in, so I guess you could come down and try your luck!
With 10,000 athletes expected to take part and raise €3 million for over 150 charities this year, the Cork city marathon is one of the biggest sporting events in the country. I have been asked to put together some really quick, tasty and nutritious pasta dishes to help out those folks already in training! Dishes like my Speedy Spaghetti Amatriciana and Rocket Fuelled Pasta will be sure to get athletes of all levels fuelled up and ready to rock on the big day!
Hopefully my pasta recipes will appeal to both foodies and fitness enthusiasts and you can check them all out on www.readysteadycork.com alongside several fitness schedules and training guides designed to help a wide range of people - from experienced athletes to first-time marathoners. If you are planning on running a marathon these Power Pasta recipes are packed with foods and ingredients rich in protein and ‘good fats’ such as avocados, salmon, chicken and olive oil, providing vital nutrients and ensuring that there is plenty of variety in runners’ diets!
Simple Spicy Tuna and Garlic Penne Tuna is a fantastic healthy store cupboard ingredient which is perfect for quick dishes just like this. You can use tinned tuna, but I really love the tuna you can buy in jars stored in olive oil.
Serves 4 250g of wholemeal penne 2 tablespoons of olive oil 2 cloves of garlic, finely minced 1 teaspoon of dried chilli flakes A good handful of parsley, roughly chopped 230g jar of tuna fillets in olive oil A good pinch of sea salt and ground black pepper
Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet In a large frying pan heat the oil over a medium heat and add the garlic and chilli flakes. Fry gently until golden. Add the cooked pasta and the parsley to the pan and toss until the pasta is nicely coated. Break the tuna into rough chunks, add to the pasta and stir through. Season with a little sea salt and black pepper and serve straight away!
Most of life's great decisions come from having absolutely no prior knowledge as to how something is going to turn out. That was most certainly the case over the weekend. You might remember earlier this year I got roped into cooking for 800 hungry Parisians for an event on a small island in the west of the city with Le Fooding magazine sponsored by our very own Bord Bia. Well after the huge success at Chalet Des Illes, the delightful Noreen Lanigan, decided she wanted more abuse from me and decided, being a blogger I would be the right person to demonstrate at the third annual Salon Du Blog Culinaire, an event organized by a cookery school north of Paris in the little town of Soissons, in November. The event is quite unique and very timely with the amount of food blogs continually on the increase. It invites lots of France's finest food bloggers to demonstrate their favorite dishes and kitchen techniques in a fairly manic two day period watched on by fellow bloggers eager for culinary inspiration. During the summer I had the opportunity to meet a group of France's top food bloggers who were on a visit to Ireland to discover the fantastic conditions our lovely animals enjoy before they head off the little farm in the sky and onto our supermarket shelves. To put things in perspective here, unlike our own Irish food blogging community which, while thriving and very rapidly increasing in numbers, this group of French food bloggers were 10 of over a thousand. These guys were the cream of crop and are well and truly established with tens of thousands of visitors a day, numerous cookbooks and iPhone and iPad Apps. Not surprising really from a nation who takes so much pride and passion in their cooking that they would be willing to fall out with each other over a bad Boeuf Bourginon! After our visit to the farm, I demonstrated some of our traditional Irish dishes, including Irish stew, brown bread and roast lamb, and was gently reminded again that Noreen had plans for me in November…
Clare Clinton who is interning at Bord Bia's Paris office got the ball rolling earlier this month with emails back and forth to decide the best recipes to show off our finest meat and fish products. Despite me dragging my feet, we eventually decided upon 6 dishes to cook and impress the French food bloggers, including mussels in Irish cider, crab claws with chilli, garlic and lemon, roast shoulder of lamb with rosemary and garlic, a good auld Irish stew and to mix things up a little an oriental steak salad and spicy Beef fahitas.
Myself and Maeve Desmond, who I'm sure many of your may have met at Bloom or the Irish Food blogger event in May, flew to Paris on Friday evening just in time for a late dinner in a beautiful restaurant very close to La Bon Marché. The restaurant proudly serves Irish beef alongside some French classics and the quite adventurous dishes I chose including Carpaccio of veal tongue served with a salsa and for mains Pieds et Pacque d'agneau which on the English menu I was reading from was translated as feet and packets of lamb. I'm big believer in always trying something different in another country rather than something familiar but unfortunately sometimes it doesn't always work out the way I had planned. The veal tongue had a very interesting texture and flavor and was complimented quite nicely by the salsa it was served and was definitely worth the chance of trying, however the Lamb feet and packets, left a little to be desired… The packets turned out to be a strange little dumplings of finely minced pork wrapped in what looked very much like tripe and actually tasted quite nice, but the feet had about as much meat on them as my little finger. Maeve and Noreen played it safe and benefited from doing so with Maeve going for an amazing long wooden platter of beautifully sliced ham and of the Irish beef and Noreen choosing a lentil salad to start followed by the most amazing French black pudding which was really rich and velvety, a stark contrast to what we are used to with a fry! Dessert was a financier de poivre, an individual little flat cake with pear and île flottante a big dollop of fluffy egg white and sugar which was served floating in a dish of vanilla cream and topped with a caramel sauce. After all that we rolled our way back to our hotel ahead of the six o'clock start on Saturday morning.
