Month: June 2013

Spicy Elderflower Cordial and Syrup

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

I few days ago I was out walk with my mom and a friend of mine. We went to walk my friends moms dog, but we ended up going on an elderflower hunt instead 😀

We went to an area where there in our childhood was a playground, but unfortunately (for the kids living there now) the area is now overgrown with  nettles, ground elder, brambles and elderflowers. There had been some elderflower pickers before us, so we had to go home to get a garden cultivator so that we could get the top flowers. In a short while we had picked more than 50 elderflower heads and were ready to walk the now very impatient dog 😀

The elderflower season in Denmark is normally in May/June, but due to the cold weather we have had this spring, you might still be lucky to find some during the next few weeks 🙂

 

Ingredients

30 – 40 elderflower heads

3 organic lemons, sliced

4 inches ginger root, peeled and sliced

2 red chilies, sliced

4 cups cane sugar

2 tbsp. citric acid

6 cups water

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Heat the water until it begins to boil. Carefully remove all the small insects and other not-elderflower-objects from the elderflowers heads, but DON’T rinse! Rinsing them will remove the pollen from the flowers, and the end-result will be less tasteful!

Place all ingredients, except water, in a heat proof bowl and cover it with the boiling water. Stir to combine and dissolve the sugar.

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Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and fridge for 3-4 days, stirring occasionally (at least once a day).

Filter the juice through some tightly woven fabric and into cleaned bottles or ice cube bags if you want some for the freezer. If bottled, keep cool for up to 4 weeks.

This portion makes 6 cups of elderflower cordial, but I have chosen only to bottle 4 cups, and make syrup from the remaining 2 cups.

Use for lemonade (1 cup elderflower cordial to 4 cups cold water, 10 ice cubes and 1 sliced organic lemon) or do as me – make elderflower cupcakes  (recipe will follow) 🙂

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Elderflower Syrup (1 cup)

2 cups elderflower cordial

 

Heat up the elderflower cordial at low-medium heat in a saucepan. Stir occasionally and let cook until reduced properly. It is up to you, what you think is ‘properly’, but i have reduced it down to 1 cup. You can easily reduce i more, but be careful that it doesn’t burn.

Use for Elderflower Latte, as a syrup for aged cheese, as a cocktail syrup or as an ingredient to you summer cupcakes.

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (elderflower cordial)

30 – 40 elderflower heads

3 organic lemons, sliced

10 cm ginger root, peeled and sliced

2 red chilies, sliced

10 dl cane sugar

2 tbsp. citric acid

1.5 liter water

 

Elderflower Syrup (1 cup)

5 dl elderflower cordial

 

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Simple Danish Summer Lunch

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

When having a vegetable garden, one always looks forward to digging up the first new potatoes and picking the first sun ripened tomatoes 😀 Every year we try to plan it, so that we can have the first potatoes in late May, but as the spring weather in Scandinavian are quite varying with both rain, freezing weather and snow it can be difficult to plan anything 😦 So this year we had to wait until mid-June before we could dig up small, yellow gold nuggets 😀 But, but, but it was definitely worth the waiting!

When it comes to the tomatoes, it is still to early to pick our own, so these are bought on the local farmers market. In Odense where we live, we have farmers market twice a week, wednesday and saturday between 7.00 am to 1.00 pm. There we can buy vegetables, herbs, fruit, cheese, seafood and flowers, all fresh and delicious 😀

Last note before giving you the ‘recipe’ for this easy lunch, is that the rye bread is home made from sourdough, rye flour, kernels, dark beer, salt and sunflower seeds. It takes approximately 24 hour to make a rye bread from beginning to end, but it so much better than what you can buy in the super market. Sooner or later we will give you our rye bread recipe too 🙂

 

Ingredients (2 servings)

2 slices whole-grain rye bread

2 potatoes, cooked and cooled

2 sun ripened tomatoes

2 small radishes, finely chopped

1 tbsp. chives, chopped

Basil

Mayonaise

Salt & pepper

 

Divide the two rye bread slices in half, and place on two plates. Slice the cooked and cooled potatoes and the tomatoes into 1/2-inch slices and place on the bread like shown on the pictures below.

Add a thin stripe of mayo on top of both potatoes and tomatoes.

Top of the tomatoes with basil and season with salt and pepper.

Spread out the chopped radishes and chives on top of the potatoes and season with salt and pepper as well.

To make it traditional Danish you can serve it with a cold snaps shot, but be careful – people tend to get crazy ideas when drinking snaps 😉

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Bon Appétit!

