Steak and Marinated Onion Sandwich

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

A few weeks ago we had a colleague of Chris’ and his wife over for dinner and wanted to make something easy, as we only had little time. We decided to make steak sandwiches with dipping sauce, and now you might think “that doesn’t sound like something you serve for dinner on a friday night”, but you cannot be more wrong- it is the perfect friday night dinner, when all you want is to spent time with good friend, and stand in the kitchen cooking all night.

They had never had sandwiches likes these before, and definitely not with dipping sauce! They looked a bit sceptic at the beginning, but as soon as they had tasted the combination of the melted cheese, the moist and tender beef together with the marinated onions and the perfectly cooked beef stock, they were excited – and they ended up eating it all – actually, we had hoped for some leftovers for saturdays lunch, but on the other hand, we love to watch when people get surprised and overeat 😀

Hope that you will like as much as we do, and we hope that you will leave a comment with your thoughts and/or suggestions 🙂

 

Ingredients (8 small sandwiches)

1 1/2 pound strip loin

3 tbsp. grainy mustard

Salt

Pepper

1 Focaccia bread

3 tbsp. mayo

10 Romaine lettuce leaves

10 slices fresh mozzarella cheese

1 marinated onion

2 cups beef stock

 

Fire up the car kettle grill and let it get hot (approximately 400F) while preparing the meat.

Season the roast with salt, pepper and mustard. Sear the meat on both sides before placing it on indirect heat with the lid on. Roast the meat until you reach a core temperature of 130-135F if you’d like it to be medium-rare or 140-145F if you’d like it to be medium (but for God’s sake DON’T overcook it!). It takes approximately 1 hour.

Remove the roast from the grill when it has reached the wanted temperature. Cover it with tin foil and let rest for 15-20 minutes before slicing it.

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While the meat is resting, you can prepare the bread and the beef stock. Slice the bread, and spread on some mayo on both sides. Place slices of fresh mozzarella cheese on the top half of the bread, and place it on the grill for a few minutes to let the cheese melt.

Boil the beef stock at let it boil until it has reduced to half the amount.

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Place lettuce leaves on the bottom half of the bread. Cut the meat into paper thin slices and place it on top of the lettuce followed by meat juice from the tin foil and the marinated onions. Top it of the top half of the bread with melted cheese.

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Cut the sandwich into 8 equally sized pieces and serve with the reduced beef stock as a dipping sauce.

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (8 small sandwiches)

600-700 g strip loin

3 tbsp. grainy mustard

Salt

Pepper

1 Focaccia bread

3 tbsp. mayo

10 Romaine lettuce leaves

10 slices fresh mozzarella cheese

1 marinated onion

2 cups beef stock

Black Currant Onions

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever tasted onions marinated in black currant vinegar? If not, you need to search you pantry for the ingredients in this entry, and then go buy  the remaining ingredients. The black currant vinegar might be difficult to find in the super market and on top of that it is quite expensive, so we make it our selves – and it is sooooo easy 😀

 

Black Currant Vinegar

2 cups white wine vinegar

1 pound black currant

4 tbsp. cane sugar

 

Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar. Mash the berries slightly with a fork and place them in a clean jar and pour the vinegar over. Close the jar, shake it a few times and set a side for 2 days.

Shift the vinegar through an unbleached canvas to avoid that the berries get into the finished vinegar.

Store in an air tight container for up to 2 month (in our household it only survives a few weeks :-D).

Now you that you have bought or made your own vinegar, you are ready to make the best marinated onions in the entire world!

 

Black Currant Onions

2 red onions

1 cup black currant vinegar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 tbsp. honey

Salt

Pepper

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Slice (or chop) the onions and place in a clean jar.

Combine vinegar, oil and honey and stir until the honey has dissolved. Taste and season with salt and pepper if you find it necessary.

Pour the marinate over the sliced onions and seal the jar. Fridge for at least 4-5 hours and up to 2 weeks. If you use the onions within a few days, you can easily re-use the marinate 🙂

These onions are so delicious, and we often use them in both salads, in sandwiches, together with a steak or as side dish for tapas.

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Bon Appétit!

Easiest Focaccia Bread

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

This is without doubt one of the easiest recipes on focaccia bread that you might find on the internet. It only takes a few minutes to make the dough and if you would like to advance a bit, you can add roasted walnuts or semi-dried tomatoes together with the herbs 🙂

Most often we use the bread for sandwiches, but it is also great for tapas and/or to bring on a picnic with friends and family.