There is one thing I don't do and that is early mornings, sure I can be full of energy first thing but I fade fairly rapidly during the day! Noreen runs a tight ship let me tell you (This woman has a tractor license!), so at 7.06 with toothbrush still in mouth, I answered to phone to a bright and sparky Noreen who wanted to know were I was! Rushing out the door and out onto the streets of Paris, I stumbled on Noreen and Clare (and a sleepy Maeve!) negotiating the boot of the car with Irish posters, recipe booklets and of course the suitcases. We were all bundled into the car and then the real fun started- our departure from Paris was fairly comical not helped of course by the GPS which took us on the wrong road at least twice.
When we finally arrived in Soissons and at the culinary arts school the 3rd Salon Du Blog was well underway. One of the French food bloggers who had been on the visit to Ireland, was the charming Chef Damien who makes a mean Boef A La Guiness and runs the school and a highly successful website, 750g, which attracts a ridiculous amount of visitors on a daily basis! There was definitely a huge sense of excitement as we were ushered through the halls of the school and passed the many rooms where different food bloggers would be spending their weekend. We arrived at the Bord Bia room which was positioned perfectly smack bang in the middle of all the rooms which guaranteed us constant traffic and visitors and were introduced to our helpers Suella and Virginie. It's always fairly nerve-wracking arriving at a new kitchen so there was some fierce scurrying around to get all the equipment and ingredients before we were due to kick off with our first demonstration at 11am! We got kick started with a great turnout and the rest of the day was so busy that it became pretty much a blur except for the fantastic Bloggers Picnic that had been organized for lunch, where all the bloggers had brought along a little dish to be a part of the most massive buffet of food I have ever seen! One thing that should be noted and that is instantly clear in terms of the difference between Irish food bloggers and French food bloggers, they have no problem telling you they would done something differently, where we might be a little bit more shy to go up and taste test if someone is giving a demo. So it was all fairly nerve wracking to make sure things were cooked just the right way! Either way I love their passion!
Saturday finished off with a giant blogger banquet complete with hoards of Irish cheese, Irish salmon, Irish beef, Irish lamb and randomly enough a little bit of good old Irish dancing! We were sitting having a great time but the minute the music started Noreen told us she had to get up to take some photos and we thought no more of it, a few minutes later we looked down at the dance floor and there she was like Jeanne Butler on acid leading the Ceili putting the rest to shame- and THAT'S how you represent the country! I don't know whether it was the dancing or not but Noreen headed back to Paris on Sunday and we were joined by another lovely lady from Bord Bia, the lovely Bernadette, lovely! :)
On the last demo of the day on Sunday I was accompanied by Chef Damien to demonstrate a very simple dish of crab claws with chilli, garlic and lemon. The whole thing was a crazy combination of both of us trying to translate each other language but somehow I think it worked, and I suppose it did help that we were being filmed for the French tv station! All in all it was an absolutely fantastic event and I think we represented Ireland quite well if I do say so myself. My only wish was that I had got to see a lot more of the other demonstrations, there was a massive variety of food being demoed but I did manage to catch one or two! An absolutely massive thank you to Chef Damien, my two lovely kitchen assistants, the lovely ladies of Bord Bia, and of course all the French bloggers who made me feel so very welcome!
I've been packing a fair bit of travel in this summer and I'm fairly sure with the amount of airmiles that have wracked up, I'm doing the environment no favours! This week is no different I'm back in Sweden for a bit of work and to fully soak up all the best a Swedish summer has to offer! One of my favourite things about Sweden in the summer is the beautiful still lakes with their picturesque jetties. This week I finally got my first swim of the summer in and despite always being slightly worried about what lurks at the bottom of those murky waters, I can report that the water was beautiful. All that swimming in lakes can make a cook like myself hungry, so we decided to sample what the Swedes do best, the Smorgasbord!
One of my favourite places to eat in Gothenburg is the Gunnebo Coffee House and Restaurant which is situated on the grounds of one of Sweden's most beautiful neoclassical estates, just south of the city. The buffet style lunch is made with all organic ingredients and always has something interesting and healthy to offer. During the summer months the kitchen uses fruit and vegetables from the huge gardens outside, which I find very exciting to walk through! The day we were there amongst the fantastic choice of dishes there was a cabbage salad, cucumber and fennel lentil salad, herbed pork fillet, boiled cumin potatoes, roast salmon with a creamy sauce, and Roast tomatoes with Goats cheese and red onion. We assembled our plates with fairly hefty portions, a handful of the chunky homemade bread and headed outdoors to pick our way through it. There is something fairly special about eating fresh and healthy food outdoors on a warm summer day that just makes everything taste all the better! For now, as the Swedes say "hej då"!