Peach Cobbler

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

The weather here in Denmark are quite rainy today. Within the last two hours we have had both cloudbursts and thunder :-/

So what to do on such a rainy and sad wednesday afternoon? Well, I went into the kitchen and the first thing catching my eyes were some delicious peaches and I decided to make peach cobblers – a great southern dessert that reminds me of the rainy days in Atlanta, GA 🙂

Hopefully Chris will get exited when he opens the front door, after a 10 hour drive from Norway, and smells the sweetness from the warm peaches together with a cup of hazelnut coffee.

 

Ingredients (4-6 servings)

8-10 peaches

3 tbsp. honey

1 lemon, zest

1 stick butter

1 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

3 tbsp. apple juice

1/3 cup hazelnuts, chopped

1 cup sour cream/vanilla ice cream

 

Cut the peaches in half and remove the stone. Cut each half into 4 pieces and place in a mixing bowl with honey and lemon zest. Use your fingers mix. Transfer the peach mix to an ovenproof dish and bake at 300F for 10 minutes.

Chop the cold butter and mix it with sugar and flour. Mix until it look like small sand seeds. Assemble the dough with the cold apple juice and add the chopped hazelnuts. Crumble the dough out on top of the baked peaches and bake at 350F for additional 20-25 minutes or until crust is golden.

Serve warm with cold sour cream or vanilla ice cream 🙂

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (4-6 servings)

8-10 peaches

3 tbsp. honey

1 lemon, zest

113 g butter

2.5 dl flour

55 g sugar

3 tbsp. apple juice

0.8 dl hazelnuts, chopped

2.5 sour cream/vanilla ice cream

 

Cold Buttermilk Soup

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know the origins of cold buttermilk soup, but I know that the Danes eat quite a lot of it during the summer months. It can be bought pre-fabricated in different variations i all supermarkets. I love it just as much as everyone else, and thinks that it is the perfect summer dessert, but what I don’t understand is, why people buy pre-fabricated products when it only takes 5 minutes to make your own. And then you know what’s in it, instead of all the additives in the bought one.

It is best when served immediately, and as it only takes a few minutes to make it should be possilbe for everyone 🙂 Hope that you will enjoy it as much as I do!

If you would like soup to more creamy, you can replace one third or half of the buttermilk with yoghurt or soured whole milk, just remember to add more sugar too 🙂

 

Ingredients (4 servings)

4 egg yolks, pasteurized

4 tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. vanilla sugar

1/2 lemon, juice

4 cups butter milk

12 strawberries, sliced

 

Place egg yolks, sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl and whisk until thick and light and all the sugar has dissolved.

Slowly add the buttermilk while whisking. Add lemon juice and whisk for a few seconds to combine.

Serve immediately with sliced strawberries 🙂

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (4 servings)

4 egg yolks, pasteurized

4 tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. vanilla sugar

1/2 lemon, juice

1 liter butter milk

12 strawberries, sliced

 

Pulled Pork and Slaw Burrito

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

What have you gotten for dinner tonight? We decided to make home made corn tortillas and fill them with our favorites – pulled pork and slaw 😀

Instead of writing a lot about how great it is, you should just try it and let us know what you think!

 

Ingredients (4 servings)

16 small corn tortillas

1 pound pulled pork

1/2 cup BBQ sauce

1/2 cup jalapeños hot sauce

1 portion summer slaw

2 limes, sliced

 

Place the pulled pork on a pan together with BBQ sauce and jalapeños hot sauce. Warm up at medium heat and let cook until the meat gets caramelized (this happens as there are quite a lot of sugar in the BBQ sauce).

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Heat the tortillas for a few seconds until they get soft. Place 1/4 cup caramelized pulled pork on the warm soft tortilla, followed by summer slaw.

Place in a rectangular round bottom dish and serve with lime slices 🙂

IMG_0053Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (4 servings)

16 small corn tortillas

450 pulled pork

1.25 dl BBQ sauce

1.25 dl jalapeños hot sauce

1 portion summer slaw

2 limes, sliced

 

Summer Slaw

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

Once again we have made a slaw experiment 🙂 This time wanted to make a summer version and decided to replace the apple cider vinegar with lemon juice and then add sesame seeds and cilantro. It turned out to perfect when combined with pulled pork in a home made corn tortilla. If you’re not a fan of cilantro (either you hate it or love it), you can use basil instead 🙂

 

Ingredients (4 servings)

1/4 cabbage

1 red onion

1/2 lemon, zest and juice

1/4 cup confectioners sugar

1 tsp. mayo

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp. white sesame seeds

1 tsp. black sesame seeds

1/8 cup cilantro, chopped

 

Place lemon juice, confectioners sugar, mayo and sour cream in a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Set aside while slicing the cabbage and onion.