Ingredients (1 bread)

1 tbsp. active yeast

1 cup wheat flour

1 cup durrum flour

1 cup water

1 tbsp. coarse salt

6 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. fresh thyme or rosemary leaves

1 tsp. sea salt

 

Dissolve the yeast into the water and add both flour types together with the coarse salt and half of the olive oil. Knead until the dough is smooth – it should be moist, but not sticky.

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Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let raise to double size, approximately one hour.

Form the raised dough into a ball and place it on a piece of baking paper. Pour the remaining olive oil over the dough and use your fingers to form the bread. It should end up being approximately 1 inch thick.

 

Sprinkle with your choice of herbs and cover the bread with a dishcloth. Let raise for additional 45-60 minutes.

Sprinkle the sea salt on top of the bread and bake in the oven at 480F for 18 minutes.

Use for sandwiches, tapas or whenever you feel like eating a good home baked bread 🙂

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (1 bread)

1 tbsp. active yeast

2.5 dl wheat flour

2.5 dl durrum flour

2.5 dl water

1 tbsp. coarse salt

6 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. fresh thyme or rosemary leaves

1 tsp. sea salt

 

Italian Ricotta Ice Cream with Chocolate and Roasted Almonds

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

Last night we were having guest for dinner and I had been speculating for days about what dessert to serve. Normally I would have baked a cake, as they are some of my greatest cake fans :-D, but it has been quite warm these past days so I wanted to make something more refreshing.

Then one evening when I turned on the TV, I turned passed a channel showing Italian women and their childhood recipes. One of the recipes was this ricotta ice cream with roasted almonds and chocolate and I immediately knew, what I was going to make 😀

It turned out to be great, but I must admit that it would have been better, had I made it on an ice cream machine – but that is still on the ‘to-buy-list’, so I will have to settle with the old freezer method for a while yet :-/ So if you have an ice cream machine, you should use that, but this method can be used as well!

 

Ingredients (8 servings)

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 cup cream

4 tbsp. cane sugar

1/2 cup almonds

1/2 cup quality chocolate 70%, preferably Amedei Toscano Black

20 cherries

20 strawberries

10 raspberries

 

Roast the almonds on a dry pan at medium heat for 5-10 minutes. Stir occasionally to avoid burning. The almonds a ready when you can begin to smell a nutty aroma in the kitchen. Set a side to cool down.

Chop the roasted almonds and the chocolate into medium sized chunks (or what ever you prefer).

Place ricotta cheese in a mixing bowl and stir with a rubber spatula until smooth. Add sugar and stir again until the sugar has dissolved – it takes a few minutes. Set aside.

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Whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks. Be very careful not to over-whisk it, as it might ruin the end result.

Carefully turn the whipped cream into the ricotta and fold until evenly combined. Then add the chopped chocolate and almonds and fold again.IMG_0411 IMG_0412 IMG_0413

Cover a springform pan with plastic wrap and make sure that it covers the sides too.

Pour the ricotta cream into the form and cover with yet a layer of plastic wrap. Make sure that the plastic wrap lies down close to the ricotta mass and up the sides of the form.

Freeze for at least 12 hours before serving. IMG_0414 IMG_0415 IMG_0416

Take the ricotta ice cream out of the freezer approximately 10 minutes before serving. Remove both the form and the plastic wrap and place on a cake stand and decorate with cherries, strawberries and a few raspberries.

Serve with a glass of sparkling wine on a hot summer day or a cup of delicious Italian roast espresso on a cold winter day 🙂IMG_0464

IMG_0465Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (8 servings)

2.5 dl ricotta cheese

2.5 dl cream

4 tbsp. cane sugar

1.25 dl almonds

80 g quality chocolate 70%, preferably Amedei Toscano Black

20 cherries

20 cup strawberries

10 raspberries

 

Italian Meatball Sandwich

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

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As we wrote in the last entry on elderflower drinks, we have a sunday tradition with a couple of friends. Most sundays we end up making some kind of comfort food, like burgers, Sloppy Joe’s, chili dogs or some kind of sandwich. Last sunday we decided to make Italian meatball sandwiches (as we, Chris and I, are planning a trip to Tuscany later this summer), and they turned out to be great – as usual 🙂 Actually they were so great, that the guys eat way too much and ended up sitting in our bathing pool in their underwear, complaining about stomach pain (we will spare you the actual picture of this ;-)). Out of the 8 ‘small’ sandwiches you will get from this recipe, we ate it all – which explains the stomach pain – but all four of us are ‘heavy-eaters’ when it comes to good food, so you might have food enough for 6-8 people, depending on their sandwich-hunger 😀 Hope that you will try the recipe and enjoy it as much as we do!

