Recycled Recipie: Spring Rolls

Make your own healthy spring rolls with this step by step recipe.

We started making these in our family more than 15 years ago. I've developed, redeveloped and morfed them into a variation of the recipe posted.

I've never deep fried them as I hate how it stinks up the house. Instead I brush them with a little oil and bake them in a hot oven. Healthier that way too.

And I always just add whatever I have in the fridge of vegies, prawns or chicken. It all tastes good rolled up. I might just make these tonight.

Yum.

Quickie: Grain Salad

I call this a salad, but technically it's hot. I make it all the time, usually with quinoa. Sometimes bulgur or barley. Whatever I have at hand really.

While the grains cook (usually two parts water to one part grain) I fry up some mushrooms in a dry pan. When they are brown I season with salt and pepper and add whatever else I like in it.

Some kind of nut. Walnuts or pistachios. Cranberries are always nice. Whatever herb I have at hand (rocket salad is good too). Sugar snaps (if I havn't eaten them all before they hit the pan). Spring onions.

Then I add the freshly cooked grains, olive oil and lemon juice. Extra salt and pepper.

That's it. And it's totally yummy.

The Perfect Vinaigrette

For a long time in Norway the standard dressing given to you is Thousand Island. A pink goup that tastes of nothing. Usually over a salad made of chinese cabbage, cucumber, red capsicum and sweetcorn. You'll still get it in certain establishments. And both Brother and Dad are partial to it.

But the dressing that I always turn to is the vinaigrette. It's variable, it's quick, it's fresh, and so easy.

The basics are simple. You need sour, spicy, sweet and oil. Sour can be a citrus juice or any kind of vinegar. The spicy can be mustard, wasabi or pepper root. Sweet can be in the vinegar (like balsamic) or honey, sugar, maple syrup or any other sweetness you prefer. Salt, pepper, herbs, garlic, shallots -you name it- can be added for flavour.

If I'm dressing the whole salad I usually just make this in the bottom of my bowl before I add the salad. If I'm not sure that everyone wants dressing I just shake it together in an old jam jar.

For a traditional vinaigrette for four:

1 teaspoon mustard (I use Dijon)
The juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon honey
Good oil (I use extra virgin olive) to taste
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Pop all the ingredients in a jar and shake. The mustard acts as an emulsifier and thickens it. If you make it on the bottom of the bowl whisk the oil into the other ingredients in a thin stream.

I like my dressing on the tarter side, and so I don't use that much oil. You can also replace some of the oil with water.

Rhubarb Cake

I think you can make this anytime with whatever fruit or berry is in season. It's basically just a sponge with fruit. I bet it's great with plums, or blueberries.

You'll need:

500 g rhubarb
3 eggs
2,5 dl sugar
175 g butter
2,5 dl hvetemel
0,5 ts baking powder
Cinnamon



Clean and cut the rhubarb and suger them a little letting them hang out and juice.

Whisk up the eggs and sugar into soft peaks. Add the butter melted and fold in sifted dry ingredients.

Pour into a greased cake tin and pile the cut up rhubarb on top, spreading it out and pushing them into the dough. Sprinkle cinnamon on top, and bake for 40 to 50 minutes in a 175 degrees celcius oven.



Serve warm with ice cream or vanilla kesam.

Cinnamon and Chocolate Knots

I decided to make these for the first time last week. And look how they turned out. Looks like any idiot can make gorgeous baked goods (and by idiot I mean me :-)).

I was no good at, and scared of, baking with yeast untill I got my Kitchen Aid for Christmas. When Big Man presented me with such an expensive gift I decided that it was not going to go to waste. It hasn't.

I found myself explaining some of the principles of baking to the Baby Girls while they were peeling off layers of chocolately-cinnamonly-yumminess. The last six months I've got it. I understand yeast, dry and fresh. I understand gluten. I understand kneading (or not). I understand proofing and raising.

Now. This recipe is by no means mine. As I always do when I want to bake I've turned to Trine. And I've followed hers almost to the dot. Original recipe here.



Dough:
900-1000 grams flour
5 dl tepid milk
50 grams yeast
150 grams sugar
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
150 grams butter, diced

Filling:
200 grams finely chopped dark chocolate
5 tablespoons brown sugar
100 grams soft butter
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon

Mix all the ingredients for the dough together. Hold off a little flour, and the butter. Let the dough work in your kitchen machine for ten minutes adding the rest of the flour as needed. When the dough lets go of the sides of the bowl add the butter cubes one by one (fairly quickly). The dough is ready when all the butter is incorporated.

Let it rise for at least an hour. The dough should be at least double in size.

Drop on a floured surface and divide in two. Roll out the first ball into a rectangle about 1 cm thick and spread half your chocolate mix on half of the rectangle. Fold the other half over (the chocolate is now in the middle. Cut the dough in strips of about 3 cm wide, stretch them a little, twist and tie in a knot. (Trine has great pictures of this over here). These make approximately 27 knots.

Lay the knots out on a baking tray with greese proof paper. Repeat with the other half of the dough and filling. Brush with eggwash and let them all rise again to double size. Bake for 15 minutes (pluss/minus depending on your oven) at 225 degrees celcius.

If you have any left they freeze well as soon as they are cool. I reaheated mine (thawed out) for five minutes at 150 dregrees.



Eat (and try not to repeat).

Fish Friday

When I was younger Dad would always make us eat fish on Good Friday. He's not Catholic, but it's just his Aussie thing.



I spent my late teens and early twenties as a vegeterian. During that period I would stray to eating fish if it was self caught. Being a vegie was a sustainability thing for me, and I reckoned self caught was as sustainable as it gets.



This is a Dad fish too. A trout. He is a specialist fisherman see. He knows where to get the good ones. He gave me a cod too.



I like to stuff my trout. Herbs and lemon, and just salt, pepper and a little butter. Wrap it up in some tin foil and bake it in the oven for about 20 to 30 minutes (depending on the size of the fish) at about 220 degrees.



And eat steaming hot. Forgetting to take a picture.

Recycled Recipie: Chook

Roasted chicken is an Aussie staple and something I really don't make enough. Splurge on a corn fed or organic happy chook. Tastes better, and also feels a little better.