Roast Tomatoes with Goats cheese and Red Onion This is a super way to make the most of the last of the summer tomatoes! This method brings out the fantastic natural sweetness and is perfection in every bite. You can prepare these ahead of time and serve them at room temperature.
Serves 4 4 tomatoes, cut in half 1 goats cheese log, cut in slices 1 red onion, sliced in half moons A good glug of olive oil A generous pinch of sea salt and ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 200oC/Gas Mark 6. Arrange the tomato halves on a baking tray and top each on with a few slices of red onion and then place a slice of cheese on top. Drizzle each tomato with a little olive oil and season with sea salt and ground black pepper. Place in the oven to cook for 35 minutes or until the the tomatoes are soft and tender. Serve warm or cold.
Cucumber and Fennel, Lentil Salad I think lentils are by far one of the most underused pulses. They are like the black sheep of the legume family, with many people having never even cooked them before. However that all has to change, they are full of health benefits, and just as quick as pasta to cook so no excuses! They go great with lots of different dishes but they go great here as a tasty little salad!
Serves 4 1 cucumber, cut in chunky diagonal slices 150g of green lentils A good handful of fennel fronds, roughly chopped Juice of 1/2 a lemon 2 tablespoons of olive oil A generous pinch of sea salt and ground black pepper
Rinse the lentils in cold water drain and place in a pot. Cover them with plenty of water and bring to the boil, cooking for 15 minutes or until tender. Drain and set aside to cool. In a large bowl whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil. Add in the fennel fronds, cucumber slices, and cooled lentils. Season with sea salt and ground black pepper and serve!
As a nice way to finish off the Leila Lindholm week here on the blog, Lorraine from New Holland publishing organised a phone interview with the lady herself! I was very excited on Thursday morning to be able to call the lovely Leila, to have a quick chat about baking, the muffin mafia and of course her next book! Enjoy!
So you grew up in a family with a mix of cultures, tell me a little about the kind of food you had growing up, did you find you learned a lot about Morroccan cooking when you were growing up? I grew up with my mother and I only met my father when I was 24 so I didn't really grow up in a Morroccan culture at all, but my dad is from Morrocco.
From most of Swedes I talk to, they don't exactly rave about Swedish cuisine, but what you consider the most typical Swedish dish? It's pretty much like Swedish meatballs and we have a special kind of sausage called Falun sauasage that we eat and I think quite a lot of international food aswell as I remember we went to restauarants at least once a week to have dinner when I grew up.
I read you studied cooking, was that in Sweden? I studied a restaurant course in Stockholm and I started when I was 16 and finished when I was 19. When you finish the course you work in restaurants straight away.
I was very excited to read in your book about the muffin mafia, a baking group you started with your grandmother when you were younger, can you tell me a little about the members? It was great, it was actually something me and my grandma's neighbour made up, because I used to run over to her house and she taught me how to bake and we baked like cakes and cupcakes and muffins. Then she decided that we could become pen pals and send recipes to each other and it was me and Aunt Elsa, then her friends up in the north of Sweden, they were a bunch of old ladies in their 60's and we would send recipes to each other. But I was the boss, the mafia boss!
What were some of the first dishes you learned to cook? I think probably something simple like sausage and macoroni, or actually it was like grilled sandwiches! I used to with my best friend go to her place after to school and make all kinds of grilled sandwhiches with pineapple, really tacky sandwiches, with ketchup and pineapple and stuff on them and a lot of cheese!
You have an extremely successful career in Sweden, what would you consider your big break? Well actually I had two kind of big breaks, the first when I was 24, I was chosen Female Swedish Chef Of The Year and that was a big break because I started getting into the media and got attention from the media. I started doing interviews in the press and that was back in 1999. Then the second big break came in 2004 when I was chosen TV chef of the year and then also it was a milestone in a sense as it was my big break in the tv business, and I started getting more possibilities with my cooking shows. I started on one of the biggest morning shows here in Sweden and when I won the award I got asked to do my own cooking series and then after this it's been quite a successful story!
Well I can definitely see that! So who do you find you get the biggest reaction from your books, what kind of people? It's definitely women, but also mothers and kids, they love the baking show. I have heard from so many parents that their kids are watching the baking show on DVD's, they don't want to watch Disney movies, they just want to watch my baking show which is a little funny!