Ingredients (8 ‘small’ sandwiches)

Meatballs
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
2 cups breadcrumbs
1 cup milk
2 shallots
4 garlic cloves
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1/3 cup feta cheese
3 tbsp. thyme leaves, fresh
2 tbsp. rosemary leaves, fresh
1 egg
Salt
Pepper

Tomato sauce:
3 cups tomato sauce
4 tbsp. tomato paste

2 French baguettes
2-3 tbsp. mayo
8 slices fresh mozzarella cheese
1 bundle of cilantro

Meatballs:
Combine breadcrumbs and milk in a mixing ball and make sure that all the crumbs get soaked. Set aside while chopping the shallots, garlic, feta cheese, thyme and rosemary.
In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients for the meatballs. Mix well using your fingers, as it will give the best result. Divide the meat into 8 equally sized meatballs, approximately the size of a baseball. Place in a greased ovenproof dish and bake in the oven at 350F until the reach 165F – approximately 40 minutes.
Don’t turn off the oven when the meatballs are finished, as you also need to warm the baguettes later on. IMG_0382 IMG_0389 Tomato sauce: Combine tomato sauce and paste in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Let boil for 5-10 minutes before turning down the heat. Let simmer with the lid on for approximately one hour or until the meatballs are ready to get soaked. Stir occasionally to avoid burning. Place the baked meatballs in the tomato sauce and make sure that the whole meatball gets marinated in the sauce. If necessary, pour some of the sauce on top of the meatballs. Let simmer for additional 25-30 minutes. IMG_0393 When the meatballs are ready you can begin to assemble the sandwiches 😀 Slice the baguettes lengthwise and spread out the mayo on both the top and bottom. Place 4 meatballs and a bit of tomato sauce on each bottom followed by a slice of cheese. IMG_0397 Place both the baguette bottom with the meatballs and the top with the mayo on a wire rack, and warm in the oven until the cheese has melted. Decorate with cilantro on top of the melted cheese and finish off with the baguette top.IMG_0398 Cut each sandwich into 4 pieces with one meatball in each. Serve with an ice cold beer or a glass of good Italian wine, if you like it a bit more sophisticated 😉IMG_0405

Bon Appétit friends!

 

Ingredients (8 ‘small’ sandwiches)
Meatballs:
450 g ground beef
450 g ground pork
5 dl breadcrumbs
2.5 dl milk
2 shallots
4 garlic cloves
1.25 dl parmesan cheese, grated
0.8 dl feta cheese
3 tbsp. thyme leaves, fresh
2 tbsp. rosemary, fresh
1 egg
Salt
Pepper

Tomato sauce:
7.5 dl tomato sauce
4 tbsp. tomato paste

2 French baguettes
2-3 tbsp. mayo
8 slices fresh mozzarella cheese
1 bundle of cilantro

Summer Day Elderflower Drink

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

Almost every sunday we meet with a couple of friend to have dinner and watch a movie (or rather sleep while the movie is running ;-)).

Today it has been quite warm here in Denmark and all four of us was quite tired from yesterday: Ditte was out dancing with some friends, the boys were here drinking and I was at Roskilde Festival listening to Metallica, and what a splendid experience!!! It was without doubt the best concert I have been to for many years, so I’ll definitely going to see them next time the visit Denmark (or some nearby country)!

Well, as I wrote above, we were quite wasted, so I decided to make an easy refreshment to start the evening. It only takes a few minutes to make and it tastes delicious and refreshing. The elderflower cordial in this recipe is homemade and contains both ginger and chili, which makes it less sweet than regular elderflower cordial. But if you don’t have the patience (4-5 days) to make your own, a bought one from the local super market is just as good. Just make sure that you buy good quality product 🙂

 

Ingredients (6-7 glasses)

1 bottle white wine

1 cup elderflower cordial

10 ice cubes

1 lime

5 mint leaves

 

Slice the lime and the mint leaves and add them to a pitcher together with the rest of the ingredients and stir well with a spoon to combine. In this version I have used pineapple mint, but you can use any kind of mint or even leave it out you don’t have anything or don’t like it.

Serve on a warm summer day 🙂

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Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (6-7 glasses)

1 bottle white wine

2.5 elderflower cordial

10 ice cubes

1 lime

5 mint leaves

 

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

 

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