Slice both cabbage and onion finely and combine with lemon zest, chopped cilantro and both white and black sesame seeds. Pour the dressing over cabbage mix and combine well. Fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving.

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (4 servings)

1/4 cabbage

1 red onion

1/2 lemon, zest and juice

0.8 dl confectioners sugar

1 tsp. mayo

2.5 dl sour cream

1 tsp. white sesame seeds

1 tsp. black sesame seeds

3. tbsp. cilantro, chopped

 

Corn Tortillas

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ 3 Comments

How often do you eat burritos/tortillas. Well, we eat them quite often as we find them perfect when ever we have leftovers. We have always just bought wheat tortillas from our local supermarket, but one day decided that we would try to make them ourselves.

To make original corn tortillas one need to get a flour type called masa harina (flour made from corn), which in Denmark, is easier said than done! It can only be bought in Chilihouse.dk, approximately 2 hours travel from where we live. Of cause we can buy it on their online shop, but postage costs more the the flour itself, so we decided to wait for a while. But to our luck a friend of ours visited the shop and bought a pound of flour, so that we could begin our tortilla experiment 🙂

As you can see in the recipe below, we chose to use chicken stock, but you can also just use hot water or if you want to spice it up a bit, you can use beer.

As with all other baking it takes time (approximately one hour), but we promise that it is all worth it 🙂

 

Ingredients (16 small tortillas)

2 cups masa harina (corn flour)

1 1/3 cup chicken stock, hot

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Combine flour with hot chicken stock to form a dough. Leave covered for 15 minutes. The texture should be soft clay but not sticky. Knead in more water if necessary.

Divide dough into 12 equally sized balls. Roll out dough balls between two sheets of baking paper until thin. If you would like your tortillas to be perfectly round, you can use a cake cutter (the one used here is 5.5 inches).

Heat a dry pan until hot. Place one tortilla in the pan and cook for 20-30 seconds on each side. Remove from the pan when the tortilla puffs up. Keep covered while baking the rest.

Fill with your favorite burrito stuffing and serve with a cold Mexican beer 😀

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (16 small tortillas)

500 g masa harina (corn flour)

3.5 dl chicken stock, hot

 

 

Chili Cheese Snacks

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

There is absolutely nothing better than homemade chili cheese snacks! We make them so often that Chris has made some tools especially for chili cheese (you can see the on the pictures below).

The chili cheese idea came after a sunday trip to McDonalds a few years ago, where we bought chili cheese tops. They tasted great but there were a few problems linked to the concept: 1) we don’t really know what they are made from, 2) they were cold before we were home and ready to eat, 3) they are quite greasy, and last but not least 4) they are way too expensive!

For those four reasons, we decided to make our own version with different kinds of cheese filling. They are one the most popular snacks (together with beef jerky and fried green tomatoes) when we invite friends and family over for a great BBQ Party.

We have tried several different cheese variation and most of them are fabulous (try and use blue cheese instead of cheddar cheese – especially if you are serving spicy chicken wings :-)). Feta cheese, gruyere or cream cheese with herbs are great alternatives too, so just choose your favorite cheese.

We hope that you will enjoy them as much as we do 🙂

 

Ingredients (20 snacks)

20 jalapeños

1/2 pound cream cheese

1/2 cup mild cheddar cheese, shredded

1/2 cup aged cheddar cheese, shredded

10 bacon slices

Pepper

 

Begin your chili cheese adventure by removing the seeds and stems from all the jalapeños. We use a homemade tool like shown on the picture below, but you can just use a small knife. Make sure that all the seeds are gone, so they don’t get to hot 🙂

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Place cream cheese and whisk until it gets a bit more fluffy and then add the shredded cheddar cheese. stir until evenly combined. Taste and season with grounded pepper if necessary. Place the cheese mix in a piping back and fill it into all the cleaned chilies.

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Cut the bacon slices into halves and wrap them around the cheese filled chilies. Make a rack out of tin foil, so the chilies don’t fall over and all the cheese disappears down into the smoker/grill – that would really be a shame! One again, the tool you can see on the picture is homemade, and says a lot about us – we make MANY chili cheese snacks 😀

Place the rack with the stuffed and wrapped chilies in your smoker/grill and put the lid on. Smoke/grill at about 230F for about an hour or until the bacon gets crisp.

Serve as appetizers at your next garden party or just as a good weekend snack with an ice-cold beer – but be fast, they’ll be gone before you know it – which is why we don’t have picture of the finished ones (yet) 😀

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (20 snacks)

20 jalapeños

450 g cream cheese

1.25 dl mild cheddar cheese, shredded

1.25 dl aged cheddar cheese, shredded

10 bacon slices

Pepper