What are some of your favourite dishes to cook apart from baking? I love to do barbeques, so that's what I am really looking forward to this summer, we have a lot of snow right now, but I can't wait to start doing barbeques, that's what I really love! Doing meat like sirloin steak, lamb legs, whole salmon, I can't wait!
In every picture I have seen of you, you always look incredibly happy, are there any dishes that really frustrate you to make? I like to cook everything but sometimes there are dishes which are challenging when, of course, even for me, sometimes things don't work or like the Bearnaise sauce doesn't turn out, thats annoying. Also it's quite common, I'm sure you are familiar with this, when you have plan in your mind and it just doesn't work out when you cook it!
From what I have read you have a big interest in styling as well as cooking, how did that get started? Well I think for me I have always been interested in aesthetic stuff, interior designs, and beautiful things so I collect beautiful things and it came from there. I love to create beautiful things and it's a huge passion I have a craving, I have to do it!
When I was in Sweden I picked up your fantastic magazine Leila's Country Living but I heard it has stopped, will you be working on new issues of it in the future? Maybe in the future but right now I decided not to because I have just had a baby, and I decided to try two issues first in 2009, to make sure it went well because I have no experience in the magazine world. Then I realised that it is so hard to juggle the tv shows, and the book and the magazine.
I was in a book shop in Dublin yesterday and spotted your book "A Piece of Cake", I didn't realise it had been released here aswell as the UK, are you hoping to come over here and break this market? That would be fantastic to work more abroad, but this is my first cookbook to be released outside Sweden, it has been released in The Netherlands, USA, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and in Italy so it's quite exciting to see where it's going to take my work. It's been nine months since I had my baby so I am starting to get back into work mode and we are starting to record season 3 of my baking show in about two weeks. I was also asked by the Discovery channel to do a couple of shows but that was when I just had by baby and it was a food travel show and it wasn't possible to travel.
I'm guessing since the success of your books and tv shows in Sweden, and even with a new baby life has become a lot busier, how has your cooking habits changed? They haven't really, I kind of cook the same stuff I cook in my shows!
Have you had any major on-air or off-air disasters when cooking on tv? No but sometimes in the studio its very hot so in like the spring time sometimes when you work with cake and chocolate and ice cream they melt, so that can be a bit of a disaster!
I am a huge fan of cookbooks, have you got a big collection of books yourself, is there any you just couldn't live without? No I'm greedy I have to have them all! I have about over 100 books, but my favourites are from Martha Stewart and of course Jamie Oliver, his books are very fresh and beautiful!
You worked with Jamie's photographer, David Loftus on one of your books, what was he like to work with? He was fun, he is a fantastic photographer, and it was great, we had done a couple of jobs for Delicious magazine in the UK, and some Swedish magazines also.
Do you have some favourite cookbooks from Swedish food writers? There is a food writer called Anna Bergenstrom, she makes beautiful food, she is like the Swedish Julia Child, a legend!
What do you think the success of a good cook book relies on? Good recipes, and recipies that work, and also that they are easy and they work for normal people. Of course the photography and styling is very important but also when you work with the text to make all the corrections in a book is so important so they are well worked through and very exact, so you are guaranteed the recipe is good.
What are your plans for you next book, will you stick with baking or will you concentrate on any other specific aspects of food? It's actually going to be a follow up to "A Piece of Cake" and I made it with the intention of making two books and I wanted to do one book with sweet stuff and another with more savoury stuff, and it's called "One More Slice" and I bake pizza, pasta, and a lot of sour dough bread recipes, and also there is sweets too. There is a chapter called Cheesecake and another called brownies and blondies, and Ice cream too! So it's all the good stuff that didn't make it in the first book! I had so much material that I wanted to do two books!
After all this unhealthy food, do you ever really feel like a good healthy salad? Absolutely I have to eat quite healthy to make sure I don't kill myself and keep in shape! But sometimes it's nice, there is always room for birthday cakes, and there is always celebrations where you are supposed to bake, it's just tradition. Also bread is a matter of when you eat it, if you have it at breakfast it is not as dangerous as eating it in the evening time!
What do you think of food blogging, would you ever consider doing it yourself? Yes, it's most definitely in my future, but in my case I have been so busy with other stuff. I had a blog for 2 years and even though I wasn't active like the way you are, I wrote something at least once a week. But it is quite demanding if you want to write a good blog with a lot of content so it's hard work and for me write now it's difficult to find the time. But the food blogs are great and it's really fun to read them. So for me it's just a matter of time right now!
Ok one last question, and I'm sure you have been asked this question a million times, but what would be your death row meal? It's a little bit of a depressing question and I would say sweets, but I am very into shellfish and seafood and oysters and a glass Chablis wine!
Leila's book "A Piece Of Cake" is in Irish and UK bookshops now or you can order online here. www.leila.se
